Wow, Can I just say, Life has been crazy-fun-busy non-stopppppp!!! I should really blog more because I just thought of 3 things I want to tell you about without even trying to think about what has been going on over here! Wow, and it's only been what, 3 weeks since the last time! Oh, first things first though, I have been reading a new book and I love it... and highly recommend it! It's called The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari. If you are looking for a good read, this one is really fun to read and makes you see the world in a whole new way... it kinda gives you an eternal perspective. 
So, March 28th I went to the Festival of Colors. For those of you who have never heard of it, it is a Hindu custom that celebrates spring, commemorates various events in Hindu mythology and is time of disregarding social norms and indulging in general merrymaking. It was super fun! Before the festival Jared and I spent some time with his daughter, Aedyn, and I officially met his ex-wife... which was a teensy bit awkward. Anyway, so we got a late start but Jared and I met up with his sister, Catalina, and Ryan, Shane, and Brian. We drove until we saw the cars lined up on the street and then parked and walked for like half of forever until we got to the temple. When we first got there we watched a woman doing a dance... kinda like a belly dance but totally not... more of an interpretive dance. Anyway, I saw that a lot of the girls had these jewel things on their foreheads and I wanted one so I went to go find one. I was told that you could buy one in the temple, so I went in and the bottom floor of it was a gift shop with all kinds of fun things to buy. I got a dot thing and somehow I got lost from everybody else. 
They apparently went up to the second floor of the temple which was more decorative and had figurines and people dancing, and then from there they went down the staircase and into the crowd. A moment after I had stuck the little jewel to my forehead, and I had lost all of the group except for Ryan, we looked outside and people had started to throw the color a few minutes early. We ran outside and people were already pretty covered. We played a bit and got covered with green, yellow, pink, purple... and then began the countdown from 5. All of a sudden the crowd went crazy and colors were being thrown everywhere. It got thicker and thicker as I looked up at the sky the haze of color was so thick that the sun was dimmed as if it were behind clouds. It was a pink cloud that we were all inside and as I looked around you could see a stream of this color and then that stream up in the air as the bags were emptied by people in the crowd. I didn't buy any color, as it was sold out by the time 
I got there, but I didn't need to. There was plenty for everyone. Everyone was so excited and it was so much fun! Ryan and I eventually found ourselves at the bonfire in the middle, which has some kind of symbolism. It was kinda funny because as I was standing there, trying to gain a decent vantage point where I could look for the rest of our group, I looked around and I happened to see this guy, Dan, that I had dated briefly about 5 or 6 years ago! How crazy is that?! I'm in a crowd of 15,000 people in a different state and I fairly ran right into this guy... twice... and couldn't find my group for like a good 45 minutes at least! Ryan and I made our way through the throng of people and I got on his shoulders for a better view, which was fun, but useless, and then we danced and made merry on our own and came across several people I knew. 
Eventually we found Jared and Catalina and we went into the middle of the crowd. Now, it should be noted that this whole time there was a "concert" of sorts going on where music was played and the same chant was being said over and over with almost no variation. That might sound redundant, but it succeeded in making it so much fun because the entire crowd was constantly chanting along as the tempo and energy of the chant rose and relaxed. The chant goes like this: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. It is a prayer to God for taking away all the sorrows, pains and shortcomings of the chanter and provide him bliss and joy. I didn't know that at the time, but y'know, you can google anything these days.
It was not long before many people were crowd surfing and the crowd was tight, but everyone was happy. By that time the four of us were in the middle of the crowd, just in front of a "lift-off" point for crowd surfing. I decided I wanted to do it being that I never had before, so I took of my shoes (they were being thrown onto the roof of the pavillion) and was off! It was pretty fun, but kinda scary too because after going around for a bit, people started bouncing me rather than passing me smoothly.
After a minute or so of that I somehow found myself plopped flat on the ground. It knocked the wind out of me and, holy cow my back hurt like mad, so I'm laying there and this guy says urgently, "get up!" I could hardly even breathe but I reached out my hand and he snatched me up quickly just as the tight crowd filed right over where I had been. I was so close to being trampled! Jeepers! I sure do keep my angels busy! I thanked the guy for saving my life and then asked him to lift me up and send me back in the direction I had started from. I was back up and soon felt Jared and Ryan pulling me back down to safety. Today, a week later, it still hurts and some movements are rather incapacitating. So yeah, that was a one-time thing for me. We stayed in the middle, singing and dancing until the barrage of crowd surfers became tiring and then we moved toward the ouside of the crowd where we continued in our fun. The crowd started to thin as it got a little later but that just made it more fun with the added room. The crowd was able to dance more interactively doing circles with everyone interlocked by shoulders and train-type dancing through the crowd. It was such a blast and the energy there was high.
Catalina, Jared, and Ryan eventually got tired, but I wasn't ready yet, so I went to dance down in the front of the crowd by the singers until my feet were just too tired. Eventually we had it all out of our system and started back for the car.
