Missed Practice, did attend a wedding!

It was very sad but it happened... Saraswati took Monday off this week and told us that today (Sunday) will be our 'makeup' day. Of course Sunday to me is my day off and I didn't even remember the class until the afternoon.

I was invited to a wedding by a friend (who was invited by an Indian friend of hers). She was told to arrive around 9:30am, so not knowing if we would be served breakfast or not, we went to Gokul Chats. There I ate two servings of Upma (they were really small scoops) and Idli (giant sized 3 times bigger than normal and there were two of them!) (by the way, Idli over here tastes good (I didn't care for it much in USA) with the side masala thing they serve with it). Since I only shared the Idli I was still hungry but didn't want to eat anything else here.
The morning was cold, we went by scooter to the wedding... on the way we stopped off at Metropoll Hotel (spelling?) for a second breakfast. Metropoll charges about 100 rupees for a buffet breakfast (including coffee) so we both dived in... yummy, very very yummy... now I was full...

We arrived at the wedding a bit late, there were what seemed like hundreds of people... As we arrived we were greeted and thanked over and over again for coming to the wedding. We were shown the breakfast hall (oh no!!!) where we were served the most delicious vegetarian breakfast Thali? (is it still considered a Thali? What does Thali mean?). Each place setting on the table had a large banana leaf, which was rinsed off with water. Item after item was served and re-served until we could barely walk (I did tell them to stop as soon as politely possible).
We were also served delicious chai. So between the chai and the coffee I consumed earlier, my diet was done for (atleast for today).

It was interesting to watch the banana leaf's being cut on the floor outside the dining room. There was a huge pile of leaves there with a man on the floor cutting away (I made a mental note to take a picture later, but later the man had finished and left, and there wasn't much of the banana leaf left, so no photo).

We were escorted from the breakfast table (which became the lunch table only two hours later) to the function room where we were shown to the front of the room; two chairs were placed just to the side of the wedding party and we were again thanked for coming and asked to sit down. Whenever we left the seats I observed that noone took them, they were either empty, or offered once again to us as we returned.

We didn't know exactly what was happening during the wedding (though I was told somethings and worked out some others). The most interesting thing is that we were almost surrounded by people asking us our names and where we are from: So much so that I felt the focus was too much on us and not on the wedding. Many people were personally introduced to us and then for a bit we were left along (not totally, people were observing us etc). We were told we could walk onto the 'stage' and take pictures (so long as we removed our shoes), but we didn't.

All I could think about was how full my belly was and that lunch was to be served very soon... People were continually coming and going to the dining room and we were asked if we wanted to eat lunch now (it was about 11:45am) or an hour later. We said we would like to eat now (as we agreed we would leave at 1pm). With our full bellies we were once again escorted to the dining room and shown our chair (the tables were long, well I have a picture I will post soon and you can see).
Once again we saw the banana leaves and were served masses of food (some ladled with a spoon, some ladled with hands!). Oh the other thing is there were no spoons or forks to eat with, so for the first time I had to eat with my hands (I really don't like to especially in India because I never feel my hands are clean enough). Using the left hand is off limits, so eat we did. More and more food was offered, and all we could do was say no thank you (I wish I was hungry, the food was excellent (did I already say that?)

After lunch we were escorted back to the wedding.

We were escorted to the front of the room to have our pictures taken with the happy couple (who didn't actually look that happy)...

We stayed a bit and then made for our exit. Well not that simple... We said goodbye to the host, who then grabbed our hands (pretty much anyway) and walked us to a room where we received blessings (atleast I am pretty sure that's what it was about). We then were given sweets and escorted to the door. The host didn't return to the wedding until we had left.

For dinner I ate two apples....