Cooking Lessons, Dog Show, Cricket

Making Poppadam (yummy crispy fried bread)

 This weekend we were finally able to sleep in past 6:30am, although we get woken up by the sounds of tropical birds and Julie (Great Dane) barking her ear off to get fed a bowl of curry mush. It was nice to have time to work out and catch up on readings so that I'm ahead this week. But we managed to have a great weekend at home and I learned alot about the Indian cuisine. We had a little cooking lesson yesterday where we learned how to make vegetable Biryani with Appu and Ama. I tried a jackfruit for the first time, along with Jaggery (a mapley dark sugar that they mix with rice to make a rice pudding sweet dessert YUM).

Veg Biryani, tomato and onion salad, poppadam

Julie the fistey great dane on our porch one night

 Yesterday we went out to the Trivandrum Dog Show- which was kinda funny since I've never been to a dog show in person.. and my brother Appu called me out and said "It's taken you to go to India to see a dog show?!". We saw the Rotweiler and German Shepherd rounds, then saw the final rounds where a Golden Retreiver won (and also had the only female owner in the whole show.. hmm). Last night we played a bunch of card games, like tongues, I doubt it and their version of Rummy. It was fun and we got some laughs from the silent Grandma.. that was a  special moment!

We went on a walk today hoping that the post office was open (it wasnt due to the strike), but on our way back we bumped into a group of young kids playing cricket in our lane, so I decided to jump in and try to pick it up. I hit the first ball pretty far, ran around aimlessly and got a little cheer. When we got back to our house the whole family was outside laughing and asking how it went- then Appu put on the cricket channel and tried to explain the rules to me during the Zimbabwe vs Pakistan match. I'll try to catch on.. Grandma would be proud.

Our Living room- kitchen to the right, Appus room (internet- where I am now!)

Funny top winners of the Dog Show- great dane next to tiny mini doberman pincher..

Here's a few pictures to fill you in so you can get a feel for where I am for the next month, finally getting settled and did laundry- even though I realized 10 minutes later that I had thrown the key to my room in there too.. had to fish that out secretly shhh.