i'm alive!

this will probably be the longest post i write but first impressions deserve detail so here i go:

24+ hrs on a plane and 36+ hrs lost due to time zone transitions and i'm thoroughly exhausted. they served indian food on the second leg of my flight from amsterdam to mumbai and it made me happy for two reasons: 1st, it was the best plane food i'd had in a long time, and 2nd, i knew it was going to be the worst indian food i had while in india. about an hour before we arrived, the flight attendant announced that they would be going through the aisles spraying a chemical that would kill any bugs or pests we might be unintentionally bringing into the country. "We are told that this will not cause you any harm" i quickly locked myself in the bathroom.

i stepped out of the airport and it immediately started to pour - no, not pour, monsoon. i stared at the massive crowd of people holding signs and shoving each other for a moment before the man behind me pushed me forward into a gigantic puddle. Welcome to India.

(sidenote: i saw NOT A SINGLE PAIR of crocs, everyone was wearing leather sandals or flip flops -- i feel like an ass)

made it back with my guide nasir and went to my new apartment, where i met my apartment-mates (for now). matt is leaving next week, and both desree (my roommate), and peter is leaving in a month. matt and desree signed up for month long programs, and peter is finishing the last half of his two month program. apparently people come and go randomly b/c the program runs all year so hopefully someone else will show up in a month so i'm not here by myself.

the apartment is a basic two bedroom/two bathroom with a kitchen and a nice common room. apparently a woman comes and drops off meals three times a day. bathrooms are completely western, showers are only cold water.

i woke up in the morning to the sounds of extremely hard rain, shouting, and car horns and knew two things simultaneously: 1) this was not going to be a summer-camp style program, 2) this is going to be two of the hardest months of my life.

because of the monsoon our orientation was cancelled this morning b/c so many roads were flooded - but my roommates informed me that it's not usually raining this hard and that activities rarely get cancelled. matt also told me that he thinks we're visiting a music video set on monday or tuesday so i'm very excited about that

list of things i should have brought/forgot to bring:
1) batteries
2) an umbrella (i'm a fucking idiot)
3) more books - i finished one on the plane and only have three more, hopefully they'll hold me over until harry potter arrives
4) pictures - i'm already missing faces :(

also - taking the natl geographic all about the scary details of malaria to india during monsoon season was not the best idea. it was a horrible idea.

i'm excited for seeing what's in store...more after orientation etc in a few days -- i have internet in my apartment so i have no excuse for not posting regularly.

First Post

getting ready to leave and thought i'd write in the first post before i left --

i didn't really get nervous for leaving until about a day or so ago when i actually started to tackle packing, and then all of a sudden i was terrified -- i'm realizing now that israel probably would've been enough of an experience for my summer so i'm feeling a little over my head going into india but i know that it will bring nothing but good things and experiences so i'm trying to just focus on that and not how scared shitless i am for leaving. there's no real way to prepare for a trip like this (packing-wise or mentally) and i hate feeling unprepared.

i remember doing the ropes course at camp and the last obstacle was standing on this pole 25 ft up and being forced to jump to try and reach a ledge 10 ft away. It was basically impossible to reach teh ledge, but you were strapped into the ropes course system and they weren't going to let you die so it was as much about trying for the ledge (and failing) as it was about trusting the rope. i remember watching other people go before me and noticing that the longer they stood on top of the pole, contemplating the jump and staring at how far away the ground was the more likely they were to be paralyzed by fear and the less likely they were to jump. it was one of those "take a deep breath and just go" things - don't even think about all the possibilities for failure or fear or disaster, don't even think at all, just GO.

this is also one of those moments.