New Year, New Country

New Years is always a pretty nostalgic time for me.  Usually I do sentimental things I am embarrassed about later, like making an outline of all the highlights and lowlights of the year.  Or roam around Fashion Square Mall frantically looking for the perfect perfume to bring in the new era.  Or eat a lot of pancakes.  Despite my search for closure, the new year never feels new, just like a birthday never makes you feel old.

But this year, New Years feels very, very new.  My first time out of the country, my first time in India, my first time being really really really far away from home: this New Years feels just about as different as it can get.  On the last day of 2010, my friends and I undertook the half-hour walk to the main gate of campus where we would catch auto-rickshaws to Shilparamam, a craft market in Hyderabad.

The walk through campus is very beautiful, albeit long.  We take some dirt roads, some paved, and spend the entire time dodging motorbikes and bicycles under big, unrecognizable, leafy trees.  We usually run into some older women in sarees and younger women in kurtas and western clothes walking along the same paths, though the university thus far seems to be predominantly occupied by males.  Supposedly many international students hitchhike to class on the back of motorbikes, but none of us feel comfortable doing this yet (plus we were traveling in a group of nine people).  At the gate, we picked up two autorickshaws, which overcharged us pretty badly, but until we have a grasp on the language it will be difficult to find a ride that won't take us for suckers.  I mean, right now we are suckers.

Auto rides are insane.  INSANE.  They should really only fit about four or five people, but I have yet to ride in one where someone was not sitting on laps or hanging out into traffic.  Shilparamam was very, very cool - almost too much to take in.  The place was crammed with vendors, each selling amazing pieces of art: handmade clothing, ayurvedic soap, intricate paintings, beaded sarees, and these incredible paintings made out of sheets of banana leaves which are carved into and then painted over, creating elaborate, delicate, three-dimensional images.  I made my first Indian purchases: some lovely interlocked gold bangles that move up and down my arm like water, and a long handmade skirt covered in mirrors and beads and sequins (yes...I dress differently here...).  Any price a vendor gives you MUST be haggled down.  This is very fun for me, as I am naturally very thrifty and would argue down the prices at regular U.S. stores if I could.  We spend over an hour wandering around, wide-eyed, jaws dropping, and then snagged more autos to go to some mysterious restaurant called "Our Place."

Enter: the craziest ride of my young life thus far.  Turns out Our Place is pretty far off the beaten track, and our auto driver had a very hard time finding it.  Meanwhile, we are merging into two gigantic streams of unorganized traffic, we are brushing elbows with pedestrians and motorbikes, and we are hanging on to the doors of the car for dear life.  We finally found the restaurant sign, though Our Place itself was tucked away up a foreboding street.  So my friend and I waited for the second auto careening somewhere in the streets of India, carrying the rest of our equally culture-shocked friends.  And waited.  And waited.  Turns out, their driver has taken off in some direction and driven for about twenty minutes before turning around to ask where they were going.  We shared a very stressful half hour waiting for our friends, frantically calling them and in general freaking out more than was merited by the situation.

They finally arrived, and we climbed up the dark street to find....the most beautiful restaurant in the world.  Seriously.  Our Place would be a five-star restaurant in the U.S., no question.  Seating was outdoors, under over-hanging trees and strings of lights.  In the center of the courtyard a stage was set up, built in the Indian style with four elaborate arches, and inside of each you could see a musician playing either tabla (Indian drums) or sitar.  We got to listen to this incredible and peaceful music all evening long - an unbelievable change from the chaos of the streets outside.  The food was amazing, and very reasonably priced.  In Indian restaurants, you order family style, and waiters come around the table and spoon small amounts of the dishes onto each plate.  Every waiter is very formal.  They call you madam, they bobble their heads politely, they even held out our Kingfisher beer bottles for inspection before pouring them, as if they were rare bottles of wine. 

While we were eating, the rest of our friends from CIEE came in a cab, and were seated at an enormous table right in front of the musicians.  Rather than take another auto back, I opted to squeeze into their cab and enjoyed the last night of the year in paradise, sipping Kingfisher with new friends.  When the clock struck midnight, I was crammed into the back of a cab, counting down to 2011 in a silly accent as we raced through Indian traffic and watched fireworks go off in the sky.

Facing a year that is this new is pretty scary.  But it's a good kind of scary; I feel invigorated and challenged and alive at almost every moment.  I don't know where this year will take me, but I do know that whatever happens, this beats perfume shopping at Fashion Square Mall.