My Little 4th of July in India

June 23rd: We got to sleep in today!!! Only until 9 though, don't get too excited. Today is the first day of the Annual World Tamil Conference! The president of India is coming! I woke up and actually had time to blow dry my hair...woah. I've decided to pretend that it’s my own 4th of July here. There's a big parade today but it doesn't start until 4. Now all I need is a latte and a breakfast croissant from Peter's.

Luckily some of the girls befriended some Indian students staying at the PSG School of Management hostel and they helped us call a cab to Chennai Silks Department Store. We spent the morning shopping and buying gifts for our friends and family back home. Afterward we called our Indian friend, Anun so he could call us a cab back but he said it would take 30 minutes so we quickly decided finding a bar was a necessity, after all, it is my 4th of July in India.

After a few King Fisher's (Indian Beer) we headed out to the street to wait for our cab. Then we found out the main road back to PSG was closed for the 4th of July Parade. We had to convince these dirty rickshaw drivers to take us using the back roads, they said we'd have to pay extra...a total of 120 INR per cab (about 3 dollars). They're only supposed to hold 3 people in the back, so I sat shotgun.

After a rigorous ride through terrible traffic (don't worry I took a video on my camera) we arrived back at PSG to meet Anun and his friends for pizza! Yayy pizza again :)

After pizza a few of us came back to the guest house to nap until the big parade. We woke up a little late and ran to the college bridge that passes over the main road where the parade goes through. This policeman/guard/very angry Indian started yelling at us in Tamil (sheesh, that's twice in one week we've been yelled at by the cops). He kept pointing for us to go down and not cross the bridge. We kept trying to make excuses, "but were international students", "but were staying at the guest house”, "but our friends are up there" but he was not having it. Then some Indian family came up behind us so he started yelling at them too and they didn't seem that concerned about it. They just smiled and kept trying to get around him. He kept yelling for the other guards to come help but they just looked at him, then watched the parade again. Finally another guard came and just waved us in like it was no big deal. Yay! We got to watch the parade from a great view.

And man, oh man, was it a beautiful parade!! I thought of when we arrived in Costa Rica and their soccer team had just won a big match. All the people were running and cheering in the streets and Grandma said, “Oh look! They're welcoming us!” Haha. Although we always feel like everyone’s welcoming us because we get so many waves and hoots and hollers everywhere we go since were pretty sure were the only white people in Coimbatore. Anyway, the parade was absolutely marvelous, there were tribal dancers and people beating drums and costumes galore. The floats were amazing and you would not believe the number of people there. Even the pictures I've attached don't do it justice. There were some areas that just looked like a sea of black hair. The peoplemust have been so jam packed.

After the parade we met back up with the people who weren't lame like us and didn't take naps so they got front row seats to the parade. Kathryn and I did some pizza math and decided the leftovers belonged to us. Another good day was had by all.