Day 15: The morning after...
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I said I was almost ready but that my friend wasn't and she wasn't there. They'd have to wait. I called her and let her know that the reception was already impatient. So many things in India had been late that I guess we had thought we could wing it. I guess technically you could have, because when I got down to breakfast at 10.30 - when they had already started taking some of the food away - our new friends were still having breakfast and they hadn't packed either and still needed to shower. They told me they were sitting at the table by the beach, and that I should join them because they had my friend's and my 'wedding favours'.
'What's that?' I asked.
'It's like gifts that the wedding couple gives their guests.'
Now, my friend and I clearly recall that the bride asked for our measurements because she wanted to give us...clothes or sarees or whatever. My friend in Mumbai had also said that it was custom to give all female guests sarees. We had somehow always been so confused by the bride asking for our measurements that we had never replied, so now we were getting really curious what else we could possibly have got.
My friend messaged me while I was having my masala omelette (which I had asked to have without green chili but apparently, that message had not got across...) as she wasn't able to check out without me paying for some laundry I had asked to have done. My trekking pants had been extremely dirty after the trek and they were the only pants I had that were suitable for the weather back in Europe - and for the flight home, so I had handed it in for washing upon arrival. I asked my friend to cover it and I'd pay her, since I still hadn't finished breakfast. When she came back though, she said the bride's father had walked into the reception just as she was about to pay and had insisted on covering it for us.
To continue on the hospitality notes, I got really curious on the 'wedding favours', and asked the girls at the table where they were. One of them passed me two golden bags over the table. I looked inside and saw an A4 frame with a long poem on it, a small plant, a semi-small fabric bag, and a small golden envelope. The bag contained some sort of cookies that I decided to try later. I'd bring them home and let some other people try too. The golden envelope contained two stamps that the families of the couple had made with them on. They had announced and showed the stamps at the ceremony the day, or two days before, and apparently they had now been distributed amongst us. I was mostly curious about how I'd go about smuggling the plant back home.
While the girls went back upstairs to check out, I sat at the table with my stuff trying to buy bus tickets back to Mumbai. The bride, or actually her wedding planner, had given me advice on which buses were the best and safest to take and given instructions on which seats, or that is which bed not to choose; not in the front row and not the second last (don't ask me why) and try to get a single bed. When filtering for buses that departed from Panjim and arrived to the northern suburb of Borivali in Mumbai, only one bus was available, thankfully with one of the companies she had recommended. So I booked that for 10 PM that evening, arrival around noon the next day.
The bride had let us know that she'd be at the hotel around noon if we wanted to say good-bye. I also hadn't given her my wedding gift, since we hadn't known it was custom to give gifts during the ring ceremony. So my friend and some of the other friends went up to her room around noon. She was wearing some sort of night gown and all the bangles from the night before, the ones she will have to wear for a month now. In the olden days it used to be a year after the wedding. She also wore a humble black necklace that my friend and I had now learnt was a symbol of being married - which is kinda weird because they sell those necklaces in the souvenir stores... She also had a red mark on her forehead in the middle, just where the hair begins, a mark the priest leaves, also as a sign that you're married.
'You look so married!' the Indian girls shouted when they saw her.
Considering she had been up for the 4AM ceremony, and just been to the hospital to visit her grandmother who hadn't made it due to some emergency just before the wedding, she seemed surprisingly fine. We talked for a bit, and she called the restaurant asking them to bring up the leftovers of the wedding cake. That's when she told us the wedding dress alone had been 12 kilograms. Her husband was also very keen to tell us that his outfit, too, had been around 7 kilograms and it had taken him like two hours to get ready.
We stayed until two of the girls needed to take a cab to the bus station. At that time, we decided to leave her to all the business she needed to take care of. The Edinburgh guy and I decided to meet her for dinner though, as I wasn't leaving until late and he wasn't leaving until the next day.
There was only one thing on my friend's to-do list that we hadn't done yet: Indian massage. She also wanted to go to some market she had seen almost right next to the hotel when we had driven back from Panjim two days prior. I still wanted to take a dip in the pool, saying I hadn't brought my bikini all the way from Europe to not be used. So we went to book the hotel masseur. He could take my friend right away for an Indian head massage - it was the most Indian thing they had to offer. I asked to come for a head and shoulder massage at 3PM. That way, I could take a dip in the pool while my friend had her massage, then we could go to the market together, and then I could get the massage when she had left since she'd need to take a cab around 3 to go to the airport.
