1st Sunay Off

So, unfortunately, here at Barli they are very very very strict.lol. One of their strict rules is that you can ONLY have sunday off. I wish they would be more flexible with this, but they won't. Anyways, sunday July 3rd was my first free day and a group of us decided to go to Ujjain which is a Hindu holy city. We piled into a car early in the morning and set off. In Ujjain we visited several Hindu temples and watch as our Hindu friend Astha participated in giving sacrifices. It was really nice to see just how religious the Hindus were. Astha told me there are over 36 thousand or million (I can't remember lol) Hindu deities. I can't imagine worshiping that many gods! All of the temples were beautiful though, and very unique. I could tell that Astha was proud to introduce us to her religion and happy that us foreigners would be interested to learn. On top of going to temples, we also got to go to palace ruins and an observatory. The palace ruins were very small and made out of stone. However, it was a water palace so there was this awesome water area in front of the palace. We went to explore, and thats where we met a BUNCH of Indian kids! ahhhh! I liked that so much. hahaha. They were so adorable and LOVE having their picture taken, and so did their parents!lol. We stayed with them for a while as they followed us around yelling "Didi!" (which means sister) and posing for another photo. I felt bad leaving, but we had to. From then on, everywhere we went I mad friends with the little street kids. At first they would yell at you begging for money, but after they realize you wouldn't give any, they became curious about us foreigners. You see, the area I am staying at is not a tourist destination, so we are probably the first foreign people almost anyone has ever seen. This leads to us being stared at, people yelling at us, people trying to touch us, everyone wanting pictures of or with us, and person after person asking where we are from. Oh, and they are sooooo proud if they can communicate even a little bit with us in english. Yeah, I felt like a celebrity! haha. Along with the palace and the temples, we stopped off at an observatory. Its this place where they tell time, the date, and other such things from the way in which stones are set up. It was really interesting, but by this time I was already exhausted.lol. Eventually we made it back, ate at sunfoods, then came back to barli. Overall it was a great first day off!