March 16-Tuesday March 20 we took a little road trip to Hyderabad with the family.
Friday morning we had planned to leave (everyone in the car
driving out of MM parking lot) at 5:00 am. At about 9:30 am this actually happened. Needless to say N and I would have
enjoyed the extra hours of sleep.
Even though Hyderabad (pronounced Hydro-bad) is only about 300 km away
it takes about 7 hours to drive there.
So of course this trip would be the first time in my life I would get
car sick. Ugh it was
terrible. It was nice that at the
half way stop one of the food options was Subway! And that the washrooms were the most lovely and clean
facilities I’ve seen in five months.
We arrived at our destination early evening we got there. We had gone to Hyderabad to take the
Rev’s daughter Ruth and her son home.
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| Tobogganing at Snow World |
N and my actual motive for going was that Ruth had informed us
of a magical place called SNOW WORLD!
Sunday afternoon, after church, we headed to snow world. I know as a Canadian it would seem
really goofy to pay money to go to a building full of snow but I haven’t seen
snow all year and it just didn’t feel right to go a whole year without it. It was quite the experience. They provide “winter wear.” Although N and I had a good laugh over
how cold you would be in the rubber boots and velco coat provided if the
temperature ever fell below -7°C.
Thankfully it was not the -50°C it was advertised to be! It is kind of like West Edmonton Mall
Water Park, reversed. It’s like a
large gymnasium filled with packed snow.
There is a snow dance party which is a corner where they play music and
people dance. Very amusing. There is a relatively large hill that
you can go down on foam toboggans.
And a nice little “Ice Hotel” that sells tomato soup, tea, coffee and
ice cream. You can sit at an ice
table and enjoy it while your butt freezes to the ice bench. The most amusing part for me was being
in a room full of people who had for the most part never seen snow before. When the snow machine came on and shot
a small blast of snow out everyone started screaming with excitement. All round it was one of those
hilariously lame experiences that is just awesome.
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| Boat Ride |
We went to Ruth’s house and met her husband. We went on a boat tour in as Joel said,
“the dirtiest lake in India.” N
says he may actually take Joel’s word for it on this one. We ate a lot of really delicious food. And we did a lot of relaxing in our
very nice hotel. It was a nice
little getaway that we much enjoyed.
It was really good to arrive back at the mission. That feeling of returning to
familiarity is just wonderful no matter how much you’ve enjoyed wherever you’ve
been.
It made me really excited
that in just one month we will be back at home. And now we finally have tickets booked so I am assured that
we will make it back! The
morning of Sunday April 22 we will be home.
We now only have ten days left here at the Mission. I have finally completed the first
movie and now we’re trying to figure out how to export/format/burn it so that
it will work in all the countries and on all the machines that we need it
to. I am so green at all these
things I find it very tedious and irritating that burning a DVD should take a
full day. I have one more that I
just got going on today. And the website is slowly coming along. I am still hopeful that it will be
ready by the time we leave.
I am just trying to keep taking things one day at a time. If I think ahead to leaving I am both
extremely sad and eager all at the same time. So I just have to focus on being here, doing what we’re
doing and getting it done and enjoying the moment. I am looking forward to the rest of our travels but at the
same time am so ready to be everything and everyone familiar. I try not to think of how unfamiliar my
life at home will likely feel when we get there.