weekend in Michigan

Alex and I headed down to Michigan for Salim and Medha's wedding. The flights were completely full, but arrived on time for the weekend of festivities. It was a combination of Hindu and Lebanese christian wedding with 2 wedding ceremonies for each of the different cultures.

We started out Saturday night with the Sangeet. I was told the Indian wedding usually last a couple of days and the Sangeet is like the pre-game to the wedding. They had massive amounts of food and shows for the bride and groom. It was supposed to be a battle of the talents kind of thing between the bride and grooms side's guests, but seeing how 265 of the 300 guests were from Medha's side and the 35 from Salim's side didn't know what a Sangeet was or that we were competing, it wasn't much of a battle. Medha's family and friends did some traditional and non-traditional song and dance for the wedding couple and their friends made Salim and Medha masks as did an interpretive dance of their meeting/meeting the parents/ and proposal story. It was basically American idol, but Indian style.






The next day we bussed down to the Lebanese church and had a traditional Lebanese/European style wedding. White dress, preacher telling them to have kids and devote them to the church...etc...etc. The priest barely spoke English so sometimes his metaphors made no sense.


We then traveled back to the event center to have the Hindu wedding. It was very traditional and not in english so we had to ask Pooja (Garen's girlfriend) what was happening.






In short first the bride and groom exchange floral garlands. Next, the do some blessings and tie yellow thread around their wrists to protect them from misfortune. The father then gives his daughter to the groom and the bride and groom toss a bunch of stuff into a fire as a offering to the g-ds. The groom then ties a gold necklace around the bride's neck to represent his dedication to her and then they take seven steps, each of which represent a vow of some sort.


They do some more prayers and then we chuck a ton of rice at them. We then had dinner and a reception. Indian/Lebanese dancing involves a lot of jumping back and forth with you arms held out, zombie-style. All in all a great time and we got to see Garen, Melie, Jamie, and their respective others.






After returning to San Fran I started my drive back up to school with a person from Oakland as well. After driving 3 hours I decided to let the oher guy drive a little to get some rest, literally 1 minute later all the warning lights go on in the car, the odometer and speedometer drop to zero and the headlights start failing. We were luckily by a exit and pull into a gas station. The car is completely dead now and wont start. A kind couple heading north too give us a jump and while asking around on where a good mechanic is, 2 rednecks take a look at the car, tell us its the alternator and that they can fix it for $100 if I buy the parts.

I'm a little hesitant, but at 8pm in the middle of no-where I decide its my best shot. They drive me to an auto part store and I buy the $200 alternator. We drive to his house to pick up tools where his friends, all carrying bongs, come out to check out his new car. They keep telling me not to worry, that "they're good christians" and decide to keep my yap shut about being jewish. One of the guys was actually wearing a wig, and I am a little worried at this point about their capabilities.

They get to work and dont seem to really know what they are doing, but after an hour and a half, get the new alternator in place and the car running. I thank them and start the remaining 5 hours on our trip. When the car goes over 70 mph or hits a pot-hole it start making a weird noise, so I pull over and look at the belts and engine, they all still seem fine, but underneath the car some plastic protection sheeting was hanging low off of the car and the wind would catch it at high speeds and make weird noises. A couple hours down the road the other guy is driving and hits a small carrion (like a raccoon or something), it catches the hanging plastic and drags a bit under the car. We pull over again and I try to push the plastic up back into the car so it stop making noise or catching things. We finally make it back to Eugene at 4am 12 hours and $300 in repairs later (usually a 8 hr trip). I'm exhausted and I get home and there are dishes piled up, and the house smells like wet dog.....its good to be home. By the time I get things settled and go to bed its 5am, and a short 3 hours later I'm off to class.

Oye Vey.......