Holiday Wrap Up

So, I guess I missed posting about my big Amurcan Holiday Season this year.  Suffice it to say, we were very busy running around visiting family and ringing in Thanksgiving, Christmas AND New Year's all over the country!  A few highlights in photo form:

 

Spent Thanksgiving at the Correnti household, where Matt was immediately put to work hanging Christmas lights.  

 

Later, we went to Oregon to check up on Ruby's.  Matt felt the need to show off his skills, so we spent several hours hanging these Christmas lights, only to have none of them work because we got them from the thrift shop.  Imagine that.  

 

After that, we returned to Chicago and visited the German Christmas Market downtown. It was pretty authentic, as far as Christmas Markets go, except it was small and as you can see, there were about 10,000 too many people there.  

 

Then we decorated our apartment, for the first time since 2007!

 

For Christmas, we drove to Arkansas with a pit stop in Missouri to collect our gifts (lots of camo) and stir  up some excitement.  

 

Mason methodically tracked Santa's route with a map and an Iphone. 

 

These kids cleaned up! (As in, they got a lot of toys.  They didn't actually clean anything up.)

That's about it.  I don't actually have pictures to prove I rang in the New Year with the Correnti family, but I did.  It was similar to my 2011 New Year's Eve, filled with drinking and game-playing, only a lot more awesome.  

Now we're finally back home, and I'm ringing in this Friday the 13th stuck inside in the middle of a massive snow storm!  Okay, it was only 6 inches, and it actually snowed yesterday, not today, but still.  Six inches of snow and 20 degree weather deters me from venturing outside.

A word about the New Year:  Last year, I completed at least one of my resolutions for 2011 - I ran 10 kilometers continuously!  Actually, it was more like 12K because I was trying to run 11K to mark 11-11-11, but I got confused.  Still, I can check that one off the last.  I don't really know about the rest of my resolutions because they are a little harder to quantify... except that song from Stepbrothers.  I didn't learn that.  Oops.  This year, in the spirit of fulfilling a resolution (because it feels so damn good!) I resolve to run at least 10 miles continuously.  Also, I will find a job and decide what I want to be when I grow up (those are in no particular order).  Bring it on 2012.

As you may have guessed, I still have no job.  Surprised?  Me either.  Never fear, my diligent followers, for I am making the best of this dismal situation.  As I believe I've previously mentioned, I'm making lemonade out of the rotten, putrid, stinking lemons I've been given, and I'm taking this time off to try my hand at cooking and baking.  As a tribute to Rachael (who, along with 80% of the blogosphere, is always listing her cooking adventures... and who is a far more accomplished cook than I), I will now list a few of my greatest achievements:  fancy gumbo (only fancy because I had to stir the roux for 25 minutes continuously until it turned "the color of chocolate"), ravioli from scratch (Katie and I went on a friend date to a ravioli-making class, which was only slightly awkward, due to the fact that everyone else in class was on a romantic date), gooey raspberry granola bars (those didn't actually turn out, but they sound good), and (as of last night) my very own homemade granola with cranberries and sunflower seeds!  Also, I bought a muffin pan two or three months ago, and have yet to use it. Boom.  Chef.

A Christmas Miracle

In what can only be described as a true Christmas Miracle, one of our own gets to go home for Christmas!  Sadly, it is neither me nor Matt, but our buddy Ben, who has been with us since the beginning (or at least since July).  Of course we are happy for him, but we here at She's Gone Rogue just wouldn't be us if we didn't resent him just a little bit (okay, a lot) for leaving us here in the lonely, dusty, trash-filled streets of Baroda.  Thanks, buddy.  

 

Bye Ben.  We'll miss you.  This sort of looks like an obituary photo.  It isn't meant to.  It is supposed to be nostalgic, but not depressing.  Okay, it can be kind of depressing.  

Sometimes I don't know if I'll ever get out of here.  Maybe one day, when I have a long gray beard and two or three marbles rollin' around upstairs, they'll let me out. (Shawshank quote of the day.)  

