Shoppin' and Learnin'

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a deeply rooted joy in shopping. I can pretend to be all "holier than though" about this trip, and part of me is looking for that deeper component to this trip, but also I want to come away with some amazing material possessions. Yesterday, due to a certain phase of the moon suggesting such, (inside joke sorry if you miss it) the girls and I got to go....(wait for it)....SARI SHOPPING! Rajna's mom generously volunteered for the task of taking us to a local store to buy fabrics. It was the last day of a sale, so our task was urgent.
Upon entering the store, thousands of fabrics shouted out at me "buy me" "look at me" "just for a minute" "you're only here once." I'm only human, so how could I refuse all of these beautifully intricate amazing fabrics, for just a minute, when I'm only there once? The first fabric I looked at was a beautiful blue fabric with handmade stitching in a multitude of different colors, but cost close to two hundred American Dollars even on sale. I knew I could find better. From the store, I ended up buying one pre-made Shirt/Dress (depending on what country you're in), and two different sets of fabric that I will eventually have made into tops. One fabric was a another gorgeous shade of blue with silver flower designs on it. The other is a bunch of different colors, but in the dark purple, dark pink family with lots of different designs and patterns. The shirt/dress is teal, black and probably weighs 5 pounds when I put it on with all the sequins but is beautiful all the same.
Earlier in the day, Chelsea, Sarah, Jessica and I went shopping just the four of us. I walked away with a pair of earrings that are pretty much "Emmy" in an earring form. They are BRIGHT PINK shells with sparkly stuff all on the bottom half. My Indian friends/Mike think I paid far too much for them (350 Rupees about $7), but I don't care.

Today was the first day of classes, and also the first time I think in my entire educational/academic career where either myself or someone else has not picked out an outfit in advance. I don't know if this shows A) an lack of caring in my apperance B) a lack of clothes in my closet, and thusly a need to shop or C) a mixture of the two. Mike and I were meeting Pamela Fernandes, our social work instructor at about 1. We decided, being aware that Mumbai traffic adds at least 30 minutes to just about anywhere that you want to go, decided to leave around 12. It's a good thing we did, because...we got lost. Rather GoogleMaps got us lost. We have decided that instead of blaming each other we'll blame the internet. When Mike looked up the directions this morning (only this morning...it seems like forver ago) we thought we had to go much further into Mahim than we needed to. As a result we got out of the cab when we knew we had gone too far and walked back to where we had to go. About 30ish minutes, in the sun, in the heat. We were bright red by the time we got to the campus. Luckily we made it there on time, and also our teacher was late.
When Pamela finally arrived, 15 minutes late we talked a bit about what site placement we were both interested. At this point we have no "definite" site placements, but we do have some hope. On Saturday, Mike, Pamela, and I are going to do some site visits. I'm sure I'll find a great site to report to you all about!