Day 22: Sari Workshop

Day 22: Sari Workshop

This morning we packed out bags and waited around the hotel until 1pm. It was crazy to think that we would be leaving India that day. After a month, we were all looking forward to something about being home. I was missing people, others were missing food, and others were missing sit down toilets. :)

At 2pm, we went to the residence of "The Queen of Saris," Anu's cousin. She specializes in slow made, hand woven, unstitched saris, and runs a workshop for sari wearing called The Sari School. We watched a slideshow on how saris are worn and colored in different regions of India (super interesting) and then we tried them on for ourselves! The sari is a lot more fabric than it looks like, with about nine yards of length and a yard wide. All the girls had fun with about four different styles. It was mostly other women doing it for us, but that was still fun! Then the guys learned how to do two different pants styles, and that was hilarious. We ended by watching a promo of theirs and an excerpt from a theater production called Sari. It was a really good activity for our last day, as no one was in the mood to do anything too intensive. The Queen of Saris, like many other people who spoke with us, was passionate about her subject area, long winded, and prone to embellished tangents. While we didn't understand some of the jumps in conversation we made, it was thoroughly enjoyable listening to her. 

Afterwards, we went to the Eros Hotel, a five star hotel in Delhi. We had an amazing buffet style dinner that put everyone in good spirits. They had fantastic goat cheese and salmon and honeyed pork and stuffed chicken breast and dal and naan. The real treat was at the dessert table; I got at least two full plates. The chocolate mousse was unbelievable. Stuffed to (more than) our hearts' content, we went back to the original hotel to collect our bags before setting off to the airport. 

At the airport, we had a hasty goodbye with Rajiv and Anu (it was probably for the best, as we will hopefully be seeing them soon and some people aren't so good with goodbyes!). We had said goodbye to Professor Roy at the workshop, as he was feeling ill. That meant that we were a group of 15 at the Delhi airport, ready to check in and go to Zurich. Unfortunately, they weren't ready for us. There were a few problems with checking bags and getting boarding passes to Boston, as the flight from Zurich to Boston had been cancelled already. Maddie and Kiernan stepped up then, negotiating with the travel agents to at least get us to Zurich. We were told we may have to stay in Delhi for another 24 hours, but Maddie and Kiernan pulled through! We would be going to Zurich, even if they didn't have a hotel for us overnight.

Once through security, we all gawked at how expansive the airport was. The ceilings were three stories, and I couldn't see the opposite end of the halls. The stores were also incredibly nice, and huge light fixtures hung above us. We finally boarded at 2am Delhi time, and I slept most of the flight to Zurich!