The first three days have been crazy!

I've got a lot of catching-up to do...

Flying over France!  Magnifique!

So after a good 20-24 hours of flying--it took 5 different planes to get here--I was exhausted and my brain was feeling more than a little addled.  I got in at 3:00am.  Getting into the country wasn't so bad.  Everyone spoke English, more or less, and my bags made it through the whole checking process intact.  The only real problem was that I had absolutely no way to contact anyone.  My phone, despite having been told that it would work once I got there, was completely useless.  And of course I couldn't access WiFi anywhere, because why would it be easy?  That's not fun!   After assessing that situation and taking out some money I decided that I would just go ahead and take a taxi to the University.  I knew what road it was on and what it was called, so I figured, what the Hell?  No point in waiting around, I might as well jump in head-first.

I went to the counter with all the taxi stands and asked around about getting a cab to Christ University.  Before I could get there, though, one of them saw where I was headed and told me to come with him.  He was very polite and soft-spoken, he showed me his business card and offered to carry my bags as he took me to the cab where the driver was waiting.  They drove me out a little bit, asked me where I was going, and showed me a little chart with fares for the different parts of town.  We figured out which one I needed and they wrote me out a receipt--so far so good.  It was at this point they asked me to pay them, and when I said that I didn't have enough money on hand they said it was fine, they'd take me to an ATM.  In my mind this meant that we'd find one when we got to my destination or we'd go back to the airport.  No.  They took me to a desolate, dark, dirty, side-alley hole in the wall ATM, the likes of which can only be seen in Doom.  As I watched a dead cat drawing flies in a corner I began thinking, oh shit, oh shit, I'm going to die or get robbed and ditched. 

I didn't take any pictures because I was a little too busy being overwhelmed, but this should give you an idea of what I'm talking about...

...except it wasn't that clean or well lit.

Or maybe like this...

When I got back in the cab I told them I wanted to go back to the airport.  I politely made up an excuse and offered to pay them for their trouble, but they insisted that it was all official and that they would take me to my destination safely.  Finally the driver told me that, as long as I could pay, we could use an ATM near the campus.  Relieved, I agreed and we started driving again.  In retrospect, I probably seemed pretty stupid, but between being fresh-off the 20 hour plane ride, a single white female, traveling alone, it being pitch black outside, not knowing where I was going or anything about where I was, and seeing my life flashing before my eyes in the ATM from Hell, I was a little on edge. 

At this point I started to pay more attention to my surroundings.  India is awesome--not like 'dude that's rad!' awesome, I mean awesome like a million hot dogs.  Everything is ten times bigger, more crowded, more pungent (or fragrant).  One minute you're smelling the foul odor of the piles of garbage littering the streets, the next you're overloaded by the scent of flowers and fruit.   I can't talk about it without sounding cheesy, but it was exhilarating; this is what traveling is all about! 

After getting lost for a while we finally got to the college at around 6:00am.  The campus was totally deserted.  Fortunately the sun had come up by that time, so I was feeling a little less nervous, but there were almost no people around.  So I wandered around for about an hour trying to find someone who spoke English and could tell me what time the college would open.  I finally found an old woman who told me that it opened at 9:00am, but people would be there around 8-8:30 who could help me.  I washed my hair in a bathroom and waited.  Eventually everything got sorted--I figured out where to go and found my fellow USAC peeps who were smarter than me and jumped on the group transport. 

That's all I can share right now.  I have to get up extra early tomorrow for a tour of Bangalore!  I'm sorry that this is taking so long to update, but from dawn 'til dusk we're out doing this and that and the internet connection has been horrible.  I've only been able to get on for a little bit at a time.  I'll try to get some more stuff cranked out tomorrow.  So far this only covers a small portion of the first day and I've been here for four days already.  Today (June 1st) was just a bunch of sitting around while I waited for my residency permit to go through, so nothing exciting there.

Love you nerds!

-Liz