The massage took place in a shed at the other end of the hotel garden from the pool and restaurant, so my friend went there while I left my clothes on one of the solar benches and got into the pool. Considering the outside temperature, the pool felt surprisingly cool. I took a few swim strokes, lied on the back, enjoyed the sun, the heat. In a few days, I'd be back in zero degrees, snow and wind warnings.
I got out of the pool and was immediately met by hotel staff who handed me a towel. Apparently he hadn't noticed that I had borrowed a towel from the bride's room (with her permission of course). I was going to move the bench into the sun to also get a bit of a tan while in the sun, but I had barely moved it a centimetre when the guy came running again to help me move it. Then he left, and came back with a mattress to put on the otherwise hard, wooden bench. Laid the towel he had just given me out on the bench and put the backrest up. I had just put the backrest back down so I could lie down on my back when my friend came out from the shed.
'You done already?' I asked, half jokingly.
'No, he cancelled,' she said.
'What do you mean?'
Some emergency. Apparently a friend of his had called and been hospitalized. He needed to go instantly. She was to tell me that my massage would also be cancelled.
'Did you get any massage at all?' I asked.
She had got three minutes. Not even enough for her to evaluate whether it had been good or not, but enough for her to cross it off her to-do list. She was going to write her postcards but after that we could head to the market. So I laid down on the bench the hotel guy had prepared so nicely for me in the sun, while she stayed in the shade. I told her to tell me when she'd be ready, then I would put my clothes on and we could go.
At some point, she told me that she only had the addresses left. I mentally prepared myself for getting up but then I didn't hear back from her, so eventually I got up and asked how was it was going. Apparently they just have extremely long addresses. I swear just the addresses took her like 20 minutes for, what, six postcards? We also decided to look through each others' phones before we left, otherwise we'd forget; we needed to airdrop all the photos of each other that we hadn't yet, and maybe some other photos as well. I took a lot of her food photos for example, and it looked like she took a lot of photos from me both because of better photo quality and composition.
By the time we were ready to leave, my bikini had dried so I could put the clothes back on over it. Then we walked away from the other hotel we had stayed at, away from Panjim, until we reached the ocean where there were a few booths under a blue tent type of material to shield the sellers from the sun. We looked at their stuff; they mostly sold tourist t-shirts and clothes, some cheap jewellery and sunglasses, some beach toys. One of the Indian girls had asked us to get some black bracelets made of either wood or lava beads for her brother. She had sent us a picture. We were to get three but when we texted her the price we had been offered, she asked for four.
There wasn't much to see there but we nevertheless got stuck in two tourist shops stuffed with jewellery. My friend wanted to buy a big ring and I…well, I can always scout for more earrings. I was also interested in finding anklets and the kind of jewellery that is both a bracelet and attached to your finger. I didn't find that but I did buy another pair of earrings - and provided mental support for my friend who couldn't decide on a ring. There were so many, and she had both limited time and money unless she wanted to withdraw cash once again, which she understandably didn't. I got a banana lassi for 30 rupees and she got some burger or sandwich of a kind and mango lassi to go. It was kinda nice to only have a lassi for once, since we had just eaten so much for every meal since arriving. Finally just a light meal, but we had to hurry back to the hotel.
We found the girls she was going to share a cab with down by the beach on a couple of sunbathing benches with our bags. It was surreal saying goodbye because our last hour had been so rushed and we had spent pretty much every living minute together for the last two weeks. We hadn't seen each other for four years and who knows when we will again?
I was left with one of the funny male friends and some of the other girls. One of them was getting a massage from the massage guy who had returned from the emergency at the hospital. I thought to myself that maybe I'd get a massage after all then. I went for another dip in the pool, and then almost got thrown out of the shower by the toilets because guests for the next wedding were arriving in their sarees and fancy dresses. The younger cousin guy told me it was a South Indian wedding, apparent from the way the couple was dressed on the invite/poster they had put up by the entrance. I found all the differences quite fascinating - and how people can tell/remember them all!
The girls went and finished their massages, one by one. Finally, it was my turn. My bikini had tried once again and I just put on pants and went back to the massage guy where he was sitting by his table by the showers. I asked if I could have my massage now. His Indian accent was fairly hard to understand but I eventually understood that he had another client in 15 minutes who had pre-booked - and the massage I wanted was 30 minutes. The client was getting a 1h massage and after that he'd be done for the day. I couldn't get any. I left pretty disappointed.
