YOGA CAMP first week!

hellooooo friends!

Well, we've made it thru the first week and it was amazing! We're physically exhausted, but hanging in there because there is so much to learn each day.

This resort (I'm standing in the back of the resort, pool behind me) is like Las Vegas to me... man made lakes, 5 pools and a bunch of posers. There are ducks swimming around inside the lobby and they're LOUD and there are parrots in cages and they squawk so loud that it makes me jump. I don't much care for things that flutter, so these birds are on my radar. We've had Bikram teaching our afternoon classes and his wife, Rajashree, teaching our morning classes. She reads lovely things for us at the end of class, after we've shed another 5 pounds of water weight and are ready to blow thru the back doors. She proceeds to read beautiful heart felt poetry. Ahhhh... everything is a test, but it is so much fun. He keeps us up late at night, lecturing until midnight and then he throws in an indian movie with english subtitles and we have to stay awake and watch this Indian Musical that reminds me of Grease. Really entertaining. Until about 3 am and then I'm ready to hit someone. In the face. Hard.
You get it, Sally, right???

And then it's back up at the crack o dawn for more yoga. Yoga Yoga Yoga.

So I've met some real characters. Aussies, Canadians, Japanese, Germans, Swedes, my friend, Vivian, from China. I sat next to Vivian one day in lecture class and watched her translate dialogue on a piece of paper from broken English into Chinese. The lettering is beautiful. I like Vivian. She said she had to learn it in Chinese also so as to not disrespect her country. Can you imagine if we lived this way? We don't even know all the words to our national anthem. Vivian sits over here and thinks of the love she has for her country. Or maybe there's punishment involved for disrespecting. Like you lose a finger or something. I don't know... these things intrigue me.

Met an interesting man named Laszlo last night. He's from Hungary. He spent 4.5 years in an Australian jail for drug trafficing. This was several years ago. He's a motivational speaker now. And a HUGE Bikram fan. It has changed his life. He's wise and inspiring and excited and drug free and likes fresh juices and all the hippie stuff I like.
Don't get any ideas. NO HANKY PANKY at Camp Bikram. It's not allowed.

My other favorite friend is Mark from NYC, Brooklyn to be exact. He talks just like I would imagine an Italian New Yorker to talk. Oh My Gawd, I love it. Ashley and I had him over to our room for dinner tonight. I used my new rice steamer and made us brown rice, steamed carrots, broccoli and kale. Garbanzo beans mixed in the rice, too. Martha, send me recipe ideas. All I have is a rice steamer. =) Anyway, Mark is a Fireman in NYC. And we talk music (he loves the blues) and cooking (he cooks at the firehouse and I love these stories!!) Right now Ashley and Mark are imitating the way Bikram walks. Mark said he had a "pimp waddle" which I don't quite understand, but I like it.

Infact, I like it all. No sleep, scraping for meals, washing out wet, dirty yoga clothes twice a day, 100 degree desert heat, and lots of yoga love.

The weather is great, send money. Love you all.