Christmas Day in Jaipur was a lot of fun! Its funny, I was thinking I would feel sad missing out on the the whole holiday season and presents and shopping and everything, but honestly it has barely even registered - I don't really feel like I have missed out on anything. It's sort of refreshing to know that while I totally enjoy the crazy materialistic madness that descends every November, I also do just fine without it. But despite being far from home, we had a great day today! We woke up and exchanged some small gifts in the morning - I gave mom a silk scarf I bought her in Kovalam and gave Matt a t-shirt from the ashram. Mom gave us some Cadbury's Roses from the UK (our fave). Matt gave mom an armadillo wearing a santa hat christmas tree ornament that we bought in Texas earlier this year, and he gave me the best present of all - spa treatments at our hotel in Dubai - I have been so dirty and buggy and gross for the past 5 weeks that to be cleaned and pampered for a couple of hours is going to be absolutly amazing.
After gifts we ate breakfast on the lawn of our hotel, which is a sweet little oasis of calm and pretty in the middle of crazy, dusty, noisy Jaipur. Then we headed to the old city in the middle of Jaipur for some shopping and siteseeing - we saw the Hawa Mahal - part of the palace where the 
muslim wives could sit behind screens and watch festivities without appearing in public, bought lots of beautiful things which I won't list because they are mostly Christmas presents for other people, and then went to another astrological park thing (very hard to explain, you'll have to see the pictures) and another palace. Then we walked around the old part of Jaipur for a while which was quite an experience and then we headed back to the hotel to clean up for our fancy Christmas Dinner. 
muslim wives could sit behind screens and watch festivities without appearing in public, bought lots of beautiful things which I won't list because they are mostly Christmas presents for other people, and then went to another astrological park thing (very hard to explain, you'll have to see the pictures) and another palace. Then we walked around the old part of Jaipur for a while which was quite an experience and then we headed back to the hotel to clean up for our fancy Christmas Dinner. 
We made a booking for dinner at a hotel that used to be a maharaja palace - it was stunning... dinner was good, and we felt totally fancy. Plus I had my first glass (or two) of wine in the past 6 weeks so that was fun too... all in all a wonderful holiday.
Hope you all had a great Christmas as well. We'll see you soon!
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