After coming back from my internship and a little shopping with Barbara on Saturday, I learned that Blanche was admitted to the hospital. They thought that it was heart problems because she has had it in the past. But after running some tests, the doctors think that she has bladder stones...which are soo soo painful! After hearing about what happened, Dennis & I went to the hospital to see how she was doing. When her friends had told me that she had been admitted to the hospital, my heart sank. I guess you never really know how much someone means to you until something happens. Over the past several months, she has been such a comfort for me. Now that she's at the hospital and not at the apartment, it's weird not to have our three hour conversations every day. Usually we'll both come into the kitchen and start to make dinner or tea or something, and then never leave the kitchen until either one of us realizes we have something to do or that we should just move our conversation to the living room. She has been such a wonderful friend to me while I've been here. I never imagined myself to feel as welcome in a stranger's home than I do at hers. I thought that it would be weird living with a stranger for four months, but if anything, it's been the opposite.
So when I heard she was at the hospital, I wanted to go right over to see her. Luckily they were allowing visitors into her room. After seeing that she was okay and having a good conversation with her, I went home to start packing for south India. Later that night, Blanche's daughter flew in from London to be with her at the hospital. I'm so glad that someone is there with her, making sure the doctors are doing what they're supposed to be doing and just being there for her.
On Sunday, Barbara and I met up in Andheri and went shopping for some last minute things. And of course, me being the "Martha Stewart" and scrapbooker that I am, I spent 600 rupees (about $15) on Indian stickers, little appliques and everything else for my India scrapbook. Even though it might not seem like a lot of $, 600 rupees is very expensive for Indian standards to be spending on scrapbook stuff. And then, our trip would not be complete without getting some Indian jewelry. So now, I have enough jewelry to last a lifetime.
After coming back to the apartment with all my stuff, I made some dinner and attempted to get some sleep. Ever since the terrorist attacks, I haven't been able to get a good night's sleep. I guess subconsciously I'm on alert all the time and so I don't feel safe when I'm not in control (aka when I'm sleeping). I'm hoping that once my Dad gets here, I'll feel safer and will have a better night's sleep. And I reaaally hope that when I come home, I'll be able to sleep. Because surviving on 4 hours of sleep a night is just not enough for me!
After getting some sleep, I went to the orphanage then met up with Barbara again to hang out. We got some reaaally big cups of coffee...
Just kidding :) But they were still pretty big! And then after getting fueled up on coffee, we began our search for some mehndi. For anyone that doesn't know, mehndi is the henna ink art that is done on people's hands and feet. After looking everywhere, we were finally able to find a girl (probably no older than us) who had set up a table and a sign saying that she did mehndi. 200 rupees later ($5), I had myself some mehndi on my hands. And it's gorgeous!! It was so hard to keep the henna on my hands for 2 hours while it dried, but I managed to do it. Here's what it looked like before I rubbed off the ink:
And then here's what it looked like after:
If facebook lets me, I'll post more pictures of my adventures up online. If not, I guess you'll just have to wait til I come home for me to upload the pictures. Just a few more weeks everyone and I'll be home!
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