Beaten Up By Shopping

This morning I woke up early as usual (since I've been here I haven't been able to sleep for more than seven hours a night) around 7:00 a.m. I went out into the living room and my host mother asked me if I was hungry- I told her yes, and that I would like to have the cereal that I had gotten at the Nilgiri store a few days ago. After serving myself the cereal, my host mother handed me a cup filled with hot milk- I looked at it confused and she asked "you like your cereal with milk?" I nodded and she walked away. Well, I thought, I might as well try it. The hot milk made the cereal warm and soft, and it tasted a lot like oatmeal, which was OK with me!
After breakfast I got onto my computer to see if I could catch my family online, and after a little while I got lucky! I was soooooo glad that I got to talk with them! When I started out going after this goal of mine, I thought it would be easy to be away from home, but, the truth is that you don't realize how much you love what you had until you've lost it. I wanted so badly to get out of little Ashland, and I've been here only a full week and I'm already missing the peacefulness of that beautiful little town.
Surya's friend Piriryanga then came over to go shopping with me Mahesh and Pratheeba, and so I got ready to go- only to be told that we weren't leaving for a few hours......When we did finally go, it was definitely a new experience. Shopping in India is nothing like back home- first of all, there are hundreds of people in every store (like black friday almost!), and there are only a few sizes to choose from. Once you've found a size that works, an employee will show you a few styles of the same size so that you can choose. Once you've chosen, you give the things you want to the employee and they give you a receipt. You then go to a counter and pay for the things and they stamp your receipt, and then you finally go to another counter where behind there are shelves full of bags with numbers on them. You hand one of the employees your stamped receipt, and then they will hand you back your bag of clothes. I guess that the strategy of all of this may be good because it definitely kept people a little separated.
We shopped for about two hours, and I go a few Kurtas (knee-length shirts), a few longer shirts, and a pair of pants. The pants here are very Alladin style- they float out all over the place!
When everyone started to get hungry around 3:00 p.m. we decided to stop shopping and go to lunch. We were in a store with a few story's, and so we had to go down a few flights of stairs. Now, all of the flooring here is marble, and it is QUITE a bit dusty, so, when my shoe slipped on the stair, I took quite a tumble down on my back. Luckily I went feet first, or my few bruises could have been worse! It was so embarrassing! Already everyone stares at me all the time, and when that hapened I'm sure I turned bright red and the rest of the people in the store turned to stare at the klutzy American!
After lunch we ran a few errands for Mahesh and then returned home so that Pratheeba could pack up her things. Their bus to take them back home to Chennai cam at 7:45 p.m., and so Mahesh and I took Piriyanga home and then dropped the couple off at the bus station.
I am now getting ready for bed- it's 9:00 p.m. and my host family is having dinner, a meal that I am MUCH too tired and full for.
My camera died last night so I won't be able to upload any recent pictures any time soon, but I am searching for a converter that won't blow up all of my electronics! I hope everyone is well!