Thursday, July 17, 2008

Quotes

Thse are in no particular order. If we could plan it better, we would have ordered it by things that you might funny vs. things we will always find hilarious and no one else will get. But we didn't think that far ahead while we were thinking of them. Put these on your own blogs, Sarah and Alex.

“There goes the King! That guy owes me money!” Otsal, guest house owner.
We were having dinner outside with Otsal. For like two hours. He was very jovial, but was verbose. He mentioned he went to school with the queen of Ladakh. Later, a Bolero (SUV) drove by the restaurant, and the guy said the quote, offering to call the king back for us.

“Brad and Angelina came to this shop, and I didn’t know them. I just thought, yah! They take quite good care of their bodies.” Praveen, internet shop owner in Varanasi.
We couldn’t quote to do Praveen justice, but we wanted at least one quote from him. His trademark was to open his eyes wide and say “Yah!” He had lots of stories about his various customers throughout the years.

“I think some people think we Brahmins have an attitude.” Praveen. Who totally had an attitude.

“I wouldn’t be too proud of the United States.” Guen (goon?), the Belgian boy whom we grudgingly had allowed to sleep on the roof with us.
Funnier was when Sarah whispered to me under the blanket “That was rude!” We couldn’t stop giggling after that because he kept saying rude things until we made a point of going to sleep.

“Score one for America” Sarah.
Related to the above; we were on the roof, and it was raining. So Sarah and I both thought really hard to ourselves “Stop rain stop rain stop rain stop rain” and then it let up and stopped. We felt superior to our rude Belgian roofmate.

“Storm is a selfish bitch. That’s probably why they got Halle Berry to play her.” Sarah.
We realized that Storm, the X-Man, would do better to stop drought and famine with her powers, and leave the fighting to people with less transferable powers.

“That’s incorrect.” Carrie.
When a armrest of the seat in front of us fell backwards into our seat, Carrie stared for a moments, and then said this the first time. She continued to say it, for instance if a straw was faulty, or if anything ever went wrong or unexpectedly (which it did).

“I’m sorry. Would you like to punch me in the stomach?” Carrie.
Carrie had talked about how she likes to get her dad and brother to punch her in the stomach to build up muscle like Muhammed Ali did. But they never liked to do it, so she tried to trick them into it. In Varanasi, Alex was stressed out about a near-miss incident with two shifty looking guys who clearly were up to no good. Alex felt like he needed to be our protector, but he’d felt helpless and weird about it, so he was frustrated and pent up. Carrie made this offer, but Alex laughed and said “No, I’m trying to protect y’all, not punch you in the stomach.”

“Cover stealer!” Sarah.
Sarah whispered this very quietly into Alex’s ear in the middle of the night, waking him up, and making them both crack up hysterically in the middle of a sleepy night.

“That’s precious!” Sarah.
Quoted on Carrie’s blog.

“I did a photo session with the guy from the guest house kitchen. He wanted…he wanted them with his mobile phone in one hand, and waving with the other.” Sumit, semi-professional photographer.
Our friend who took fantastic pictures. Here is the actual picture, which we were excited to finally see. Sorry I can't figure out a way to put it in the post itself--something keeps backfiring.

“I think you just want to sit next to him, and it’s really starting to piss me off.” Alex.
Sarah doesn’t like when guys have a barbed wire tattoo around their arm. She and Alex were on the plane to Leh, and Alex was in the middle, with Sarah in the aisle, and a barbed-wire tattoo guy at the window. She kept offering Alex the aisle seat for his long legs, and he finally got irritated and said this quote deadpan to her, which made her laugh hysterically. Poor guy with the barbed-wire tattoo.

“Yes” The universal answer to any question you ask in India.
Is this made of solid gold? Does this cab go to Texas? All of these questions will conveniently be answered “yes!”

“Our people are the filthiest on earth!” Guy from a shop in Jodhpur.
Apparently, an OK way to start a conversation is to yell this to tourists across the road.

“What’s the point?” Travel agent.
In response to our talking about getting altitude sickness in Leh.

“Jesus is lord, Jesus is lord.” British tourist.
After visiting monasteries in Leh, she said she counteracted “all that” by repeating this phrase to herself.

“Great job” Sarah. About everything, usually sarcastically. As in, Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job.

“You can’t build up a tolerance to amoebas, dude!” Alex.
One of our classmates bragged he’d been building up a tolerance to the tap water—brushing his teeth with it, drinking a little teaspoon here and there.

“Those monkeys totally could have had their way with us.” Alex.
Quoted in Sarah’s blog.

“This is so awesome. India is so fucked up.” Alex
Quoted in Sarah’s blog.

“So elegant. So, so elegant!” our professor, snapping picture after picture with his disposable camera of everyone in their Indian suits.

“Deer garden? Like where they grow deer?” Carrie.

“Shit show.” Jenny.

“What the hell does that even mean?” Alex, about the above quote.

“Love thy neighbor, but not while driving.” “Be gentle on my curves.” Road signs in Leh.

“Full Full Full Masala” Battery ad in Varanasi.

“Exhibition cum Sale” Sign in Mussoorie, and a few other places. Gross!

“Do you think it’s like a fountain show?” Carrie, about above, at 6am.

“Educate yourself!” Forestry expert, asking if Carrie knew the origin of the word Hindu and Indus River.

“Your thank-yous are too heavy for us.” Sunny, our guilt-ridden scam artist.

“[I’m sorry I tried to scam you out of thousands, but] you didn’t even tell me happy birthday!” Sunny, contrite but confused about the concept.

“Did you have the sexes?” Some of our scam artists, and their odd turns-of-phrase.

“Whatcha doing?” A wide-eyed Sarah and Carrie, asking Shlomi, our Israeli seatmate at the airport, about what turned out to be a prayer cycle of some kind. It involved wrapping his arms with leather attached to boxes, and tying one on his forehead. Neither of us had ever, ever seen this.

“We can get by without toothpaste, right?” Sarah and Carrie, realizing neither of them had toothpaste or deodorant for 4 days.

“[Dani, a blonde girl] looks like an old man with her hair. And Sarah should wear more sunscreen so she won’t get more freckles. I like my skin color.” R, young and rude.

“It’s like everything I put in my mouth is the best thing I’ve ever tasted!” Carrie.
At the five star hotel dinner in Mussoorie.

“She’s clumsy.” Jenny.
Explaining why Sarah fell, in the manner of explaining that someone is mentally retarded.

“Do your have spare breakfast?” Security agent at the airport in Leh.
Turned out she was asking if we had spare batteries, which we couldn’t take on the plane. But breakfast made just as much sense to us at 5am.

“I didn’t know I could do that!” Alex.
After doing some amazing sand dune aerial roundoff. Pretty much sums up Alex.

“That’s some real man-on-man love there.” Sarah.
The men here don’t seem to have the homophobia we have in the states, maybe from not believing homosexuals exist. But they are very comfortable holding hands and riding four to a motorcycle and things. Sarah said this about a man sitting on another man’s lap.

3 comments:

Sumit said...

Thanks for linking my pic to your blog. I feel honoured to have contributed to your collection of quotes.
Do you mean you found others who had driven four on a motorbike?

Carrie said...

We saw a few others in Leh, actually--it made me jealous because I don't think I'd be that comfortable with anyone! But one guy was singing along to his ipod at the top of his lungs, so he must have been pretty comfortable.

I think I paraphrased you a little bit in the quote, but the picture speaks louder anyway.

Alex Domingo said...

Carrie, thank you for documenting all of these great moments! I just got to spend the last few minutes clenching my stomach with laughter :)