In other news, Merry Christmas Eve, everyone.  I'm trying to be a little less bah humbug and a little more holly jolly, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way.  However, in the spirit of Christmas, I dragged Matt across the street to see Frosty the Snowman and take pictures.  

 

Meeerrrrryyyy Chrrrristmaaassss!  Ha.  This kind of looks like an obituary photo, too.  Feel free to use it if we die here.  

Oh yeah, we did, in fact go to Mumbai last weekend.  Matt took Monday off work and we flew out Sunday morning, then back here Tuesday morning at the crack of 6:00 a.m.  We stayed at the J.W. Marriott (using points, of course.  We could never afford that if we paid), and it was pretty fabulous.  The room was super nice, but the best of all was our access to the executive lounge, which had a beautiful sunset view, and all the free food and drinks we could stuff into our emaciated bodies.  And stuff we did.  

 

View of the super fancy pool and beach from the executive lounge.  Can you believe we got all this for the price of free ninety-nine?  Yeah, it pays to be married to a man with Platinum Marriott status. 

We only left the hotel to go downtown once, and we immediately regretted that decision.  Mumbai is huge (pop. 15 million), and very India.  It is nice to get away from Baroda, but the minute we left our hotel, we didn't feel far enough away.  We won't make that mistake again.  

Ahhh yes, India may have finally broken me.  I don't know if I can ever fully recover from this place.  But then I think about another (modified) Shawshank quote:  There are places in this world that aren't made out of trash.  There's something inside... that they can't get to.  That they can't touch.  What's that, you say?  Hope.  

Don't worry, I'll never lose hope.  I Hope that you all have a wonderful and happy Christmas.... I Hope that you don't forget about the little people (us Barodians, if you will) during the holiday season.... and most importantly I hope that some day, some time, I will be out of India, leaving it behind me forever.  I hope.  Happy Holidays.  

We Need A Little Christmas

A couple nights ago, we were invited (repeatedly, in person and over the phone and with a formal invitation slipped under our doors) to attend a Christmas "Cake Mixing Ceremony".  Because everyone knows you can't celebrate Christmas without a cake mixing ceremony.

We weren't too excited about this, but like good little prisoners we showed up at the allotted time roaring and ready to mix up some cake.  Apparently this is some sort of an old tradition leftover from the Brits, according to Chris, our English compatriot.  You have to mix all the ingredients for the cake precisely ten days before Christmas.  Why?  No one knows.  Scholars maintain the true meaning of the tradition was lost centuries ago.

 

Welcom Staff with all the ingredients.  In true WelcomHotel style they made this into a big production.  They even hired a "professional" photographer.  These are his photos.  They gave them to me on a disk. Merry Christmas to me.  

Of course because this was such a big deal we had to wear appropriate clothing provided to us by the hotel:  

 

Me, Austrian (that's not his name, just his country), Matt, Ben and Shriram stylin'.  

And then the mixing commenced:  

 

 

 

I have never in my life seen someone so excited about sparkling non-alcoholic wine before.  We also put in non-alcoholic beer.  "Because Gujarat is a dry state," they told us.  Really?  I hadn't noticed.  

 

From left: Vikram (Matt's trainee), hotel guy, Vikram's wife, Shredda (I don't know how to spell it, but it's pronounced like that), Shriram and Ajay with the finished product.  Ajay looks like this in every picture.  Hilarious.  

 

Married couples.  See?  Classic Ajay.  

So that was that.  The whole experience took only about half an hour, which was nice.  I know I should be thankful for "the experience", but I'm not, really.  It was all a little too ridiculous.  Sue me.  I think I'm just bitter about staring into the face of an Indian Christmas.  How did I even manage to end up in India for Christmas?  Bad luck, I guess.  It floats around.  It's got to land on somebody.  It was my turn, that's all.  I was in the path of the tornado: I just didn't expect the storm would last as long as it has.  - The Shawshank Redemption, 1999.  (I know what you're thinking, and yes, there are loads of appropriate Shawshank quotes for our situation.  I'll be making use of them frequently from now on.)