Wednesday evening, I went out with Mervin to see the neighborhood and buy a few things. Here is a picture of the apartment complex from the center courtyard:
The neighborhood immediately around is mostly homes and small apartments, narrow and 3-5 stories tall. Mervin says that often a home has a common ground floor, then different parts of the extended family will have their own floor up above. The tall narrow homes reminded me a lot of Taiwan, but the architecture definitely has Indian characteristics. It was getting dark for pictures, but I hope to take some later. There were no sidewalks on the residential streets, but little enough traffic that it wasn’t a problem
A few blocks away is a commercial street with shops and restaurants. We stopped at a copy shop, cell phone store to look at SIM cards, a bank, and a sweets shop. The streets here were much busier. They had sidewalks (mostly), but crossing the street was an adventure!
Thursday, Mervin and his dad had a few things to go out and do, so I stayed home and rested.
For breakfast we had Puri, a puffy fry bread, along with a potato curry and some leftovers from the day before.
For lunch we had curry made with the bean pods from the Drumstick tree, the long green vegetables behind the rice. They are kind of like a giant greenbeans, with a very fibrous outside that you can’t eat. You basically just munch on it until the inside is gone, and then spit out the outer shell.
Here are a few pictures from around the apartment that I took during the day:
The flowers are from Mamtha, the neighbor across the hall who is helping arrange the reception on Saturday.
In the evening, an aunt and uncle from Mervin’s mother’s side arrived and visited for a while. Neither of them spoke English, but Mervin helped translate. We showed them pictures of the wedding and told them about life in Seattle. Mervin’s aunt made dosas, pancake like flat bread, for dinner:
It rained in the evening, keeping the temperature cool.