A Moment of Thanks

I am arrived in CA without much incident. "Weather" in the mid-west seemed to have snarled most all travel anywhere but, despite a route taking me NYC to Chicago to Kansas City to Sacramento, I landed a triffling hour and a half behind schedule.

And now I have a couple of days to unpack (including all the boxes from Philly I shipped) and get ready to start my summer of massage school.

Before that though I would like to take a moment to reflect on how much people did that made my adventure to India so crazy amazing. Forgive me if this starts to sound like a very poor Oscar acceptance speech, but consider yourself warned (you always have the option of surfing away.)

First off I want to thank Sweet Pea. I don't even know where to begin with all the things to thank her for. She took such good care of me. She was my tour guide, interpreter, roommate, travel agent, financier, host and so much more. She didn't even let me get kidnapped once! And she was a downright amiable companion. At one point (a number of weeks into the journey) I found myself thinking, "wow, we've been spending just about every waking (and sleeping!) moment together and I'm not sick of her yet!" In fact, I really (really really) enjoyed getting all that time to hang out. I think I'm going into a bit of withdrawl right now. It could be jet lag, but I think it is probably Sweet Pea withdrawl. I don't know what I'm going to do with her captured by law school for the next three years.

Also deserving incredible thank yous are Sweet Pea's parents, the Raos, for also taking crazy good care of me. I was fed, housed, involved at their places of work, shown the sites, taken to restaurants, RAMOJI FILM CITY!, movies, weddings and more! They also invoked their network of family and friends (which I still think is part of the Indian mafia) to take care of us in all the places we went. And, like Sweet Pea, were so pleasant and enjoyable to hang out with through the whole thing.

And then the folks that backed it - my family. The ticket over there was a belated graduation present (or rather, I cashed it in belatedly) from my mammita and Franko and thus made the whole adventure possible. Along with my other set of parents (my dad and Marsha) and other family (aunts, uncles, cousins, brother, etc.), they also provided the "moral support." In many families when a 20-something-year-old daughter/niece/sister/cousin talks about quitting her good job, chucking aside the scraps of "establishment" she has built (apartment, furniture, worldly belongings) and adventuring to India for a spell before going to massage school there is a quick family conference about how to save said daughter/niece/sister/cousin from this rash action that will surely wreck her chances for "success" in life. In my family it was quite the opposite, however. Everyone was very excited for me and instead of trying to hold me back from the precipice, helped hurl me off the edge with enthusiasm. And for that I am very thankful!

And then there is the network of "friends" to thank as well. First off in that lot would have to be the Trivedis. Mr. Trivedi specifically helped me to procure the ticket to India and they both were very supportive and encouraging of my trip. They also provided me with a travel book on India and answered all sorts of questions I had about the place. Similarly Ajay and Lotta (both half-breeds who've been to visit family in India) helped me in my plannings and thinkings about and preperation for India. And so many other lovely friends and colleagues who supported and encouraged these crazy plans I had, even though it meant abandoning them a bit.

I think I'll end it there for now and start with all the things I need to do before massage school starts on Monday!