Holi Holi Holi

This past Sunday I woke up at 5am to get to the Airport and pick up Stan. Waiting in the terminal I realized it is the nicest thing to just sit and watch people, trail beaten, walk out of customs and be bombarded with hugs and kisses by friends and family. When Stan came out of the doors I pranced around a bit before running over and giving him a big hug and kiss. It’s so nice and also a bit surreal to have him here. He’s been hanging out with me for the past week.
When we got back to the appt on Sunday I made it a point to ice the poor fellow before he settled in to take his jetlag nap. I know it’s terrible but hearing that groan and resounding “FUCK YOU” was completely worth it.

I realized as Stan lay slumbering in my bed that Sunday is Holi, the Hindu festival of colors. For Holi, people basically throw colored powder and dye at each other as a way to cast away the grays of winter. While it doesn’t make much sense to do this in the southern hemisphere since we are slowly entering fall at the moment, the tradition remains strong within the Hindu community here. I quickly found a festival in New Lynn, rounded up Stan, Brittney and Navah and took a bus out to the soccer field it was being held in. We sat around, watched a few demonstrations by the local Hindu study group and were ushered out onto the field for some color slinging action. Holi by far is my favorite holiday. Anything that involves getting messy, mischief and silliness is bound to be a good time.

After the festival we got a bit hungry and after wandering around a bit by fate, again, we found yet another noodle canteen. Stan had his first box O’ noodles and was pretty satisfied. The sight of the four of us doused in colors chomping on noodles would have been a shot a photojournalist would have killed for. We took the bus home and Stan and I rested up before going to a get together at The Loft, the yoga studio by my house. We listened to a speaker, danced Hare Krishna for an hour and got full off of delicious Indian food. Mmmm.

Stan and I have been having quite a few adventures here and while I still have class, he’s been out and about exploring on his own too. It’s nice to have a familiar face here too. We’ve been cooking (and drinking) up a storm all week and ill be sad to see him go this weekend off to his first woofing post. We’ve gotten rained out of our plans to go to the Coromandel this weekend, but as I’ve learned from my level headed neighbors, there is always something else to do.