This was a big week for Thorntons everywhere who can now legally drink! My sister turned 21 in America (Happy B-day queen), and I had my first legal cocktail as well! Of course in basically all of Europe most people have cocktails with friends or parents even before 18, but as an American ordering that drink really felt illegal and I kept looking over my shoulder like somebody was going to come say “Hey, I know you can’t legally have that in America”. It was more for the experience than anything, and I learned something important: alcohol tastes bad. In my (albeit limited) experience, even when its watered down with juice and sugar it just kinda hurts. But I did feel quite cool with all my friends! Going into this trip I knew I would be allowed to but I told myself I probably wouldn’t because I would need to feel a lot of trust with the people I go out with to ensure that if anything happened, I would be able to get home safe with no issues. And honestly that might be the biggest part of this story, the people I am surrounded by are so incredible. I am learning so much not only through volunteering but also just talking to all these other people who have done such amazing things and travelled so much of the world. Being forced into living together makes you bond quickly and I really have come to love each and every one of them. Especially Bella, who I have spent the entire past five weeks with and who is leaving tomorrow :(. I will also miss my roomie Anna, thank you for helping me practice my terrible Spanish and understanding me most of the time!! Every week is such a new adventure with new people and new places, and that’s one of my favorite things about being out here, because each day is special and the next could be completely different.
This Saturday, I did a little bit of being a proper tourist, and had a day trip to the mountains to see some historical sites! I saw Bhangarh fort, which is supposedly the most haunted fort in India but all the really scary parts are closed to the public and they shut the gates at 6pm so I saw no proof. In the normal day light, it didn’t seem super haunted, but it was very cool to see an abandoned fort from the 11th century. Unlike a lot of India, it was preserved after it was abandoned because of the alleged haunting, people were too scared to go inside so it mostly remained intact until it was taken over as a tourist attraction by the Indian government. I wish I could have gone inside the lower levels of the fort, which used to be a prison that was cursed by a monk, but two tourists mysteriously died down there a few years ago so they sealed off all the entrances. I’m not sure if I believe that there are ghosts there, but I can appreciate how spooky it was. The other place I visited was called Chand Baori, or the Abheneri Stepwell, which I knew absolutely nothing about going into, but ended up being the even cooler of the two!! Stepwells are a really big deal in Rajasthan, as many of them were made here in the 8th and 9th century and it was how people would get their water for drinking in such a desert climate. The ancient people would literally scale down treacherously narrow paths to the bottom of a huge rain collecting well, fill their water and climb out. And Chand Baori is the largest and deepest stepwell in India. It was so large looking into it made me dizzy, and walking down some of the stairs I was convinced I was going to fall. There was a large meeting room about halfway down where the townspeople would hold their courts as it was cooler due to its position in the stepwell. It was so stunning and cool to experience and I will for sure have to go find more stepwells in Jaipur now, because apparently there are a lot in this state!! Huge shout out to Nutan for coming with me on that trip!
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