Checking in from India

After months of planning and filling out forms and anticipation, I’m finally here!  I flew in very late last night and managed to grab a few hours of sleep before breakfast this morning.  The food is amazing and I’m making a point to try everything that I’m offered.  Most of it is spicy, so I have no doubt that after this trip, I’ll be able to eat anything at home.

The drive from Mumbai was fascinating; there was so much to see.  The roads in the cities make drivers at home seem incredibly unskilled.  Lines are merely a suggestion, especially for the motorbikes, which fill in every empty space between cars, and there is a constant chorus of horns from every direction.  Pedestrians stroll across the busy intersections and streets, barely being missed by cars that go somewhere around 65 km/h (mi/h).  But despite all of that, the cars are mostly in better shape than I would have thought, and traffic barely sat beyond a couple of minutes.  There were a lot of concrete skeletons of buildings and older buildings with holes in the walls.  People lived above the shops that lined the street and washed their clothes in the dirty river that flowed through the city.  Once we got outside of Mumbai and New Bombay, we got into the countryside for a short time.  Even just the little that we saw was breathtaking.  Rolling green hills with waterfalls had houses tucked into the middle of rice fields.  We passed a valley that was covered in white mist so thick that all you could see was a wall of white.  Monkeys were crawling over the traffic barriers on the edge, being fed by all the people who were stopping and taking pictures.

The combination of jet lag and humidity has exhausted us all, even though we’ve done absolutely nothing today.  Most of us are just trying to hold out the couple hours that we have left until dinner at 8:00 and then we will happily crash until tomorrow.  Thankfully, almost nothing was planned for today except for the drive and a health briefing, which they wanted us to have as soon as possible.  Some of the girls watched Bride and Prejudice, so now we’re excited to go out and go shopping for clothes.  However, time is crawling now and my bed is looking more inviting every minute. (I’m now posting this at 11:30... I took a break from writing around 6:00 and I accidentally fell asleep. I slept through dinner so I did not succeed at all.)

Well, it’s been a long few days and I have an early start tomorrow with Church, so I’m turning in.  Goodnight from India!
*L*