July
We spent the next two weeks making forays into the city. We
visited Commerce Street to do some shopping and got our first taste of American
food in India when we ate at the Hard Rock Café. Shopping was a blast but there
was so many people! We learned that we were actually visiting during the Muslim
holiday of Ramadan so around dinner time the streets were flooded with
followers of Islam coming out to celebrate. We were able to get clothing for
all of 4 of us. Some of the outfits were decently priced, some we were probably
heavily inflated. Lol Such is the reality of shopping in India as foreigners.
We also got to visit the town of Mysore about 3 hrs away
from Bangalore. We started the trip with a visit to Ranganathittu Bird
Sanctuary. We got to walk through some pretty garden areas and take a boat ride
around a small island. While we should have been focused on the birds we were
more interested in the massive bats and crocodiles! Lol The bats had a good 3
ft wingspan and the crocs were probably at least 6 ft long. It was so cool! The
boat pulled right up next to them, we could have reached out and touched them.
We visited St. Philomena’s Cathedral next. It was receiving
a facelift at the time so we didn’t get to see all of its beauty. They didn’t
allow us to take any pictures inside but it looks like it is going to be very
pretty. There was a private school on the grounds right as you exit the
cathedral and Tannin was very disappointed that he couldn’t go and play with
all the boys.
We got to tour the palace after that. The building was
beautiful, with intricate carvings everywhere! I thought it was kind of funny
too; we had to take our shoes off before we could enter the building! You turn
them in at a desk, they give you a ticket and off you go. The prince had just
gotten married there a couple of weeks before so there were still flowers
hanging everywhere and it had only been open to the public for three days
before we got there. After walking through the palace building I stood with the
kids (waiting for Richard to get our shoes back) when I had several different
people approach me wanting to hold Alana. At this point I was pretty used to
it, so I smiled and handed her over and even snapped a couple pictures myself.
Alana loved all the attention! As we walked through the grounds we saw that you
could pay to ride some elephants. We couldn’t pass up that opportunity
especially seeing how much Tannin loves elephants! It was a lot of fun, once
Tannin got good and woke up (he had been sleeping in the stroller pretty much
since we had arrived).
Our last stop for the day was the Brindavan Gardens. It was
a huge water fountain garden on the site of a lake at the base of a dam. We
walked around and enjoyed walking through the sprays. We got ice cream and
laughed at the monkeys that were playing in the trees and running along the
fences. We had to pack up quick though because it started raining! Lol
After that it was about time to pack up and leave. We had so
much fun and definitely did not want to go home. We look forward to more visits
in the future! The flight home was much the same as the flight there except we
did a lot more sleeping and we didn’t lose our luggage! Yay! The Indian man at
customs, as we left the country, was very friendly and loved the fact that we
were all wearing Indian clothing. One thing I do want to say for foreign
customs, they are a lot friendlier toward families with small children, at least
the ones we went through. They had special lines for families with small
children that was a quarter of the length of the normal customs line. When got
back to the states the lines were horrible! After over 20 hours of traveling the
kids were exhausted and did not understand why they had to stand in this long
line. One of the agents finally took pity on us and moved us and our two now screaming
children to the front of the line. Our last flight in the states before we got
back to Birmingham was delayed on the tarmac an hour but we all slept so it
wasn’t too bad.
We stayed with family in Birmingham and Tannin scarfed down
the fried pork chops and mac n cheese we had for dinner that night. He was so
happy to have food that wasn’t hot and didn’t give his “mouth owies”. Lol We
drove the 5 hours home the next day. Tannin did great! He slept and played and
Alana just chilled in the back seat. We have some real troopers J
Other than that, the rest of the month was relatively calm. Tannin went back to gymnastics on that next Monday only to find out that it was a testing day. He did pretty well after missing two weeks and he enjoyed being back in classes with his “boys” (Tannin speak for friends, there’s actually only one other boy in the class, all the other kids are girls lol).
Alana has grown quite a bit and we are looking
forward to her first birthday! It’s crazy to think that she turned 11 months
old in India! She’s walking really well at this point and is beginning to mimic
words and phrases that we say. At this point though, there is only one word
that I have no doubts about her really knowing what it is (because she uses it
all the time). It’s “no”. J
Other than that, the rest of the month was relatively calm. Tannin went back to gymnastics on that next Monday only to find out that it was a testing day. He did pretty well after missing two weeks and he enjoyed being back in classes with his “boys” (Tannin speak for friends, there’s actually only one other boy in the class, all the other kids are girls lol).
