Our room in the Guest House

(Top) the locks in our rooms that I absolutely DESPISE.... ugh.

(Second down) The view of my room from our beds.

(Middle) A view of my bed and our desk-- the bedding and table cloth we bought here, because the old ones were kind of icky.

(Fourth down) The bathroom on the third floor, so all purpose! The toilet is not in the picture, but would be in the opposite corner of the sink. You can also see the "shower" which doesn't actually work, so you can see the bucket, which is really what we use to bathe.

(Bottom) This is the SIP (Study India Program) Guest House, the dorm where I live. There are people from all over the world who live here, but it’s mostly Americans on the CIEE program. It’s supposed to be the nicest place to live on campus—but don’t worry, we still have cockroaches and lizards as frequent roommates, and a wild boar family that lives behind us.

University of Hyderabad Campus

(Top)This is what’s going up on campus—there’s actually a lot of green space on the University’s property, and this is just one of the places that they’re now converting into buildings. I think this is going to be where the new Gop’s is going, along with some other little general store type places.
(Second) This is our roof/ porch deal on the third floor. It looks pretty crappy from the picture, but it’s so nice to take a towel out there and tan, or read a book. At night time, especially, it’s really nice to go out because it’s so cool. We also dry most of our laundry out there (as you can see from the picture.

(Middle) This is the picture of Gopal’s, or “Gop’s” as it’s called here on campus. It’s the place to hang out between classes and at night. They serve chai, coffee, and chat—little snacks. It looks very makeshift, and it is, but that’s because they’re building a new building.

(Fourth) This is the social science building, where I have all of my classes (except for Urdu). It’s pretty nice by local standards, but it’s not air conditioned (even the new addition), and lots of the windows are broken out and haven’t been replaced. They have a beautiful courtyard inside, and the entire place is set up so that it’s all open to the outside.

(Last) This is the shopping complex on campus. The “bookstore,” tailor, cobbler, snack stores, Xerox place, hair cutters, and other random shops are all here. It’s a bit of a hike from where we live, but it has lots of stuff we need.

Festivals-- Pongal and Republic Day

There are three pictures are all from Pongal, the harvest festival celebrated here by flying kites. All across the city families were flying kites; we went to the Husain Sagar, the large lake in Hyderabad, to see the action. There were people alllll over flying their kites, and lots of boothes set up with food and stuff for the festival. One of the pictures is just a view of the city from the lake-- it's so pretty down there!

The middle one is a picture of the flag pole and flag that we flew outside of the SIP Guest House (where I live) for Republic Day, January 26. Setups like this were all over the city when we went out into town that day. The entire entrance to the Guest House was decorated with vibrant colors of crepe paper, and all the employees at the Guest House had little Indian flags pinned on their shirts.

The top picture was taken on our third floor roof. Every evening if you go outside on the porch you can see the most gorgeous sunsets ever. We watch them almost every day, but this was the first time I actually remembered to bring my camera out!

Hyderabad Favorites!

(Fourth down) This picture is a leftover from Delhi, where we went to Raj Ghat. Raj Ghat is home to Gandhi's grave; it is built on a beautiful part of green land, and has the grave in the center. The inscription on the grave written in Hindi says "Hey Ram," translated "Oh God," which were the last words that Gandhi uttered right after he was assasinated before he died.

(Bottom) This is a picture of the Hyderabad city skyline that I took while we were on a bus on the way into the city. Hyderabad is, population-wise, about the size of Chicago. One part of the city, called "Hitech City" is very new and Westernized, while other parts, like the Old City, are quite traditional.

(Middle) The Charminar is what most people think of when they hear the name Hyderabad. "Charminar" literally means four towers (Char=four, minar=towers). It was built by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah in 1591, and is located in what is considered the "Old City"-- also the Urdu speaking part of the city. Each of the four towers stand 180 feet tall. We got to go up the most frightening spiral "staircase"-- if you could even call it that-- and go to the top level. There you can see pretty much all of Hyderabad and its bustling bazaars!!

(Top) This is the view off of one of the sides of Charminar. Just a little taste of what traffic is like in India! (Awful, I hate it). All the little piddly cars that are yellow and black are autorickshaws. They're kind of sketchy, but if you're talented you can fit four or five people in them (on laps of course), and for a half hour ride it's only about 100 rupees, or a little over $2. Definitely cheaper then Madison cabs!!

(Second down) This is of my two roommates from Delhi, Dia and Marissa, and I sitting on the Black Bench. The Black Bench is in Mecca Masjid, the second largest mosque in India. It is said that if you sit on the Black Bench, you are destined to return to Hyderabad some day and sit on it again-- I guess only time will tell if the magic of the Black Bench brings Dia, Marissa, and I back to Hyderabad.

(Second) The Qutb Minar in Delhi. Inspired by the Minaret of Jam in Afghanistan and wishing to surpass it, Qutb-ud-din Aybak, the first Muslim ruler of Delhi, commenced construction of the Qutub Minar in 1193 (not the 16 Century like I said in my email); but could only complete its basement. His successor, Iltutmish, added three more stories and, in 1368, Firuz Shah Tughluq constructed the fifth and the last story.

(Bottom) This is Humayun's Tomb, also in Delhi. It was built by the Mughals, and there is a much better story, but I wasn't listening well enough to retell it. Pretty though!

(Top ) One of the many things at Agra fort. If I remember correctly this was the royal palace-- they actually would have lived here. It was in the center of the fort, and had intricate designs all throughout-- (fourth down) the one picture is a close up of all the marble work. The ENTIRE place is like this.

(Middle) The Taj Mahal-- once you see it you understand why it's one of the seven wonders of the world!! It was built by Shah Jahan, a Mughal emperor, in memory of his favorite wife. The Taj is made out of white marble, but the original plan that Shah Jahan had was to build his wife a white one, him a black one, and connect it with a silver bridge. It is absolutely beautiful... in fact, I decided when I die I want my husband to build me one, too.