Instead I joined my new friends in the shade where we talked about politics, Iceland, corruption… They were both extremely knowledgeable and curious. Fun to talk to. Around sunset, one of them wanted to go down to the beach to meditate. We the guy and I went down to the beach with her, but stayed behind continuing talking on a rock while she sat at the very end of the beach in a lotus position. She looked so peaceful. I would have loved to be the type of person who can enjoy that sort of thing but I just don't have patience for it, and I don't feel rewarded or refreshed or whatever afterwards so I've kinda given up. In front of us was the other wedding couple having their photograph taken with the sun in the background.
When the sun had set and it was starting to get dark, we all went up to the bride's room. She was supposed to be back from whatever errands she had done during the day, and the girls wanted to say goodbye as they were leaving. When they had left, I sat in the bride's room. When she wasn't running between her and her parents' room where she had some stuff she needed to pack, and when the groom wasn't asking her stuff about the bill, we tried to squeeze out information from each other about what was new in our lives. I may have felt more in the way than supportive even though I offered to help her pack.
Eventually the clock was ticking eight and I wanted to be at the bus station around 9, an hour before departure. Since we had said we'd have dinner together, but she seemed busy, I said I probably needed to go eat so I wouldn't be hungry on my entire journey. I had also messaged her friend from Edinburgh asking where he was as he meant to join us. He had run late on his motorbike road trip but showed up shortly afterwards, and so did the bride's family and groom when she told them we had to go now. The other wedding had started now so we felt awkward eating among all the other guests, so we went to the hotel next door. They had lots of Western and 'Chinese' food but of course I refused to eat anything but Indian when it was potentially my last dinner in India.
It was around quarter past nine when I had to rush my good-byes and thanks to my friend, her parents, the groom…then ran with the bride's brother back to the hotel to pick up my luggage. I asked him if I could rush to the bathroom too; sure, if I hurried. We then took the family car and drove straight to Panjim.
The message I had got from the bus company was the bus would stop "behind" the KTC Bus stand. My friend's brother claimed to know where the station was since he had picked some of the other wedding guests up there so he knew the way. We had to drive behind a couple of really slow drivers that were taking up both lanes but we made it to the station in about 15-20 minutes. By that time, it was like 9.55. There was no parking space by the station so he dropped me off and told me to call him if I couldn't find the stop.
I ran off and could clearly see that it was an outdoor bus station, or at least that it had been…thing was that the "station" wasn't lit at all, no bus (of the very few that were there) had their light on and nobody else seemed to be waiting for the bus. I went further to reach the 'behind' part but there were no buses there and not even anything remotely looking like a bus station or stop. I returned and found some guys hanging out outside a small shop selling vegetables. I was just about to ask them if they knew where the bus company I was travelling with stopped. After all, it was a national and well-known company. But just as opened my mouth, my friend's brother came running from the same direction as he had dropped me off, and asked the guys in Hindi if they knew where to go. They said something and pointed to the left from where we had come from. We started half-running.
We reached another outdoor station that potentially looked even more abandoned, but some other man that we asked in the darkness told us to keep going in that direction. Around the corner was a more lively part of the station with some buses leaving but none of them from my company. People there told us we still had to continue through the dimly lit and unevenly paved station area. It was like 9.58 and I couldn't even see any other stop but some older man told us we had to go around some car park. We couldn't even go straight because of some fence so we had to take a slight detour, increased our pace to a full run. He had my new bag, I had my backpack and flip flop shoes. We reached a small road that we started running along, now sure that we just had to be close. Further down the road, we saw some buses turn up on the street and I blocked their way to ask if it was my bus. First one wasn't. Second wasn't either. We finally reached the car park from where the buses had come - yes, big bus car park. Not a bus station. One more bus seemed to be leaving but it wasn't mine either.
My friend's brother asked for the phone number of the company so he could call them. They had sent the number in the same text message as the information about the where the bus would stop. Except 'behind' the KTC stand was definitely an understatement. We had run for like five minutes! He got through to someone who said the bus was delayed by like half an hour.
Isn't it always like that? Whenever you panic because you think you're late, whatever you're late for is even more delayed… They had also sent a link to a map where you could follow the live location of the bus, but it didn't seem to work. My friend's brother wanted to buy me some water at one of the stalls but I insisted I didn't need it; I had a bottle and didn't want to drink too much before such a long bus ride. Even though we waited like half an hour, I hardly remember having waited at all. Time must have passed really fast. Maybe we were just catching our breaths after the stress and the run. He told me to share my location if I could charge my phone on the bus. Told me to get in touch with his sister when I'd arrive. To call them if anything came up. All the safety measures.
