Speaking French in India

By Audrey and Evan Sayer

We flew to Chennai on Indigo Air. We drove two hours to get to our hotel in Pondicherry. Pondicherry is a state south of Chennai. It is very tropical like Kerala. The hotel was called, "Hotel du Parc." When we got there we noticed it was cleaner than Delhi.  Some people still speak French there (but with an Indian accent). When we got our hotel we watched T.V. and went bed. In the morning we ate breakfast. Evan felt sick, so Mom gave him something called, "Pepto-Bismal." She also let me play on the hotel computer until I felt better. I played a game called "Moshi Monsters" on the Internet.

That day we went down along the beach to walk on the rocks by the Bay of Bengal. We took the "Heritage Walk" (Boring French Colonial walk thingie). We went in some shops and saw lots of old buildings. We went to a Ganesha Temple. He is the god of prosperity and the remover of obstacles. At the Temple there was a very big elephant. Her name was Lakshmi. When you put a coin in Lakshmi's trunk, she gives you a blessing and a pat on the head.  We also saw a colourful Catholic church, but we did not go in. The gates were locked.

We ate lunch at a Pizzeria. The pizza was made in a wood burning oven. Then we continued on our walk and went to more shops. We even bought some gifts for friends - and for ourselves! 

Evan chose an elephant key chain and Audrey chose a purple and green cow passport holder.  After that we went to the hotel to rest, we finally ate dinner at a place called, "Madame Shanti." On our way back to our hotel we met three people who were staying at our hotel.  We told them to go to "Madame Shant's" or the pizzeria.  Then we made it to our hotel in the dark and went to bed.

In the morning we packed up and went to the front desk to get a cab (taxi) to our next destination... a place called Mahabalipuram, in the state of Tamil Nadu.

Audrey's 10th Birthday!

by House Boy

Today Audrey turns ten years old! Dad says he can't believe it. Her celebration started early this morning with a special breakfast of pancakes and fresh fruit. Audrey opened a gift from her Grandma (new purple Crocs!) and a gift from Evan... an action figure of bad girl, "Aurra Sing" from Star Wars.

She chose a special outfit today for school and she received a call from Mom (who is working in Chennai this week). Mom sang "Happy Birthday" to Audrey over the speaker-phone and got all the details of the day so far.

In the evening after swim-coaching, Audrey and Dad made a special dinner - homemade pizza and tossed salad. There was Vanilla birthday cake from our favorite bakery in New Delhi, "Red Moon."

And, of course, more gifts... It was a great day!

Movies and TV in India

by Audrey Sayer

First I want to tell you about Indian movie theatres. They are basically the same as theatres in the US, except for a few interesting differences! 
You can buy a ticket for $1, $2, and $3 dollars.  If you go to a really fancy theatre it might cost $5! These have really big comfy seats and someone comes by to take your food order.  When you get your ticket you reserve your seat... just like when you are on an airplane. Every ticket has a row letter and a seat number on it! The seating is called "stadium seating" just like at home.
In the middle of a movie there is ALWAYS an intermission. They just stop the movie and turn on the lights. That's when we run to get some snacks or go to the bathroom. We all wish they did this at home.
You can get many kinds of snacks.  You can get Indian snacks and western snacks. They sell popcorn too, but sometimes they don't have butter. Just dry popcorn.
My favorite movie I have seen in Indian is, "Avatar." But we just saw a really funny one. Dad, Evan and I all liked it. (Mom was working) It was called, "Despicable Me." Our favorite Indian movie is "3 Idiots." We think Aamir Khan is funny!

In India TV is different too. Here are some of the reasons. It costs only about $7 a month here and $70 at home in Austin. Our TV is called "TataSky." We like to watch cartoon sometimes. The animation for Indian cartoon shows is sometimes pretty bad.

And the acting on regular shows is awful.  Dad says they act kind of like they do in US "soap operas." Everyone has wide eyes and open mouths when something happens. And they look that way for a
  r e a l l y  long time!

Our favorite Indian cartoon is called, "Chota Bheem." (Chota means, "little" in Hindi). It is about a little boy who is very strong and does good things for people.

Mom and Dad say we always have to read first, but we watch western shows here too sometimes. Evan likes "Kick Buttowski, and the cartoon "Mr Bean." We both watch "Phineas and Ferb" and "Ben 10." I sometimes watch "Aaron Stone," "Hannah Montana"  and the "Wizards of Waverly Place."  Dad downloads "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," from iTunes for us because we all like that! 
I hoped you like my explanations of movies and TV here in India!

Mumbai

We went to Mumbai last weekend for our Dad's birthday on Indigo Air. We got to the hotel in an A/C cab. We checked in and went up the super-duper fast elevator to the eleventh floor where our room was. We had a sea view room and a butler! He was pretty nice. Once all of the luggage was in the room and we had our "welcome drink," we took a boat to Elephanta Island.

That is where we saw the old Temple Caves. These are dedicated to the god, Shiva.
Boom!!! Bang!! Crack!!! A storm was starting. We had to walk up about 1,000 stairs (not really, but it felt like 1000) It was raining when we got to the caves.

We saw statues of Shiva and Ganesha, and thought we saw some bats! On the way back down we bought some "Kukare" - Audrey's favorite Indian snack. The boat was a little rocky on the way back, but nobody got sick.

When we got back to the hotel we had "high tea." This was actually like a big lunch with hot drinks and lots of desserts. Then Mom and Dad called for a baby sitter. The hotel brought Dad a birthday cake and champagne! When our babysitter came, Mom and Dad went to dinner. The sitter turned out to be pretty old, so she fell asleep before we had to go to bed. In the morning we went to the breakfast buffet and ate the yummy food!

After that we took a old non-A/C cab to go sight-seeing. Evan wanted to take one of these because it was an old Indian-Fiat "Premiere." They are pretty cool, old-fashioned taxis that you mostly only find in Mumbai. We saw a Temple and a famous old Mosque that looks like it is floating at high tide. It was a little boring since we have seen so many Temples in India. We went swimming in the Taj's pool in the afternoon.

After tea-time, we took a walk. A man took our picture in front of the Gateway of India. This is a memorial for King George V and Queen Mary. It was next to our hotel! There was a cool police armoured car outside by our hotel too! Then Mom and Dad walked with us to some shops nearby.

After that we took a horse-carriage ride around the city. When we got back to the hotel, our Mom and Dad went out to eat, so they got us a another babysitter. She was younger and watched TV with us. This one didn't fall asleep before she put us to bed.