Week 1 - Survived and...Enjoyed!!

So the last couple days have seen a pretty dramatic difference in my approach to India. The first two days I was pretty hesitant to leave my little “safe” area (i.e. the apartment and the small markets down the street). I was comfortable in the routine of going to work, sitting at my desk for 9 hours, and then coming home and hanging out in my room. Now I can say I’m much more adventurous and even comfortable enough to do things on my own.

I love love love my apartment and my housemates. The two girls that I live in are newly arrived in the last two days but are quite nice. Both are named Christine and one is from France and the other from Germany. But the housemates that I am closer with are in the other rooms. I’m not 100% sure how to spell a lot of their names but I’ll give it a go!

Sara- Italian girl that works at PAIRVI with me

Corrado – Italian boy that works at PAIRVI with me

Grete – Estonian girl that works in a show room that sells expensive draperies (she hates her job)

Ana – Portuguese girl that works in a hotel

Aliero – Venezuelan that is doing an international marketing internship that is very similar to the internship I did with the Dutch consulate

Claudia – Polish girl that (I think) is a hostess at a restaurant at a fancy hotel

Voitec – Polish guy visiting Claudia (another housemate). He is only around for another week before flying out on Sunday to return to Poland

I am closest with Voitec, Sara, Corrado, and Aliero. Yesterday Voitec and I went to the Akshardham Temple just outside of Delhi. It was absolutely beautiful. I don’t have any photos as no cameras were allowed but you can all google it. Its pretty spectacular. We didn’t get there til close to dark so we decided to stay and watch the fountain sight and sound show which was supposed to tell some spiritual story, but it was all in Hindi so we didn’t understand much. But the fountains and the light show were pretty cool

Today Sara, Corrado, Voitec, Ana, and two Polish boys from another apartment (Andrew and Michael) went to a big market and then to a garden/park nearby. It was beautiful and throughout the gardens there were these big, old temples that you could wander through.

Everyone is so easy to get along with and they all have really good sense of humor so things are pretty entertaining around here.

As for India, I’m loving it. I thought it was going to take me much longer to get accustomed to everything as its not exactly like Newton…but many of the things that everyone complains about I really like. I love the crazy driving and traffic, getting to and from work is like an amusement park ride; I love bargaining; I love the extreme contradictions of the country. You’ll see rows of tarps held up by wood sticks with poor families crouched below and behind them are billboards for Samsung, Canon, Vodafone, etc. Its like you have a crashing of two cultures and times which makes for some pretty interesting sights. The best thing about India is that there is always something to see. Not just in the sense of tourist attractions but there is so much going on that whenever we are driving somewhere I am just constantly looking around to see everything. Cows wandering the streets, dog gangs establishing their territories, rickshaw driving napping in their rickshaws in the middle of chaos..its all just insane and I love it.

I’m sure I’ll hit a low point soon where I miss the orderly and easy lifestyle of home, but for now I’m really enjoying myself!

Wednesday I’m going to Dharamshala with some of my housemates and we’ll return Sunday night. Hopefully I’ll have lots of updates and photos after that trip!