A bus eventually turned into the car park, reversed into a space, then drove out of it again. It almost looked like it was about to leave without even stopping so me and some other men who had arrived in the meantime ran after it. Then it finally stopped. I thanked my friend's brother so much for having helped me find the hidden station and told him to give my thanks again to his parents and say hi to his sister. Then I got onboard.
The bus consisted of a lower and upper double bed on the left side and a lower and upper single bed on the right side. I had the lower single bed on the second last 'row'. There was a pillow and a blanket and even a TV screen and a charging socket. The socket worked fine but the TV didn't display much life. I spent some time messaging and calling home to tell them that I was on my way and that everything was fine.
The bed turned 'backwards' compared to the driving direction and it was a very bumpy ride so I decided to try to close my eyes. Fell asleep - and even stayed a sleep - for at least four or five hours I think. May have woken up as we stopped somewhere to drop people off. Remember stopping in Pune, the hometown of the bride. Remember stopping somewhere and realizing that maybe it'd be a good idea to at least try to use the bathroom since I didn't know when the next stop would be, but by that time we had already stayed at the stop for so long that the driver didn't let me off. That was OK by me. I didn't need to go.
Day 16: Eating fish the Indian way and last-minute spice shopping
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Last minute, I decided to also buy a samosa. I wasn't hungry yet but it was morning and I didn't have a single snack in my bag if I'd get hungry. My next opportunity to eat probably wouldn't be until reaching Mumbai at around noon.
Surprisingly enough, we reached Mumbai with only the initial half an hour delay. The bus driver stopped just before the highway flyover, where my friend picked me up and we went to her place in a tuk tuk. She had caught a cold and had needed to postpone some wedding shopping so she asked if it was OK that we'd go shopping for engagement rings afterwards. Uhm - yes?(!) Plus I'd get to meet her fiancé.
We got some chai once back at her place. They added some ginger this time for my friend's throat. She also got a big bowl of boiling water that she leaned over, covering herself with a towel to soak up as much steam as possible. Then we had some rice with fish curry. Her dad had eaten fish the other day, when my Chinese friend and I had got shrimp instead, but now I got both shrimp and fish. It was as if they hadn't thought I was 'mature' enough, or quite ready to face eating fish the Indian way, but now I had earned it. Except I had mostly eaten with cutlery for three whole days now. I needed to get back into practice.
The pieces were small and they were, of course, also deep-fried. My friend's mother picked out some of the best pieces from the plate she had brought out. Then my friend took one of the pieces she had got on her plate and showed me.
'You need to take it like this,' she said and then squished the fish between her fingers. 'And do like this to check for bones.' She continued to squish and feel for bones.
Apparently I didn't examine my piece well enough because even after squishing it, I still got like one or two tiny bones in my both, so I made sure to be even more thorough with the following pieces. I usually don't eat fish when I'm this far away from home but this was really good, and the curry was amazing.
After my friend had finished her fish and curry, she poured a pale pinkish liquid over her rice that had been standing in a metal pitcher on the table with a lid on it to keep it warm.
'What is that?' I asked.
It was made from 'kokum'. I had seen sellers with signs that said kokum but didn't really have any clue of what it was, nor what it was used for. Maybe it's used for something else as well, but apparently it's some sort of fruit...and that liquid was for the end of the meal, supposedly good for digestion. I was kinda full and felt like I had eaten way too much rice already, but it was my last day, and absolutely not the right time to stop trying new things. So I had a tiny bit more rice and then my friend poured some of the liquid over my rice. It was as thin as milk, and didn't really taste much I thought, but it felt extremely spicy.
'It's not spicy at all...' my friend said, confused.
It must have been the curry before that had been so spicy that the hot kokum liquid made my mouth feel like it was going to explode.
After lunch, my friend went to get some rest to try to recover from her cold. I insisted I could go off on my own in the meantime. Firstly, because I was starting to get worried I wouldn't have time at all to buy anything for my friends back home. Secondly, because even if I would have time, I didn't want to drag my friend around when looking at all the stuff at my slow pace in fascination. She had followed us around shopping more than enough already. So I told her I'd take a tuk tuk to around the shopping mall and she could meet me there. I'd bring the top for the langa along with me so we could have it fixed.
