Pune, Day 11

The only events of note on Saturday were the wedding reception, and Indian our first trip to the mecca that is Indian MacDonald’s. First, McDonalds:

They have more veggie options than meat options on the menu!!! I was able to order my first burger ever!! Woooooo. (At a fast food place I mean). They have: Veggie Burger, Paneer Wrap, Aloo McTikki, Salad Burger, and my personal favorite, shake shake fries, which are normal fries that come with a packet of seasoning and a bag and you dump both in the bag and do what the name suggests.

Onward to the wedding reception

Since Ani is from Pune the reception was held there, and had many of the same people from the ceremony, but also tons of new faces and TONS of good food, more my style because it is central India, I wasn’t too much a fan of all the rice in the south. Unfortunately, or fortunately, my Kurta had been sent to the washers to be ironed so we realized I had nothing to wear at about 5 pm when we were leaving at 6. Rahul’s mom lent me a GORGEOUS sari, seriously the most beautiful thing I have ever worn. It was a pinkish color and had hand embroidered beads all along the borders, I shudder to think what it was worth, I spent most of the night paranoid I was going to spill coffee or curry on it


The girls in our beautiful Saris

Extended family

Trying to recreate the Benny Lava pose

Family picture with the Venkits

Food Coach!!! This guy was amazing, he made sure to pop up and explain the food every time something new was offered


Knockout - Strong Beer, and a sari, I'm classy

All of the younger crew were there again: Anoop, Sarah, Ani, Rishee, Rahul and us, and of course there were endless jokes about anoop’s height as always, and a Indian wobble head circle game where you had to pass on the Indian head wobble - If you don’t know what I’m talking about YouTube Indian head wobble. The next morning we were awakened to rahul telling us the saris we wore last night were presents from his mom, which is one of the nicest and most memory filled presents anyone has ever given me, and I’m pretty sure that it is now the most expensive garment I own. After breaky we went to laxmi road, the older and even more hectic (if that is even possible) part of town, and did some more shopping and got our henna done. In the evening we went to Verun’s Xmas concert, which was awesome and put us in the mood for Xmas, which none of us were felling before.

On the way home rahul made a stop at fantasy juice bar, an institution in Pune. From the way he was talking we were expecting to see a shinny restaurant, but instead its little tiny shack on the side of the road and you don’t even get out of the car. The smoothies were Derrricious, but I don’t really see how he and his friends could have hung out there during high school, I guess it would be like us hanging out in the Safeway parking lot.