When we were about halfway back to the car some of the guys we had been dancing near offered us a ride on the sides of their Exterra, so we jumped on, and they were pretty funny and cool guys. We got back to the car, got some food, and drove to Catalina's house to get cleaned up for the bonfire we were already late for. The bonfire was in celebration of Kenny's birthday earlier that week, but it is a whole 'nother story, which I'll just have to get to another time because... I'm kinda tired of typing for now :o)
So, March 28th I went to the Festival of Colors. For those of you who have never heard of it, it is a Hindu custom that celebrates spring, commemorates various events in Hindu mythology and is time of disregarding social norms and indulging in general merrymaking. It was super fun! Before the festival Jared and I spent some time with his daughter, Aedyn, and I officially met his ex-wife... which was a teensy bit awkward. Anyway, so we got a late start but Jared and I met up with his sister, Catalina, and Ryan, Shane, and Brian. We drove until we saw the cars lined up on the street and then parked and walked for like half of forever until we got to the temple. When we first got there we watched a woman doing a dance... kinda like a belly dance but totally not... more of an interpretive dance. Anyway, I saw that a lot of the girls had these jewel things on their foreheads and I wanted one so I went to go find one. I was told that you could buy one in the temple, so I went in and the bottom floor of it was a gift shop with all kinds of fun things to buy. I got a dot thing and somehow I got lost from everybody else. 
They apparently went up to the second floor of the temple which was more decorative and had figurines and people dancing, and then from there they went down the staircase and into the crowd. A moment after I had stuck the little jewel to my forehead, and I had lost all of the group except for Ryan, we looked outside and people had started to throw the color a few minutes early. We ran outside and people were already pretty covered. We played a bit and got covered with green, yellow, pink, purple... and then began the countdown from 5. All of a sudden the crowd went crazy and colors were being thrown everywhere. It got thicker and thicker as I looked up at the sky the haze of color was so thick that the sun was dimmed as if it were behind clouds. It was a pink cloud that we were all inside and as I looked around you could see a stream of this color and then that stream up in the air as the bags were emptied by people in the crowd. I didn't buy any color, as it was sold out by the time 
I got there, but I didn't need to. There was plenty for everyone. Everyone was so excited and it was so much fun! Ryan and I eventually found ourselves at the bonfire in the middle, which has some kind of symbolism. It was kinda funny because as I was standing there, trying to gain a decent vantage point where I could look for the rest of our group, I looked around and I happened to see this guy, Dan, that I had dated briefly about 5 or 6 years ago! How crazy is that?! I'm in a crowd of 15,000 people in a different state and I fairly ran right into this guy... twice... and couldn't find my group for like a good 45 minutes at least! Ryan and I made our way through the throng of people and I got on his shoulders for a better view, which was fun, but useless, and then we danced and made merry on our own and came across several people I knew. 
Eventually we found Jared and Catalina and we went into the middle of the crowd. Now, it should be noted that this whole time there was a "concert" of sorts going on where music was played and the same chant was being said over and over with almost no variation. That might sound redundant, but it succeeded in making it so much fun because the entire crowd was constantly chanting along as the tempo and energy of the chant rose and relaxed. The chant goes like this: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. It is a prayer to God for taking away all the sorrows, pains and shortcomings of the chanter and provide him bliss and joy. I didn't know that at the time, but y'know, you can google anything these days.It was not long before many people were crowd surfing and the crowd was tight, but everyone was happy. By that time the four of us were in the middle of the crowd, just in front of a "lift-off" point for crowd surfing. I decided I wanted to do it being that I never had before, so I took of my shoes (they were being thrown onto the roof of the pavillion) and was off! It was pretty fun, but kinda scary too because after going around for a bit, people started bouncing me rather than passing me smoothly.
After a minute or so of that I somehow found myself plopped flat on the ground. It knocked the wind out of me and, holy cow my back hurt like mad, so I'm laying there and this guy says urgently, "get up!" I could hardly even breathe but I reached out my hand and he snatched me up quickly just as the tight crowd filed right over where I had been. I was so close to being trampled! Jeepers! I sure do keep my angels busy! I thanked the guy for saving my life and then asked him to lift me up and send me back in the direction I had started from. I was back up and soon felt Jared and Ryan pulling me back down to safety. Today, a week later, it still hurts and some movements are rather incapacitating. So yeah, that was a one-time thing for me. We stayed in the middle, singing and dancing until the barrage of crowd surfers became tiring and then we moved toward the ouside of the crowd where we continued in our fun. The crowd started to thin as it got a little later but that just made it more fun with the added room. The crowd was able to dance more interactively doing circles with everyone interlocked by shoulders and train-type dancing through the crowd. It was such a blast and the energy there was high.Catalina, Jared, and Ryan eventually got tired, but I wasn't ready yet, so I went to dance down in the front of the crowd by the singers until my feet were just too tired. Eventually we had it all out of our system and started back for the car.
When we were about halfway back to the car some of the guys we had been dancing near offered us a ride on the sides of their Exterra, so we jumped on, and they were pretty funny and cool guys. We got back to the car, got some food, and drove to Catalina's house to get cleaned up for the bonfire we were already late for. The bonfire was in celebration of Kenny's birthday earlier that week, but it is a whole 'nother story, which I'll just have to get to another time because... I'm kinda tired of typing for now :o)
Great Blog babe I am glad that I am not the only non married non child person on here...haha
ReplyDeleteThat was fun wasn't it? We had our neices so we didn't stay long. They didn't enjoy being dirty too much! I LOVED it!
ReplyDeleteRyan & LeDawn
ryanandledawn.blogspot.com