My friend told me, or reminded me where to go once I reached the mall to find the food stalls. To be honest, I thought I knew where they were, so I didn't pay much attention to what she said - and of course ended up not finding it. But I found lots of other things instead and bought some treats, a ring, and looked at a whole lot of other things in the street markets. Then my friend met me back at the mall. We went through the security check and back inside the mall where I felt like I had been an embarrassing amount of times in an embarrassingly short time.
We went straight to the store where I had bought the langa where she complained that the tailor had only trimmed the top on one side so the pattern was completely uncentered. The older man called some younger man who was sitting outside the shop and he took us back to the tailor who had 'fixed' it at the time. I put the top on so they could see how weird it looked and they told us to come back in an hour or so; they couldn't fix it as quickly now as it would require them to re-do the zipper on the side.
In the meantime, we went to another much bigger store, also in the basement of the shopping centre, that sold really big, fancy dresses. The types of dresses you'd get married or engaged in. My friend had sent me a picture of her engagement dress that she had bought while I had been in Goa, but now she wanted to do a price check because they had a very similar dress in the window. They took out all kinds of other dresses for her as well, some of which she looked at, but others that she immediately dismissed. The dress was a bit more expensive here than the one she had bought.
Then we took a tuk tuk to a completely different area and stopped in a much less trafficked and crowded street. In between a corner shop and a small shop selling toys, was an even smaller, closed shop, but just as we got out of the tuk tuk, a man kneeled down to open the sealed curtainy things. It was the jewelry store where she was getting the engagement rings. She had already decided what kind of ring she wanted; one exactly like the one her mother had, but her fiancé still needed to get one.
We were originally invited inside to wait for her fiancé but the draft from the air condition was making me feel cold and was definitely not good for my friend's cold, so we went outside after a while. I think we waited at least half an hour. At least long enough for me to get thirsty and buy a small bottle of sprite (when I say small, I actually mean small: 330 ml…) in the shop next door. Eventually, the whole 'crew' arrived; my friend's dad, her fiancé, the fiancé's mother. We went into the small shop again where we all got a bar chair while inspecting the rings they had in the glass counter.
A lady, who I hadn't seen before when we had been waiting, appeared from behind back door and started showing them rings. Even though I don't really know what they were saying, my friend had told me it couldn't be too big, not too small, so that part I understood. They did some measurements of his finger and ring size, showed some more rings. Then the shop lady took two or three pictures of the ring my friend's dad had brought with him, so that they could make a copy for my friend. When they had found a ring for the fiancé, she made note of it and wrote out a receipt. All set.
We all got into the car that was parked nearby. The fiancé drove his mum back to their place, then my friend's dad back to their place. While in the car, they offered me to try one of those sesame ball things, ladoo, that one of the guys on the trek had also offered me. The fiancé's mother had made them herself, and my friend explained that sesame seeds were in season now, thus a lot of people were making them. Also, some kind of kite-flying festival was coming up, and ladoos were an essential part of that. It was quite hard - my friend told me to watch my teeth, but once through the first bite, it was easier to break down the rest. Really tasty.
My friend's fiancé dropped us off at the shopping centre that we entered, for at least the 6th time (though probably more) within a week…… Picked up my top, which finally seemed OK. Then we drove back to her place. We stayed there for a bit while my friend and her fiancé got ready for another wedding ceremony of some friend of hers. There I got offered another ladoo that her mother had made. I joked that now they'd be competing about which one was better, but to be honest I didn't feel much of a difference; they were equally delicious.
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By the way, 'roaming' the aisles is a massive exaggeration. Just because it was an actual market, it does not mean that it was very big, and on top of that, it was completely crowded. It was like being in a traffic jam that doesn't move - at all. I don't know how long I stayed - but long. I was both fascinated by all the spices and other things they so I ended up squeezing my way back and forth quite a lot. Got chaat masala, one of the ingredients for the recipes we had made during the cooking class. Got chilli powder, since a lot of the chilli powder at home tends to not be spicy at all… I had to ask my friend which chilli to get because there were so many different types! She told me to ask the shop keepers for a medium spicy one. I thought of getting more and other types of spices and seeds that don't exist at home but decided to set a strict limit. I also got some of that super black tea that they use for chai and some other sweets I hadn't wanted to buy elsewhere for various reasons.
