Hare, Hare Krishna, Krishna!

This weekend I finally got to do something I've wanted to do for 2 years: the Holi Festival of Colors! YES! So I went with Rochelle, Harriet and their friends Lauren, Kelsi and Jared. First we had to park about a mile away and before we could even start walking there we had to walk down this crazy steep hill. Jared, Kelsi and I got down just fine, but it took another couple of minutes for the others to get down.

After a long walk we spotted the temple.

We could hear the awesome Indian music playing and as we walked up the hill we saw a large crowd of brightly colored people dancing near the stage. This is when I started getting REALLY excited. Like unnecessarily excited. We bought some colors and started to tour the Hindi temple. Inside there were people dancing to this live authentic Indian music. Obviously I had to join in. And I made Rochelle go with me.

Then we went down into the main crowd to prepare for the throwing of the colors. We walked through the crowd like unspotted lambs. On the way a young Indian man spotted us and decided to color us. He dipped his hand in his yellow powder and rubbed it along my cheek and neck. This may sound weird, but it felt like a blessing almost. And then we went on our way.

We spent the next few hours throwing colored powder on passerbys and at each other. When the true time came to throw the colors it was as if a huge dark cloud had covered the crowd. You couldn't breathe. And it was fabulous.

Did I mention that afterwards my hands were stained for many washings and my boogers were purple?