^_^

Time for another round of big heartfelt digital hugs and thank yous:

Thank you so much to everyone who sent me things in that big box I picked up in Jaipur!!! Getting them may have been a hassle but it was so worth it; all your sweet cards and letters made me the kind of happy best expressed by this emoticon :')
Angela and Linda, I haven't had a chance to try out those teas but they look and smell beautiful! I'm excited to taste them. I'm also saving the chocolate for the right moment, but I love the name, haha..."New Moon" came out this past weekend, didn't it? Also Linda, those otters are the cutest! I'm afraid I couldn't eat any mangoes for you; I've been trying to every since I got here, but they're not in season :/. Can't even get mango ice cream!
Kyera, of course I <3 the <3 :P.
Manasi, thank you for the aromatherapy bath packet! I haven't set eyes on a bathtub since entering this country, but I look forward to using it once I get home, to help me deal with the shock of the climate change :P.
Sonam, the orange dark chocolate is delish (of course) and I love, love, love, Zen tea! It's what I usually order when I'm out 'n' about in downtown Chicago. Anyway I had my host family try some of it, since we'd once discussed how I don't normally drink black tea with milk and sugar and they were wondering what I do drink. My host parents enjoyed it; my host brother whined to try some and then seemed to have a hard time getting his down and demanded sugar, lol...and my little host cousin (the cutie in that one Diwali picture) said she liked it and finished it with gusto, aww.
Stephen, thank you for the marina, the tea, the Blue Mountain, the Jarritos (I can't believe you sent that...and that it made it here intact..lol. the customs people were eyeing it suspiciously and I had to be like "Cold drink! Cold drink!" [that's what people call soda here] while they were like "that is not wine? it is cold drink?" oh man), the 'chicken nuggets' (they turned out to be superdelicious! actually spicy, and a great texture--today I tried putting pieces of it in my instant hot and sour soup, it was awesome), the magazines (I don't think anyone can fully comprehend how happy magazines make me, on top of which these both had all kinds of great coincidences in them like a girl from my HS being featured in Vanity Fair, and Cosmo announcing that the dresses I've been planning to unveil this upcoming season are right on trend), the candy, the camera, the batteries and for being wonderful.

Observations:
- magazines here don't come with perfume sample inserts. One had an entire booklet devoted to Bvlgari BLV II in it, but nary a scented slip of paper in sight.
- however, they do come with freebies like a 3-movie DVD or cough syrup (!!??!!)
- our supervisor is way, way sick. A) we haven't seen him in weeks B) his mother has been around more lately, and whenever she's about to go into his room she covers her nose and mouth with a handkerchief

Circumstance changes:
We are living in the Rupayan building/our supervisors' home for the next few days, as some couples had reservations in the guest house from long ago. We've packed up our stuff but are still waiting to move some of it over. :/ bleh.

I was going to post a lot of photos today but the internet connection is being particularly finicky so I'll try again tomorrow.