My new 'souvenir' plan for my friends was that I had got lots of different types of Indian treats, and that I was going to make my own gift containing samples of 1-3 pieces of each. But on the way back, I realized that I would be staying with an Algerian friend of mine in Paris, so I wouldn't have the time or opportunity to mix or match anything for him. So I stopped by a sweet vendor on the way and got some of those cashew marzipan things. I also got some big round ball to try one last sweet for myself, which I kinda ended up regretted because man, that was sweet!
There was a pharmacy (again, just a point/tell them what you want concept) right next to my friend's place so I decided, or had been coerced by my dear mother, to buy a mask for my return journey. They didn't have the thin single use ones that my friend had bought in Goa, so I got a multi-use one for 100 rupees. Then I went back to my friend's place, where her mother opened the door for me. It was around 9 PM already, so apparently she had almost started wondering where I had gone.
I packed the food items I had bought and changed; put on some warmer clothes ahead of my trip and return to winter temperatures. She had heated some leftovers of the rice and fish curry for me that I had on my own; she was waiting for her husband to get back so they could eat together.
My friend had said that we'd need to leave around 10PM but I calculated that actually it'd be quite early. On top of that, my flight was like 40 minutes delayed, but even without the delay, it'd be quite early. My friend and her fiancé didn't arrive until some time past 10PM anyway. We booked a cab and, even though she had told me earlier that day that she and her fiancé were going to follow me to the airport, it was as if I couldn't quite believe it. Why? They wouldn't get back until around midnight - and she was sick! But they insisted.
So I thanked her parents so much again for their incredible hospitality and they told me they'd see me for the wedding in December. Then the three of us headed downstairs and got the cab to the airport. It took only around 40 minutes to get to the airport - not one and a half like the other day.
'Do you need a visa to go to France?' the woman at the check-in counter asked after she had inspected my passport. I shook my head. She called a male colleague over who was standing two counters over chatting to some other guy. She whispered something and he took a look at my passport, waved it in front of me: 'how long have you had this for?' he asked. He wasn't unfriendly or super rigid or anything but just receiving that question is, on its own, not very nice. Made it sound like he thought I was travelling with a fake passport.
'Forever,' I said, intentionally making it sound like it was a stupid question.
Of course, it's a lie. Most of you will know how hard I struggled to get my Icelandic citizenship, but it's besides the point in this context and would only complicate things.
'So you haven't been to China recently?' he asked.
I got to be honest, I hadn't seen that one coming, even though I should have. When I was in Turkey, travelling to Greece, with a backpack and sleeping bag, I can understand that they thought I was perhaps an Afghani refugee (many of them have a Southeast Asian look) travelling with a false passport and trying to get into the EU.
'No,' I said firmly, somewhat outraged though. I haven't stepped foot in China since 2010.
They let me check in my newly bought bag and gave me the tickets.
I decided now was the time to put the mask I had bought on. I remember wearing one many years ago, probably when I was in China in 2010 actually, mostly for giggles because so many people there were wearing masks that I wanted to buy some almost like a souvenir, to try them on. I remember thinking that they were much worse to wear than I had realized; breathing in the 'same' hot, choking air that you're breathing out. As soon as I had put the mask on, I wanted to take it off again. How do people do this?!
It was almost a bit sad to see how many people were wearing masks; not just Asian tourists. All kinds of travellers. Some airport staff. Lots more than when we had flown to Goa, though admittedly there might have been a difference between the domestic and international terminal. I got through security but couldn't stop thinking about when I could or would take the mask off. Even though it was a different terminal, it was set up almost exactly the same way and with the same shops as the domestic terminal, so I easily navigated my way through to the souvenirs I wanted to buy. I still had that extra money I had saved for the taxi that my friend had insisted on paying for, so I could also get a package of 20 postcards. Even though I couldn't see the motives, just the cover photo looked more interesting than any of the other postcards I had seen, including in the domestic terminal.
Because of the delay, it was around 3 AM when we were finally ready for take-off. I was exhausted, but also really hungry so I made sure to wait for the 'dinner' before going to sleep so I wouldn't miss it. There was a choice of something Western, and paneer, so of course I got paneer. I know it's airplane food, but it was actually quite yummy. Or perhaps it's just because it was my last paneer.
