I turn 21 again!

So as some of you may know I recently celebrated hitting the big quarter century mark. While in the U.S. this may prompt many people to rush out at midnight and rent a car, reveling in the joy of not paying extra for insurance, I had the privilege of re-turning 21. In Delhi, city of pure and non-chemically induced joys, the drinking age is in fact 25. Note that I have never in all my time here ever been carded nor do I even carry ID on me if they were to ask, but that’s beside the point if you ask me. So I took my first wary steps into a bar and had my first sip of this “beer” I’ve been hearing all those 25 year olds talk about – err...riiiiight. I am proud to say that with the grace and maturity expected of a 25 year old on her birthday my newly found legality did not lead to close encounters with the bar’s toilet. Seriously though, I managed to pull together some new friends I had met in Delhi (all but one of my roommates had abandoned me and were out in the field) and we had a great time and they even managed to get me a pretty awesome chocolate cake.

Since our other 3 roommates had peaced out, Jack and I took a two day trip to Shimla, a small town up north in the mountains. It turns out Shimla was the summer capital back when the British ruled India. You might assume, like I did, that this means all the wealthy politicians had summer homes up there. In fact, every year when it got hot in Delhi said politicians literally put all their filing cabinets, desks, etc. on a bunch of trains and moved their entire offices up to Shimla and worked from there. Not entirely practical but at the same time more productive than spending half the year sitting on a ranch in Texas. We went on a couple hikes which were pretty much as anti-Delhi as it gets, and saw an awesome waterfall that was particularly impressive since it had rained for about a week straight. (Including during our hike as evidenced by the droplets in the picture)

Upon our arrival we also learned that Shimla is a popular honeymoon destination, so I’m pretty sure everyone we interacted with thought Jack and I were newlyweds. Too bad it didn’t inspire them to give us any free stuff or discounts. The tourism map even pointed out a place called “Scandal Point” that is slightly (although frankly not really) secluded and apparently a hot spot for honeymooners. Jack and I avoided Scandal Point.