Food and traffic

Some people have been asking about the food here. So let's talk about that.

The problem is that there is not much to tell. As I don't know what I'm eating.
Tani's family always provides the same food which has been pissing him off for quite some time. Luckily my family understands that it would be nice to have some changes in the food. So, there have been quite some variations. Usually the conversation goes like this: "so what is this?" -"that's gjdsigarwjiobndskl" "ah, ok...".

Look what I found! Domino's pizza! And I was told that they also have some meat there (chicken and lamb). Can't wait to try.

Most of the stuff they give me is quite edible actually. Some of it is like paella without any of the meaty stuff, some is made of just vegetables with some spices, some is of some other unknown substance. But there is always the bread - it's like naan bread, but they told me that this one is lighter. It's called something like cabati or something. You'll see it in a picture I attach here.

One of my lunches. This time I had something made of pumpkin. So basically you grab a piece of the bread and catch some pumpkin with it an put it to your mouth. Simple. And, no, there isn't much to eat but not too hungry anyway due to the heat.

The lunch table with people having different kind of stuff. Just don't ask what those are, they are probably gdfsjkoerjaiogds.

And about spiciness? Well that's a bit of a surprise for me. My family doesn't use spices much due to the father having some digestive problems. A guy at work says his food is quite spicy but it doesn't taste too spicy. So I wonder where the spicy food is. Jaipur is supposed to have quite spicy food and I'm sure it is somewhere out there but haven't just encountered it so far.

If you want to live cheap here (without included meals of course), you could buy your food from some of the many food stalls on the streets. Haven't asked for the price, but would imagine something like 20-30 rupees. There is just this one fundamental problem: most of us aren't suicidal. I haven't had problems with stomach so far, but if I tried that food from the street I'm sure I would get the problems. I'd imagine the food might not fulfill Finnish quality standards. Although it would still be an interesting experience (not the part where you run to the toilet, but the food part).

Today we were thinking of organizing a rooftop party for the night. The problem is just that me and Tani don't live with all the rest of the people in these dormitories and we have quite few contacts there. So this might not work too well. But at least we have a plan to go somewhere out and hopefully manage to make it a long night (midsummer!) with all the people.

Yesterday we went eating in an Italian restaurant with 'all' of us, ~30 people. Unfortunately they didn't serve meat there, but fortunately they served beer and otherwise really good pastas/pizzas. After that we ended up in Orca again (the rooftop bar, picture of it is in a post from maybe a week ago). I have no idea what they have been thinking there, because our group managed to drink the bar empty of all beer. And it took about an hour. So we ended the night quite early and went to bed. Looks like Orca is the place to be during evenings. Or, well, there aren't too many options where to be and Orca isn't too bad anyway.

A few words about the traffic here. As you have guessed, it's quite chaotic. They like using horns, which makes it even messier. They have lanes here but they really don't have any use. They also have traffic lights but I have seen them in use maybe 5 times so far. Usually they just blink yellow and the regular chaos follows.

An unusual sight: traffic stopped in a red light. All of those bikes are using just one lane.

But actually, I'm starting to see some sense in the traffic. It's very....flexible. If there is space somewhere, they use it regardless of traffic 'rules'. Horns are used to tell others that I'm coming. It's not unusual to see someone driving the wrong side of the road; if there's more space, then why not :) And many people prefer scooters so it leaves more space on the roads anyway.

P.S. More news about my cell phone. I mentioned earlier that the service (Do Not Disturb, DND) would take 72 hours to active. But, oh, I misheard that. It's not 72 hours. It's 45 days. Yes, 45 days. So I will be receiving advertisements and quiz questions once a minute for 45 days until the service to block those gets activated. Sounds like a lot of fun. I think I just need to get used to it.