A quick update

I'm posting until lunch and nothing more--so I can have plenty of time to stock up for the long weekend! Tonight the group and I are journeying to Aurangabad (a 15 hr train ride west of here) with (drumroll please....) functioning confirmed tickets! Yay! We should be back early Monday morning.

There are two collections of "caves" near to Aurangabad, called Ellora and Ajanta. The caves are more like shrines, man-made and carved into mountains by Buddhists, Hindus and Jains in the 14/1500's(??maybe??) they're meant to be the best caves in India, and being as they're the first (and perhaps only) that I'll see, I'm sure I'll have no problem furthering the claim.
I plan on being much more responsible with my camera as well, so I can give a better picture of train journeys. They're something else. The Darjeeling Limited gave a nice, rosy, clean picture of how the upper classes travel...with their private coaches and catered meals. WE "sleep" on cots next to snoring, shoeless Indian men and buy our “food” through the bars when the train stops to pick up more passengers and wallas swarm the windows with their trays of rice, dried fruit and fried bits. Gosh this place is mad. :D

I'm itching to taste it again though. The last week has been pretty uneventful--professors have finally started to realize that Feburary is coming to a close and an exam or term paper might be wise, so I think we all feel a bit flooded with assignments. Although you never REALLY seem to know when anything's due...I've been spending a lot of my time searching for books, reading, typing papers and working on projects.

We've been out to eat at a couple neat places, and I'm finally regaining my sense of taste and with it my motivation for getting up in the morning. A sinus infection in India is a cruel joke.