busy

I guess I haven't written about anything since Argentina for a whole month. I've been pretty busy getting wedding and moving stuff done, making seating arrangements and packing lists, ordering flowers and giving away old clothes, looking forward to what's ahead and already missing Barranquilla. In hindsight it may not have been the best idea to plan a wedding while moving to another country, but so far things are going smoothly and I'm semi-quickly checking things off my to do list.

Today we accomplished something big: we bought a car. An Indian car. I guess we haven't actually purchased it just yet, so really, we've just agreed to buy a car.
In Barranquilla we get around in taxis, but there are no such things in Chennai. Apparently, the only form of personal transportation there is auto-rickshaws, three wheeled contraptions with a roof and no sides. This in itself didn't sound too appealing and we've also read that bargaining with auto-rickshaw drivers can be emotional and intense. So, when we got an email about a car for sale by some departing teachers, we jumped on it. It's a cute little silver Suzuki and it comes with a highly recommended driver, which by all accounts is entirely necessary. It felt sort of strange to buy a car without first being able to kick the tires, but we feel good about knowing that when we get to Chennai we'll have a car and a driver waiting for us. I'm hoping it will make the transition a whole lot easier.

My other big task this week has been trying to book a place for our rehearsal dinner. You would think that this would get accomplished faster than buying a car, but then you would be wrong. At first we wanted to have our rehearsal dinner at Kuyaba, but that ended up being ridiculously expensive, so now I'm trying to get a hold of the people at 3 Dives, which I did....once, long enough for me to ask about a party and a man to say hold on. Then I heard the man shout for Lydia, a dog barking, someone cough, three men enter the room, someone shouting at the dog to shut up and finally just the steady drone of the TV in the background. No Lydia. After my skype credit ran down to almost nothing I finally decided to hang up and try again. It's been three days now and I guess their phone is still off the hook, because no matter how many times I call the phone just rings and rings.

And until I get this accomplished I just don't have the strength to move on to the next big task: signing up for dance lessons. So to all the wedding guests/ readers out there you should know that Brad and I had big plans for our first dance, but don't be surprised if on the big night you just feel awkward and uncomfortable watching us try to get through the song.