Happy holidays!

Half of December is gone, but I often forget that it's the holiday season. There is more Christmas/holiday-themed stuff in Delhi than in smaller towns in India, but it only really pops up in fancy grocery stores, nice hotels, or other places targeted to rich Indians, tourists and expats.

I do miss the winter wonderland I experienced in Yorkshire last December (snow! sheep! snow-covered sheep!), but am looking forward to celebrating the holidays in India this year. My mother arrived in Delhi this week, and we have been having a great time exploring the city, shopping, and eating delicious food. It's also interesting to hear her stories about how much the city has changed over the decades (she was a student at Delhi University in the 70s).

Julie, a dear friend from London, will arrive once my mother leaves next week. Julie and I have plans to travel around Rajasthan for Christmas and New Years, which should be a lot of fun. So far, we have planned a camel safari, ziplining around a fort in Jodhpur, and relaxing by the lake in Udaipur. It will be nice to get out of Delhi for a bit, and to breathe some fresh air! The smog in this city is incredible.

Imagine breathing this air everyday!

Photo update

I've been terrible about updating this blog, but am going to try to be better about it while I'm in Delhi. I've been here for nearly two months, but have been traveling or flat-hunting for most of it. I'll write more later, but here's what I've been up to in the last few weeks:

Durga Puja in Chittaranjan Park, Delhi

Attempting to fix up the ugliest living room in the world, which is in my flat. Don't worry, I'm moving to a much nicer place on December 1.

Wandering around Amsterdam

Drag brunch in Washington, DC

Visiting Obama... or trying to

Getting caught up in a protest at the new MLK memorial in DC

Relaxing with Kate, my old flatmate, at her lovely home in DC.

Perfect decor for the kitchen

 CNN Center in Atlanta

Hanging out with my east coast family at our dear friend's wedding in Georgia 

Diwali puja at my childhood home in Ajmer, Rajasthan

Spending time at one of my favorite places in the world - Pushkar Lake, Rajasthan 

Sunset in Pushkar

Helping out with my cousin's 2-day long engagement ceremony in Ajmer!

Long overdue update

Sorry for my lack of posts. In short, this is what I've been up for for the past 5-6 weeks:

1) Writing my dissertation proposal, meeting with my advisory committee, making changes. Repeat every 1-2 weeks. This has taken up over 90% of my time, including weekends. It's also the reason why I've been horrible at keeping in touch with everyone (sorry!)

2) Watching the royal wedding. To be honest, though, I was more impressed with Pippa than Kate. Also, who knew that they would sing so many hymns after the couple was officially married?

3) Starting to bike around London. I joined the new Barclays bike scheme, which allows you to pick up and drop off bikes at various points around the city. It's much less hassle than owning a bike and constantly worrying about it getting stolen. (I used to have a bike that was stolen despite it having 2 locks).

I'm heading to California to see family and to North Carolina for a wedding this Friday. I'm really bummed about only getting a week off, which translates into me not being able to visit friends in Atlanta or DC. Guess it'll have to wait till October, when one of my closest friends is getting married!

Missing a social life

For the past few weeks, I've been working pretty much non-stop on my dissertation proposal so I can get a draft to my advisor on Monday. I have a feeling that I'll have to keep going at this pace until May, which is when the dissertation proposal defense is scheduled. Honestly, I'd rather spend my time flitting around in a dress like this:

Pretty model and dress courtesy of Christian Dior

A little shallow? Definitely. But working seven days a week for a while has made me crave a completely different lifestyle.

It's spring!

Or London's equivalent, which means occasional sunshine while the days barely warm up. It feels a little strange to wear sunglasses for the first time since October!

Window Display at Coco de Mer, Covent Garden

The bunny seems a little out of place.

Braithwaite Street, E1

Wanted: dreamless sleep

The past few weeks have been very busy with work. I'm now juggling two project coordinator positions - one for the research project I've been working on for the past year, and the other for the Indian project that just got funded. My advisor is leaving the country on Monday for a month, and has been pushing me to write a bunch of documents that usually take at least a month to finalize. Working with colleagues in Peru, Thailand and India also means getting up at random hours for phone calls. For example, I got up at 5:30am today for a meeting with some researchers in India. I haven't been this exhausted in a while.

On a funnier note, I realized that being tired all the time translates into having a hard time distinguishing between real life and my dreams! I had a dream last night that I had a video skype conference with my Indian colleagues (whom I've never seen) - they were all strangely obese and talking about how I had to put documents on a flash drive as a backup measure. In the real phone call this morning, I started talking about how they shouldn't worry about the safety of any documents since they are all on a flash drive. There was a long, uncomfortable pause while I fished around my bag to find the imaginary flash drive to show my advisor. She changed the topic pretty quickly and the rest of the call went well, but I'm pretty sure everyone thinks I'm a ditz or just plain crazy.

Eeek!

