Day 8 - 18th February

After our usual 6 stops on the metro, all 14 of us arrived at St. George's for a morning of teaching. We began in Class 3 where we saw many familiar, smiling faces. We taught them 'Count on me' by Bruno Mars and, judging by all of the giggles and smiles, they thoroughly enjoyed it. We moved on to Class 2 where we sang Bill Wither's 'Lean on me'. This again was a big hit with all of the kids who seemed to particularly enjoy the accompanying dance moves. After a quick break, we headed into Class 4. We once again sang 'Lean on me' with Suzanna and Siofra leading the way.

After a mouthwatering  Biryani cooked by the one and only Patrick, we made our way back to St. Mary's. Here we were joined by three of the Year 12 girls who gave us us beautiful Mehndis (Henna tattoos) We shared some cake, chatted and danced around the sitting room. I think that we can all agree that we are completely and utterly overshadowed on the dancing front but it was great fun nonetheless.

We played a few games of table tennis with Brother Ronnie where he out-shined us all with ease. After a few of us helped with the soup kitchen, we played a competitive game of basketball in the yard. Contrary to the usual train of events, Brother Ronnie's team lost by a long shot. We washed up, ate dinner and are now settling down for our second last reflection. The trip has absolutely flown by!
PS. A big thanks to Ms. O'Brien for the lovely message!

P.S. Finally managed to sell Ailbhe to a nice Indian man. Took quite a while but we managed to cut her loose with a surplus of 3000 rupees. Huge relief off our shoulders! @Bridget 1 down, 5 to go.

Day 7 - 17th February

Today was as action packed as ever - a tour of the public transport in Kolkata! 

However first of all, we were all up at the crack of dawn to go to mass in the Mother House. We managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 4:30am, and struggled onto the bus at 5 for the 45 minute trip, most of us spent asleep. The mass was really nice, and we all received two blessed medals from a lovely sister from Cork! After raiding the Mother Teresa shop beside the Mother Home, and then trekked onto the bus for the long trip home, which most of us again, spent deep asleep. As soon as we arrived home, we all collapsed into bed and conked for the next few hours, which was well needed! 

By around 12 most of us had woken up, and we had lunch at 1:30, and then left for our tour of Kolkata with Mr. Jim. First off, we had our daily, hectic walk to DumDum Metro Station, and took the metro 3 stops, where we were packed onto tuk tuks! These were such a laugh, and the ride down to the river was almost over too quickly!

Next order of business was to get on the ferry, which was a far more relaxing journey than the tuk tuks, it was really nice to get a view of the city from the river. We got off after crossing, and then headed to Howrah Station, the biggest train station in Kolkata. It has 29 platforms, and is used by 1 million people everyday coming in and out of the city. Although reserved tickets can be booked on the trains (3 months in advance!), it was heartbreaking to see how many people were crammed into each carriage, and so many were even hanging out the side of the doors! Mr. Jim also took us to some of the tunnels where Lion was filmed!

We then left the station, walked back over the bridge where Lisa got her fortune told...yet the fortune teller spoke all in Bengali, and so without a translator present, Lisa's fortune remains a mystery to us all. 

We got the bus to the Indian Coffee House, where a group of students started the resistance movement back in the 1940s which hasn't changed at all over the years, including the waiters uniforms! Unfortunately it didn't open until 5, so we got a another bus, and then a tram back to the coffee house to fill the time. We enjoyed a refreshing "cold coffee" there, which was packed with sugar! 

We left at around 5:45, and to our shock a pick-up truck was waiting outside to bring us to the train station! 13 of us squished into the back and enjoyed the short journey to Sealadh Station.

Finally, we got a suburban train back to Dum Dum, and despite how packed it was, the open doors meant there was a nice breeze. 

Although we had such a fun time on all these different modes of transport, it was heartbreaking to see the sheer amount of people begging, homeless, and having to live on the streets of Kolkata. It really reminded us all how lucky we to go home every night to food and a warm bed. 

Even though we had a really good weekend, we're all dying to return to St. George's for our last few days in Kolkata! 

Day 6 - 16th February

Today we got a well earned lie in after a busy couple of days teaching. In the morning we headed off on a bus tour around the city. Our first stop was to the Jain temple, a beautiful architectural masterpiece dating back centuries. We were told to take off our shoes and then entered the temple where we then were lucky enough to witness a Jain ritual take place. Next we took a few pictures in the luscious gardens and visited the gift shop which we raided before heading off to our next stop.

We visited the Marble Palace, an enormous house occupied by one family over six generations. We were given a tour around the grounds and even got to see the part of the interior!

We next visited the flower markets. We were all overwhelmed with the mass amounts of flowers to be seen that were spread all over the ground a little different from your average Sunday afternoon shop (right ladies?). We walked down towards the Hoogly river (a tributary of the Ganges) where we got a quick history lesson about the bridge that was before our eyes.

At this point we were all starving and ready for lunch so Nila (our tour guide) rushed us off to a restaurant where we were given another delicious variety of traditional Indian dishes including our first naan bread of the trip which was well worth the wait.

After lunch we headed off to the Victorian Memorial, a building dedicated to Queen Victoria built with both Indian and English influences. The art gallery inside was very interesting and we were a huge hit with the tourists for photos. We were amazed to see how popular the attraction was considering its English roots.

Our final destination of the day was a Birla Hindu temple, where we were blessed and given some sugar balls that were meant to pray with. The statues were beautiful and the views were breathtaking, all in all an educational and enjoyable Saturday in Kolkata!

Shoutout to all those who commented on the blog with special appreciation for our homies 5 gold rings,  1Alpha, Form 2, 2Alpha, Ms.Moiselle, Ms.Glynn and Fiona Drohan (our OG die hard fan).