Day 1: Airports and Arrivals

Just as a note: this blog is kind of going to be my way of filling people in on India for the next four months. Since I have a lot of people to keep in touch with but not a lot of ways to do it (without spending lots of money) this is how manage it. Also I want to have a record of everything that happens! Here we go: 

Technically I’ve been in India for a day. But it has been one very long day. Alexis, McKenna, Sarah and I arrived on Saturday morning. We were greeted by our professors with beautiful flower necklaces (they smelled amazing). Here we are drooping a little bit under their weight.

Then we drove from the airport to the house we will be living in for the rest of our stay. Driving in India leaves me scared for my life (just a little) but also fascinated. I’m fascinated because their driving seems so lawless yet after a while you start to see that they all know what they should be doing. It’s a controlled kind of chaos. They definitely have their honking down to a science. While we were driving we got to see a lot of the city. I can’t even describe it to you. There was way too much to see! But we saw a bit of everything—markets, slums, buildings being built, buildings being torn down, monasteries, convents, Hindu temples, street dogs, rickshaws loaded with more people, motorcycles everywhere, beautiful sari shops…. And I could go on for a while.

 I kept seeing street food stands and I felt so sad that I won’t be able to try those. It would almost be worth being sick because some of it looks so delicious.

When we got to the house the sweetest thing was waiting for us. The whole staff was out front ready to meet us and there was a banner to welcome the "Brigham Young University India Study Abroad Students”. It was nice to see that they were excited to meet us—even though most of them don’t speak English!

We spent the rest of the day getting set up. We got a tour of the house (which is so cool!!) There are three levels to this house. The first is made up of an entry room, a sitting room, a dining room, and a bedroom where Durga (our cook) stays with her family. Its very well taken care of. Oh and the food we have had so far has been amazing. We had some shrimp curry last night that was SO GOOD. It was spicy too—like most food in this area. I’m a fan. Even as I sit here waiting for breakfast I’m so excited to see what Durga decides to make! I’m going to ask her to teach me how to cook some stuff!

So far I feel great. I’m excited for this adventure. I think the only thing that is really hitting me hard right now is that I’m staying here for FOUR MONTHS! I think in my head I had been thinking of it as four weeks. Four months means washing from a bucket is going to become normal to me. Four months means I’ll get used to not being able to use the internet whenever I want. And means a whole lot of other things that I can't even predict :) YAY!

Stéf