Well I finally moved into my homestay. For all of you wondering what is going on, the first week in Dharamsala we stayed at the beautiful, comfortable Hotel Tibet, right near the center of town. The picture of Dharamsala was taken from the rooftop terrace they have. We went through our orientation sessions the first few days, just about where things were and a discussion on diseases and health etc. We also learned the Tibetan alphabet, from ka to a, including now vowels, suffixes, prefixes, post sufixes, subscribed and superscribed letters. It's a bit crazy but a lot of fun as we have three great teachers from Dharamsala teaching us: Chambala, Nymala and Pemala. la is a suffix that is used for respect for anyone, so for instance, I would be Peterla, which my amala (or mom) calls me. My family lives at the Men-Tsee Khang, or medical and astrological center. There abode consists of a main room with two beds, a shrine and a TV, and a second smaller room that is a kitchen and has a bed. The place is quite small, and they insist upon my sleeping in their main room alone while they stay at the babala's "apartment." I've tried to tell them I don't want them to do that but they insist, saying that it's easier, despite all of their clothing etc etc being where I sleep. Anyway the whole homestay in general is so far very awkward and not going well. Mainly just because they insist on retaining such formality, between the times when they are busy with my 5 year old "sister"and 3 yr old "brother". Because they're so busy with them, there is little time to actually talk or have fun and we still haven't really broken the ice. Another cultural difference that is just leaves me a bit uneasy, and this is true for other cultures in this area, that the men always eat first and the amala and kids eat later. My amala's sister also lives with us, but she speaks no english, so it's impossible to communicate with her beyond thanks and please. I've tried really hard to be laid back but it hasn't worked yet - the gift I brought them, a photo book of kentucky I made and some chocolates I think was met with ambivalence. Granted Tibetans don't open gifts until later but the book ended up being thrown around by the 3yr old and gnawed on - not quite the result I was hoping for. Annie is also having issues adjusting to her family so we've bonded with a bit of commiseration (though that sounds a bit dramatic). The walk up to the town from here is about 40min because it is such a steep hill. Jason, Becky, Tenzin and Abigail live near me so we have started a taxi pool in the mornings going up the hill to get to class on time. Otherwise, we've started classes about Tibet and field studies which is very interesting and I find myself not at all fazed by any of the work. It's all really fun for me in a way that no other classwork has ever been. Oh one other thing I wanted to mention about the home is that a few days ago I was sitting in a cafe studying my alphabet (this is while we were still staying at the hotel) and two monks sat down at the table next to me (sounds like the start of a joke right?) I realized they were studying english and so I sheepishly raised my tibetan letters up to show them. They invited me to their table and we laughed at each other's books in appreciation and eventually they invited me to their place. So I took them up on it, though I wasn't sure where this would lead me. We went up a very steep hill (what a surprise) and after many stairs came to their apartment complex, where a lot of monks live in a commune type of place. I went in and sat down. The room had three beds and a big shrine (well bigger than my home) and a separate bathroom area. Interesting because my home has only a communal bathroom. But the monks did not have their own kitchen. Nevertheless they were eating dinner, looked like some kind of vegetable soup and some bread, which they offered to me many times. I politely declined since a) I didn't know how it had been prepared and more importantly b) I didn't want to take from monks. So we talked a bit and I met some of their friends and had a good time. I realized that because they had recently come from Tibet, they knew chinese, so I was able to speak to them with the limited chinese I knew. Today is Ryan's birthday so I'm going to try and use it as an excuse to stay at the Hotel, as are a bunch of other people so we can have a party for the night of our day off, which are always tuesdays. One other thing, I bit the bullet and ditched my old cell phone, and got a new one that is unlocked - so now I can use whatever SIM card I want - AKA I can use it in most countries. There is more but it will have to wait until later.