Welcome to India!

Well, we made it here in one piece! I was so grateful that the majority of our group met up before the Newark-Delhi flight; it made the 3 hr layover much better to have people to hang out with so I didn't just sit there stressing, haha.

The 15hr flight went smoothly and didn't seem to last forever thanks to various modes of entertainment (watching the three Bourne movies and then continuing my listening of the 7th Harry Potter book). And I was on an aisle, so I could get up and down whenever I needed to - which was often, since I was able to doze maybe a total of an hour and a half the entire time. The man next to me lives in Delhi and had been in the US for business meetings for a few weeks, so we had a very nice chat about India. He told me that the two biggest things that would blow my mind would be 1) the temperature, and 2) the traffic! I'll get back to that in a minute. There were SO many small children and babies on the plane. I especially loved the bulk head seats that had little basinets on the wall in front of them - precious! I tried some new foods to go ahead and get the ball rolling with that aspect of the adventure. My favorite was Mango Shrikhand. It was a bright orange pudding/yogurt type food, the ingredients of which are: yogurt, sugar, mango pieces, mango pulp, mango essence (this intrigued me), saffron, cardamon, nutmeg, almonds & pistachios. There were some chunks of stuff that I picked around because I didn't like the texture, but other than that, I thought it was pretty delicious :)

We landed, found one another, and ventured off to stand in line to turn our entrance forms in, get the bags some people had checked (everyone's arrived!), passed through customs with ease since no one was declaring anything, and then found Prof Mason. Catherine and I had a semi-stressful experience trying to work the ATM, starting with it not taking my card for a couple minutes and then me letting out a ridiculous squeak when it ate my card (because I had been fighting with it for so long and because I'm not used to machines that aren't just me swiping the card). Prof Mason had 3 vans lined up to bring us to the Residence. And with this drive I was introduced to Indian traffic and driving :-\ Now disclaimer: I am prone to motion sickness normally. This week at home, I think because of the bronchitis, I have been easily motion sick when riding around town, so I had a store of starlight mints (seriously, they're amazing for settling stomachs!) in my bag because my Mom is wonderful and bought me some before I left. It became apparent to me that I needed one very shortly into my drive. I was hoping that the combination of that, keeping my eyes closed, and resting my head in the AC blast zone would be enough to make me feel alright like it usually is. Alas, that was not the case. Probably the combination of so many things going on with my body - exhaustion, motion sickness, bronchitis, new foods, etc - I spent a little quality time with the plastic bag that I luckily had at my disposal. Bleck. Not my ideal way to spend my first drive through India, but I'll actually look around at the surroundings some other time.

We're settling into our rooms at the IES Residence after meeting with Himanshu, our "house father" figure, and talking briefly about the basics of staying here. Real orientation starts tomorrow at 10am. Since it is almost midnight here, I guess it works out that I didn't sleep on the plane and am therefore really tired...hopefully it will help my body adjust quicker to the time change. We shall see. Off to bed soon and then it's India 101 tomorrow! :)