So.. from where should I continue. I have continue to be a displaced person and been in different accommodations. On Satuday I was with a Finnish friend's friend Riikka. We went with her to her American colleague's farewell party. Apparently this was the second day of the party :) These was just a handful of us, us 2 Finnish girls, the American, 1 British and 1 from the Maldives. We had food and drink, watched the movie "Elegy" on a room terrace and had chocolate cake. Even during the night though it's really hot here (30 degrees) and even though we had a fan on the room terrace, we were all still sweating. Sunday I spend the day at Riikka's place and in the evening went to SADED's meeting/seminar on the Himalaya's ecosystem. I was asked to comment on the paper presented there. It was really off in many facts about climate change, so I felt a bit awkward commenting on it. Luckily other discussants had similar comments to me. After the event, we went for dinner with people from the meeting. I went to my boss's place to sleep but was yet again unable to sleep. When I woke up yesterday (Monday), I noticed I had a sore throat.
Being fed up with sleeping in various places, feeling hot and having my things in various places, I decided to come here to Riikka's place for a week or something. The SADED guesthouse would be now more spacious as some people have gone for trips, but it doesn't have Internet and I bit dependent on others in food arrangements. At Riikka's place, I have to pay rent, but then again here is Internet, AC, near by places to get food (or it can be delivered here) and in general more stress-free. On the down side, this is further away from the SADED office, but the office is also too hot to get anything done. You're just sweating the day out and it's hard to stay focused. At the moment, I have a cold, so have just been the day at Riikka's place and taken it easy. Today i could have an opportunity to go with Riikka to see some other Finns, but I do not know if I'm fit enough to go :( Yesterday evening we ordered Chinese food in with Riikka and watched America's Next Top Model from my laptop (kindly downloaded by my husband :).
The temperature here is, according to weather.com, this week approximately 38 degrees, sunshine and humidity.. So I really have no huge interest to get out of the house! It's amazing how much you can sweat during the day. Luckily I was able to wash some clothes by hand yesterday because you've quickly used most of them. Youngsters here wear jeans. I didn't even take any with me and couldn't keep such thick trousers anyway.
Kaarle is coming here at the end of the month, yay! Somehow I have to survive until then. My boss said we could use the SADED driver and go by car (with AC) to see Taj Mahal. Hopefully that will be arranged, cause it could be fun. I'm also planning to go and see my cousin Runa in Mumbai. I was maybe planning to go already this weekend, but I do not want to go before I feel better cause she's got baby twins and all.
Well that's it for now. Hope you're doing fine. Enjoy the weather!
Love, Alina
P.S Oh yeah, perhaps the last thing to motivate me to leave my boss's accommodation yesterday was when I saw a mouse running behind a cupboard in the room I was staying. That was enough for me! :)
We have returned from the cottage. Temperature was nice 18-22 degrees just good for swimming and mustikka picking. They forcasting warmer weather for the rest of the week.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that you have had hard time over there. At least you get real feeling what the life can be over there and understand that the climate change over there is no joke when the wolrd temperatures are rising.
SAP