Paravati Hill

This weekend’s highlight was on Sunday when we went to Paravati Hill. It is a hill that you can see all around town and has 108 slanting steps leading up to the top. All along the trek you have beautiful views of the city. A group of boys were playing cricket on the way up. Only when we reached the top were we able to appreciate the vastness of Pune. The city never ends! We literally could not see the end of it! At the top there were multiple, integrate Hindu temples. At the entrance you always have to take off your shoes

and leave them in the front. We were nervous about people taking a special liking to our foreign shoes so we stuffed them in our bag and headed in. The coolest temple (in my humble opinion) was one with a terrace on top where we could walk around and look down on the temple and out on the city. Very cool. The weather was perfect that day, a little cooler with a great breeze. We all pretended it was a Wisconsin fall day, and we even saw some leaves falling! There was also a very random museum that we checked out that had artifacts such as weapons, chariots, sporks, and paintings. It was eclectic and from a palace that had been there in the past. After touring the other two smaller temples, we headed down to try to find a snake park. On the way down we stopped to share the famous corn (same as the carnival) that added to the autumn feel.
We ended up not finding the snake park, though we eventually found the right road. There are no street signs anywhere. If we do happen upon a random street sign it is typically in Hindi, which in our case there minas well not be a sign at all. The neighborhoods we walked

through were fun and we even spotted another camel which is always fun. We eventually wondered back home and bought some fresh figs to try—absolutely delicious! Bonus: they were only 5 Rs for 2! (that’s roughly 10 cents)
The day before (Saturday) Mike and I attempted to have a date at a new park we wanted to check out. To make a long story short, the park was closed and to get 10 minutes in we’d have to buy the gateman a coffee. This park is supposed to be free so we refused. Our picnic ended up being on a slab of cement near the river. At least we had a show of bathing water buffalo. Not quite what we imagined, but we’re getting used to a change of plans here. Sometimes you don’t even want to expect something because that means it probably won’t work that way. But Mike put it well, our date was a success because we were together and eating a picnic. True, very true.