Travel Plans and Frustrations

Hello friends-
8 people and I have planned a trip to Mumbai in two weeks, which I am really looking forward to, since I haven't gone anywhere since Goa. I never thought I would want to travel in such a large group, but I am pretty excited to be with a lot of people in such a large, bustling city.
Evan and I have been making a very conscious effort to run everyday, and have been getting better at sticking to it lately, as we're punishing ourselves for all the delicious food we've been eating here. We found out about a week ago that our cross country coach, Kelly Parsely, will no longer be with us, which was sad news to receive. It is also frustrating because Evan and I, as captains of the team (along with two others) next season, will not be able to be a part of the hiring/interview process when searching for a new coach in March.
Well, as you have probably concluded on your own due to the lack of pictures on my blog, the usb cord for my camera is still yet to come! I have opened a case on ebay, sent numerous messages to Tracy in Hong Kong, and still nothing has been determined as to the whereabouts of this darn cord. If I don't have the cord by this weekend, I'm just going to suck it up and splurge on the $40 cord from a real Sony store, instead of using the perfectly good (though seemingly nonexistent) $1 cord I had ordered over a month ago.
This past weekend we had another CIEE field trip, where we went to an ex child labor camp and played with adorable little girls for the whole of Saturday afternoon. The girls were fascinated by the digital camera, and amused themselves by taking pictures of us, as they were pretending to be photographers.
On Sunday, a few friends I and went to Charminar, where we were asked to pay rs100 to climb up the large mosque, while native Indians were only charged rs5; needless to say, we opted to save the climb for another day (or not at all), as the extra charge flustered us all. Instead, we got right to what we went there to do, and that was shop for bangles on the ever glorious Bangle Street. Bangle street is a dirty, rickety old street full of brightly lit stores, blinding passersby with their gemstone sparkles, reflecting off the mirrors behind the glass display cases which line the walls of each and every store. Choosing which store to shop in is arbitrary, as they carry all the same selection, UNLESS you're looking for beaded bangles, in which case, there are only a couple stores to shop at. Of course, my friends and I were looking for beaded bangles, so we had a Hell of a time searching store after store, asking for beaded bangles as they shoved distasteful bedazzled bangles, cuffs, necklaces, and tons of pearls in our faces. We eventually found the beaded bangles we were looking for, haggled them down from $2 to $1, hopped in a rickshaw and rode home.
Miss you all, talk to you soon.
Ryann