I got pistachio filled dates at the Kuwaiti airport, like I had promised myself I would on my way to India. I also stopped by the nut store on the second floor where this really nice guy let me try both the sweets and nut mixtures. I ended up getting some individually packed nutty sweets and a salted trail mix that was super yummy. Then I went down to the lounge and waited for the three or so hours until the next plane
Day 17: Algerian/Berber couscous and hospitality
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I got to Paris sometime around noon. I decided I was 'safe' and finally removed my mask (although admittedly I had kept it off every now and then during the flight). It felt like I could finally breathe again. Despite removing the probably most Chinese marker, the woman coordinating the queues at the passport control told me I was in the wrong line and had to follow her.
'Excuse me, but why?' I asked in French. She looked at my passport again.
'Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am,' she replied in French, when she realized I had a European passport.
At least she apologized. But it keeps amazing me how many people in such diverse countries as France and England keep making the same mistake!
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They closed at five so I wandered around, sat down at the cinema complex talking to my dad on the phone, when I received a message from my friend asking where I was. I had told him I was at the café, so he must have been confused by it having closed. I went outside where it had started raining, to meet him, and we went pretty much just next door where he lived on like the 7th floor.
He lived with his cousin in a one-bedroom apartment but with a big living room. A friend of his was sleeping in the bedroom; he worked night-shifts so he'd sleep during the day. Some other guy was watching TV in the sofa, but I didn't catch who it was, but he was friendly, and greeted me the French way, with two kisses.
My friend told me to make myself at home; have some fruit if I wanted or get some water, which I did. His night-shift friend got out of the bedroom soon after and went to have a shower, getting ready to go back to work. My friend explained that he worked long shifts to make ends meet; it wasn't easy if you came from Algeria with a much weaker economy. He was also really friendly and greeted me. They all spoke perfect French. Way better than me and I still consider myself fluent. After the two guys had left (I'm not entirely sure who the other guy was...), I went to take a shower. It would have been nice to get into some clean clothes but everything except for the trek pants that had been washed at the resort were...not so clean. I suppose my cardigans were also fairly clean considering I had pretty much only worn them the last time I was in Paris and maybe one or two days up in the north where it had been cold.
My friend asked if I wanted to stay in and make something or go out for dinner. I was, obviously, rather exhausted, so he suggested we'd make something light. 'Light'...
To make a very long story short, I think it was around 11.00PM when we had dinner. By that time, his, also amazingly friendly cousin who lived there with him, and a fairly shy friend of the cousin who was visiting had come home. We had chatted, I had helped make vegetable soup, seen how to make couscous the real way, I had taken a nap in the bedroom where had put clean linen on one of the beds. They woke me up to a massive feast, three meal dinner. We started with the soup I had helped make. The soup was so filling, with all kinds of vegetables and lentils and beans that technically, I could have easily stopped eating already then.
Then they brought out the couscous. So apparently, you're supposed to steam couscous, not boil it like I'm sure most Westerners do. They also pointed out that in most restaurants, when you get couscous, you get it soaked in some kind of sauce, but that's not necessarily the way they do it. Hardly ever, in fact. And the secret trick to delicious couscous was using enough olive oil. I had seen him add olive oil while making the couscous but they also had a bottle on the table to add extra.
'You don't want to put too much though,' his cousin said. So I put a bit. Like the small amount you'd put on a salad.
'That's very little though...' he said afterwards, giggling a bit.
'Oh?' I asked. 'Well, I guess I can always put more?'
I laughed when I saw how much my friend poured onto his couscous.
They also had a massive bowl with different cooked vegetables that they mixed with the couscous. I took a picture of everything and sent to my Chinese friend who sent back a message with lots of laughing emoticons, writing that 'that's like more vegetables than we had during the entire trip.' It was really tasty, and I could really tell the difference the extra olive oil made. I was nevertheless quite satisfied with the 'little' I had added. Their way of eating this was with a glass of yoghurt, or soured milk if I remember correctly. We eat that for breakfast with granola back home but I agreed to try some.
Even though the food was really tasty, it was also the first meal in a very long time that was so not-spicy. And in the middle of the mains, the cousin realized it would be good to have, or that they had forgotten the meat. So he got up to fry two massive pieces of, well, assumedly not pork. And some chicken fillets as well. I was of course quite full already but sort of didn't have the chance or time to say that I was fine, plus the protein kinda tempted me, so I had some of the meat, even though I couldn't finish it all.
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I had meant to go to bed early but it was almost 1AM when I was finally 'allowed' to go to sleep. They let me have the bedroom to myself, even though I told them it was totally fine for me to share the room with one of them, but it was out of the question. The three(!) of them would sleep on the sofa bed and a mattress in the living room.
