Merry Christmas?

Leo Smith

A year ago, when Mr Skeen informed me that I would be travelling to India, he told me to enjoy my Christmas as a year later here India, it would be very different. And here I sit, at the hostel one year later, wondering if it really was Christmas yesterday. Christmas was weird to say the least, while it was a very fun day, there were somethings which just didn't feel right. However I'll dedicate this blog to the highlights of my Christmas.

1- the food. Now I can't say that the food on the train to Mumbai was any good, however the food when we arrived in Mumbai was second to none. For breakfast I had a guilty pleasure of eating chocco flakes, and I left it there in preparation for lunch. And boy was it worth it. The three plates of chips my table had as well as the pasta I personally had were some of the nicest things I must have ever eaten. The only downside of it was that I didn't hear Mr Jordan say that we had a rugby tournament afterwards, so after overeating, playing rugby was definitely a challenge.

2- the gifts. As you should all be aware, the staff rustled up a quick secret santa for us boys. Last Monday in Delhi we were all given a name and 250 rupee spending limit and last night he results were amazing. The highlights included hair products for Mr Jordan, a brick- for brick and a pink dress for me. This definitely provided a small slice of reality for us, and showed us boys what Christmas is like in Auckland.

3- Lastly, communications. I can safely say that I have never directly looked forward to hearing my parents voice on Christmas Day, however that was probably the main thing I was looking forward to. My Christmas letter that I opened on the train provided a nice intro to the call, and the call was really special. I thought that I would get slightly emotional on hearing my parents voices, however I found quite the opposite. I felt extremely happy. Hearing about the fun they are having and telling them about the fun I'm having, made me feel really proud of myself, and therefore pretty stoked.

Hearing about life in NZ, and thinking back to my experiences of NZ Christmas's really made me think about how much I have gotten used to India. The traffic, noise, smells, and overall, chaos all seems like the norm for me right now. No matter how busy India gets or how extreme the environment gets, I have developed the ability to just take it in as the norm, and move on.  A good example of this is today at the fish village, where the smells were so horrific, they made some stomachs turn (you'll here about that soon hopefully). Furthermore the large piles of fish and the masses of boats made for a really chaotic environment. However as we walked through me and the boys just managed to take it in, talk about it and gain something from the experience- something I never thought would happen.

I hope you all made the most of the Boxing Day sales, and had a great Christmas.

Leo