laptop is working again. Kind of

My laptop is working again! Yes, my laptop has been shit out of luck broken for the past month. The charger for it refused to work until a couple of days ago. It used to just buzz and not charge the laptop, so I figured it was toasted. Just for shits and giggles, I tried it out again, and lo'! It works! Great success!

So, what I've done in the past month: traveled to two world heritage sites (the Ellora and Ajantha caves near Aurangabad), made a beach trip that ended up with me spending most of the night with an Iranian at the hospital (and I would later get the WORST sun burn of my life; lesson learned, never mix the beach with vodka before putting on sun screen), and it's Ganesh Fest '09.

Yessir, that's right, it's time to welcome the annual return of everyones favorite elephant headed deity (I think the real name is Ganesh Utsav, or Ganesh Celebration). It means that on every street in India, there will be at least one giant shrine built for Ganesh. Sometimes there is a large stage for people to say prayers and bang on the drums. Other shrines are a small tent with a statue of Ganesh next to giant speakers playing Rihanna and 'Dance Pe Chance'. That reminds me, I was also in a Bollywood dance.

Our work celebrated Indian Independence Day by having all the employees dress in kurtas matching the orange, white, and green colors of the flag. Thus I had to buy a new kurta. Great. We also spent a week practicing a Bollywood dance to the song 'Dance pe Chance'. The song is a huge hit here. We were marvelous, of course. I think there is supposed to be a video floating around of us somewhere, but I'll have to look more in to that.

So the whole Ganesh thing is really amazing. Every night there are prayers to Ganesh, and then usually dancing and/or games. Yeah, it puts lighting the town Christmas Tree back home to shame. I'm trying to explore the city to find all the largest shrines, but taking pictures of everyone praying to Ganesh feels kind of weird, but no one seems to mind me doing this.

I'm sure I'll think of more stuff that I've been up to later, but now, I have to go to bed. Ich bin muede.