Rather than try and write one blog story about my family/friend visit this month, I figured I had better break it up some. For both our sakes! For months, I knew that some visitors were on their way in June and we had to plan carefully to make this trip enjoyable since it was going to be monsoon season in Kerala. I was beyond ready and excited to have guests to see what my life is like here. One of my best friends, my aunt and my cousin had endured the painstaking process of getting visas, parting with thousands of dollars, traveling for 48 hours across the world and had finally arrived. Hooray! And amazingly enough, we all managed to meet up in the same city on the days we had planned for. We were all coming from different places and by different forms of transportation. It was truly a miracle that our travel plans worked out. Power of prayer! :) My friend was coming on three different flights from different airlines and then taking a bus from the airport to Mysore. She had no way to contact me if anything went askew so when I saw her adorable face pressed up against the window at the bus stand, I literally wept with relief and joy!
The four of us spent a great weekend catching up, visiting palaces, galleries and enjoying our sweet driver Ahmed as he gave us lots of extra tidbits about the area. Sunday of that weekend was my friend's birthday and it was so much fun to be celebrating it together in India. My aunt had brought some fun decorations to put around the hotel room, opened gifts at breakfast, had birthday cocktails at this great outdoor restaurant, and went to see the famous Mysore Palace all lit up at night before heading to a beautiful restored palace to eat dinner. After we ate till we were stuffed, we set up a little after party at our hotel in the outdoor seating area of the restaurant, with a special cake made by the hotel and a bottle of wine from Paris. The climate in Mysore was remarkably cooler than my city so I was in heaven every single day lingering over breakfast at the outdoor restaurant. The one funny part of the day was when we showed up for lunch and there was a giant sign that said, 'Welcome to Birthday Party" I think my friend thought we were super on top of it and had planned this in advance, at least for a split second. I quickly assured her that I was not that awesome and we saw that there was a huge party happening in one of the nearby conference rooms. We all joked that us three white girls ought to crash the party, claiming that we thought it was for us lol. Instead we just took pictures with the sign and pretended all the hoopla was for her!
The four of us spent a great weekend catching up, visiting palaces, galleries and enjoying our sweet driver Ahmed as he gave us lots of extra tidbits about the area. Sunday of that weekend was my friend's birthday and it was so much fun to be celebrating it together in India. My aunt had brought some fun decorations to put around the hotel room, opened gifts at breakfast, had birthday cocktails at this great outdoor restaurant, and went to see the famous Mysore Palace all lit up at night before heading to a beautiful restored palace to eat dinner. After we ate till we were stuffed, we set up a little after party at our hotel in the outdoor seating area of the restaurant, with a special cake made by the hotel and a bottle of wine from Paris. The climate in Mysore was remarkably cooler than my city so I was in heaven every single day lingering over breakfast at the outdoor restaurant. The one funny part of the day was when we showed up for lunch and there was a giant sign that said, 'Welcome to Birthday Party" I think my friend thought we were super on top of it and had planned this in advance, at least for a split second. I quickly assured her that I was not that awesome and we saw that there was a huge party happening in one of the nearby conference rooms. We all joked that us three white girls ought to crash the party, claiming that we thought it was for us lol. Instead we just took pictures with the sign and pretended all the hoopla was for her!
If THAT wasn't a magical birthday, I don't know what would be! I know it's on fb, but if you have time to post a pic of the four of us dressed to go out, that'd be cool.
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