(On a side note, when my friend had got in touch with me, he had said 'I live with my cousin and he has a friend who's visiting. But if that's not too inconvenient, then you're more than welcome here.' That was when I had just got back from the trek, so I joked that nothing could be uncomfortable or inconvenient after the conditions we had 'endured' there, so if I wouldn't be in the way, I'd gladly stay at his place. But seriously, the way I was treated like a queen there...kinda makes you wonder what (in)convenience means to them.)
I woke up around 9. I still had the red 'bracelet' we had got during the haldi ceremony around my ankle, with jingles on it (and still do) so I had to be extra careful when I exited to the living room to go to the bathroom, as the cousin and his friend were still asleep. My friend was already up though, working on his computer. He's a computer or software engineer of some kind so he could work from home. When I had got up, he told me he was going out for a bit but would be back in 10 minutes.
At some point, his cousin and the friend also woke up. The friend working night-shift got back home, greeted us but went almost straight to sleep. I was almost getting worried about my friend as it was ticking 10AM, and I was about to leave, when he finally got back with some fresh croissants and pain du chocolat from the bakery - my God...! Considering how slowly I eat - and prefer to eat, I thought of skipping, but my friend insisted I'd not leave on an empty stomach. He also heated some milk and put out some swiss miss and coffee but I love hot milk just plain. And the croissant and pain du chocolat was absolutely amazing. No regrets. But then I had to hurry, or that is, we had to hurry, because my friend wanted to accompany me to the station.
I thank his cousin and friend for a lovely evening and meal the night before, and then we headed out into the cold Parisian morning. He reminded me to take a selfie of us, like I had said I wanted, so we could post it in the Paris Facebook-group that we're still in after all these years (see portfolio > texts for more info). As if he hadn't done enough already, he insisted on paying for my train ticket. Apparently, he had even meant to accompany, hopefully to Gare du Nord and not all the way to the airport, but he had forgotten his oystercard equivalent back home - thank God. I felt bad enough already. Plus, even though he could work from home, I felt like I was disrupting his day enough just by walking me to the station. So we parted at the gates after having thanked him massively for the way-beyond what can be expected hospitality, and hopes that we'd meet again sooner than this time; nine years…
Quite unbelievably, the departure time had been rushed. They explained on-board that it was due to the upcoming harsh winds back home that they wanted to beat. Plus, the flying time was, or at least sounded unusually long; 3h45. I think usually it's around 3h +/- 15 minutes or so…
I almost couldn't believe my eyes when we landed. It had been so low visibility, that we had hardly seen the ground until touchdown - and even when on the ground, you could hardly see anything for snow.
Back to reality… To the unusually stormy and snowy winter. To the non-spicy food…
It's been over three weeks since I got back. I miss the food, there's no denying that; ask the people around me… I keep finding excuses to put chilli on whatever I cook or go to a spicy place whenever we go out to eat, trying to keep up my spicy palette. Been making lots of (real) chai and telling everyone that we do chai latte all wrong here. Miss the sun, but there's less I can do about that. Miss all the colourful clothes… And can't do much about that either since my winter clothes are mostly fairly dull. We did, however, have a 'rainbow day' at work on the Friday after I got back, as a warm-up for the prom the following day. Most people forgot about it though, but I came to work wearing my bright green kurta. The few people that had remembered to wear something colourful were all wearing dull or pale colours. We just don't really even have clothes that are real, vibrant colours here. It sort of sucks.
I also tried putting my saree on for the 'prom'. Put on a YouTube video. Maybe it would have worked if I hadn't been in a hurry but I couldn't figure it out in such a short time, so I put my blue langa on instead. All the matching jewellery. Put winter shoes on but brought my shiny bronze high heels. Changed shoes in the car before going inside. Got lots of compliments for my dress. I also had some of the henna left on. The trouble was getting back into the car after midnight, because it had snowed during the entire party, so there was considerably more snow when I was leaving than when I had arrived, and the back entrance, close to the car, had been locked. So I needed to take a detour in the snow, wearing the heels - and no shoes. So great to be home - not. And it just won't stop snowing!
Anyway. It's been a really amazing trip. I don't think I've ever been welcomed with so much hospitality.
Seldom eaten so much. Never shopped so much. I am quite seriously looking into the insane idea of going back in December for my other friend's wedding, but we'll see how that turns out. I hope you've enjoyed the reading and like always, thanks for checking in! Until next time, I'm leaving you with this little video made of one-second shots per day for the duration of my trip. | |