Well, we made it! We have been adjusting to this jet lag, new sleeping arrangements, and temperatures that are ranging from 80's during the night to 90's during the day! We finally had a free second to write our first post from India, but first need to back track a little to cover our eventful flight over here!
The bus trip from Iowa City left around noon on the 28th of December. Ryanne and I spent the trip eating rice cakes and watching "Pitch Perfect" (if you have not seen it yet, do it! such a great movie!). The trip through O'hare went very smooth and we realized we had close to 3 hours to wait for our flight once we met up with everyone and got our bags checked. We ended up spending some time at the airport bar for a beer before we went book shopping for our flight. We met a very nice young woman named Mariana from Sudan. She was on her way back home from studying in San Francisco and makes this trip one time a year. It was great finding a new friend to share the airport culture where everyone is either coming or going. We went book shopping after sharing a few laughs with our new friend and picked up two for the trip. Ryanne got Silver Lining's Playbook and I got a book from Baldacci. After the book store we strolled through the busy airport to find our gate.
Once we boarded the place, I was completely taken aback by how nice the seating and accommodations were. Every seat had a touch screen TV to use in the headrest in front of your seat, we were served two meals and countless different snacks (including Klondike bars and caramel popcorn), and the staff was extremely polite. After a 13 or so hour trip to Abu Dhabi, we boarded our connecting fling to Trivandrum and were walking off through customs in India about 5 hours after taking off.
Walking outside the airport was a very eyeopening experience in itself. There were people everywhere waiting on families to fly in or running around trying to hail a cab. After surviving all the chaos of outside the airport and getting to our hotel, it was time try to get settled into our new home for the next 3 weeks. Luckily we got to our hotel around 7 am and were just in time for breakfast! I had a small bowl of fresh fruit and some spicy chicken mixture of some sort with rice on top. It was a little different having a spicy chicken dish for breakfast, but it hit the spot after a long time of traveling living on airplane food.
We spent a couple hours this afternoon walking through some of the small outdoor shopping centers and stocking up on bottled water for hotel rooms. The exchange rate we have been seeing is around 2 cents per ruppee (India's currency). The only things I got today were 2 cans of diet coke and 5 bottled waters which ran me about 150 ruppees! Ive been to football games where bottler is about 5 bucks a piece!
After the long walk and attempting to stay awake until dinner at 7, Ryanne and I decided to take a little nap at 4 and ended up sleeping until 9 and missed dinner with the rest of our group (after being up from 24 plus hours). It is about 11 PM here right now and we are just watching the India news and getting ready to call it a night, our first night in India. We will begin posting pictures and keep you updated on our experiences as our class begins tomorrow and will actually be spending some clinical time in the hospital. Take care!!
Adam
My favorite Indian breakfast is Poori masala (kind of like a puffy crepe, usually served with a yellow sauce with potato). A dosa is always good too, any time of day. And be sure to try the idlis (the white rice patties). Getting hungry just thinking about South Indian breakfasts! Enjoy!
ReplyDelete