Elementary my dear Watson

Rows and rows of books on College Street

This weekend I went on a few of my site visits that I have to go to for my class. Before leaving for Kolkata I chose these 5 places and upon arriving, I have to visit them. This weekend I visited College Street, which was on my list, and Bowabazar, which was on Rachel's (my roommate's) list. After hopping the metro, we met up with Erik and proceeded to walk to College Street. College Street is literally a long street that is dotted with book stalls everywhere. Seeing as the Calcutta University is so close, many students go there to buy their books for classes. We walked down the street and many vendors started yelling at us to buy books, so we decided to go visit Bowabazar, which was nearby.

The chaos of Bowabazar

Bowabazar is the largest market in India, and the best word to describe it is...chaotic. There are people walking everywhere, men pushing carts, people walking with large packages on the tops of their heads, and lots of noise. We dodged through the crowds and decided to go into one of the interior "malls" (if they can be called that). Essentially it was rows and rows of tiny shops packed together and you could barely squeeze through the aisles. After meandering through we came to the conclusion that there was nothing in the area that we wanted to buy so we decided to get out of the crowded area rather quick. We walked for quite a ways and could not find the metro so we stopped to ask for directions. The police officer didn't speak English so we were lucky to find some younger teenagers who directed us to the nearest metro (which was actually quite far away). Essentially we had made a big loop but we found our way to the metro and hopped back on.

Erik is excited about the pipe he bought in India, so he is acting like a Sherlock Holmes wannabe

Seeing as Erik lives in Salt Lake, I have wanted to take him to South City mall (the mall close to our home is one of the biggest in Kolkata). Rachel, Erik, and I arrived at the mall and were starving so we grabbed some Subway, ice cream, and quesadillas (if you can call them quesadillas; I don't think Indians really know how to make Mexican food but seeing as Erik lives in L.A. and is Latino, he thought he would try them). We walked around the mall for awhile looking in to a few shops and then headed back to our house for tea and some delicious watermelon, and so Erik could see our apartment. Then I headed back to Salt Lake with Erik for the night to hang out with the guys and say goodbye to Erik's host brother, Antarin, who is teaching for a year in Ethiopia. It was a fun and tiring weekend, but it was worth it in the end.