Hackney Borough (fancy Brit speak for neighborhood) was recently promoting recycling at the Brick Lane market. They built this robot entirely out of recycled items, and were marching it up and down Brick Lane. It was a cool, though slightly odd idea, which failed in one major way: they couldn't really control the speed of the robot, so it was ploughing through the streets at a very fast pace. People (including me) were literally scrambling to get out of its way! It also made a very strange, loud scratchy noise when it moved. I kind of felt like I was in a weird sci-fi film.

London markets

I love the number of cool markets London has on any given day of the week. On Saturdays, I often go to Broadway Market, which is at the bottom of London Fields and not far from my place. It's full of proper East End types, trendy hipsters, and young couples with babies. Oh, and things like this on cold, rainy and gray days:


View from L'Eau à la Bouche, my favorite cafe, on a sunnier Saturday:



Come and visit so I can take you here!

Urinal in a pub, Victoria Park

This city is full of surprises. The old-fashioned pub had dim lighting, stuffed animals, a cozy fireplace... and this.

News

Just found out that I got the grant to fund the child health project in India! Looks like I'll be based in New Delhi from July 2011 - September 2012.

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day!

Cheesy as it is, I couldn't resist taking this picture the last time I was in Paris:

As you probably know, I'm not into celebrating Valentine's Day. Had a huge exam yesterday, so I treated myself to True Grit in the evening. I thought the theater would be fairly empty since couples/groups/etc. would watch something more romantic, but I was so wrong!

The Sartorialist

Do you follow The Sartorialist, Scott Schuman's blog? He's a former men's fashion director who started carrying a camera around and documenting street style in New York, and now all over the world. Of course he has an equally stylish and cool French fashion photographer girlfriend, Garance Doré.

Watch this video if you have a few minutes to spare. It follows Scott around in his so-called "visual life" while he gets his hair cut (by an outrageously hip barber, naturally), hangs around in coffee shops and takes photographs of stylish men and women, including builders!

Nay-Nay!

Isobel, Ali's niece, is 2 years old today. She has started saying random words in the past few months, which makes for some hilarious visits. Here's a video of her randomly screaming her versions of our names while walking down the street. I wasn't even there!

In limbo

In a little over a week, I'll know if I have funding to work on a child health project in India. This is in addition to my current research project in Peru, Thailand and India, which is slated to end in the fall. If the child health project is funded, I'll likely be in India from July 2011 to August 2012. The suspense is killing me! It's been impossible to make any plans, big or small, beyond the next few months.

On another note, this morning I spent my bus ride sitting next to a couple of schoolgirls who were debating whether all male body builders are gay while drinking Cokes and eating Snickers bars. They couldn't have been older than 8 or 9. Depressing on so many levels.

Ha!

Awesome text message from a website a friend just shared with me:

"(303): Nicole, you can't keep coming over at 3am wanting to build igloos."

I miss the sun

Last week's weather: rain and clouds

This week's weather: more rain, more clouds, and maybe some snow tomorrow

This is the only city I've lived in where the weather report makes a distinction between "white cloud" and "grey cloud." Makes me so glad that I got to see the sun when Ali surprised me with a trip to Barcelona for my birthday earlier this month! We spent the weekend walking around the city, touring some of the famous sights, discovering loads of tiny art galleries and cool shops on small side streets, and having incredible food.

The beach:


Tapas as El Quim in La Boqueria, the huge market:


Typical Catalan breakfast:


Of course, how could I forget the woman walking her pet rabbit around the Sagrada Familia?

Pixar clouds my judgment

I was recently in one of the nicer grocery stores in London, when I saw a mouse run in through the doors and up the bread shelf. The few shoppers around me stopped in horror to stare at it, which made the poor thing freeze up in the middle of the baguettes.

Over the weekend, I saw another mouse hopping around on the tube tracks.

Is it wrong that instead of getting freaked out, all I can think of is Remy the rat in Ratatouille? Oh, and speaking of mice, take a look at my birthday cake:



I swear I'm not into mice (or rats)!

Ick!

My spin class this morning started with a thumping version of "California Girls" by Katy Perry - possibly the worst way to start the day. Does anyone else hate that song as much as I do?

Yotam Ottolenghi

I discovered this inventive chef through his Guardian column when I first moved to London. Since then, I've been lucky enough share my neighborhood with his restaurant and to receive both his cookbooks as gifts. He does a lot more than vegetarian food, but the column's a good (and free!) way to try out a lot of his recipes. I especially like his barley, tomato and garlic risotto, one-pot wonder, and the recipe that made me like eggplant again. You can find a few non-vegetarian recipes, like this delicious one for chili and basil roast chicken on his website.

By the way, I swear I'm not being paid to write this, though all signs point to the contrary.

Hi!

At a friend's urging, I've started a blog to share random thoughts that don't warrant an email or a phone call (and sometimes, probably not even a blog post). Here's to a new year and a new effort to keep people in the loop, even if it's just to share a blog that I'm obsessed with at the moment!