Beginnings in Delhi

Hi Mom and Dad. If you aren't one of my parents…why are you reading this?

I will do my best to chronicle my adventure in India. For those of you who don’t know, India is a country in South Asia, the seventh largest country in the world! The official bird of India is the Peacock, and India is the birthplace of filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan. Now that we’re on the same page, I’ll get started.

International flights are great, except for their incredible duration. Each person gets a TV, with free movies, games, and TV. I played games (“Cave Crunch”, it’s the best. It’s Pac-man, but with a Caveman and wooly mammoths. When you flatten them with a club, the sound effect bubble is “PAF!” Confusing.), slept, didn’t read, and found time to watch Rise of the Planet of the Apes and X-men first class. For more information on these, visit my movie blog: http://www.facebook.com/groups/16500480913/

First impressions of Delhi: Smoggy, kind of stinky (the smog covers up most of the smell, so it just smells like bonfire all the time), and dirty. But that’s negative. It’s certainly been an eye-opening experience thus far. Our days in Delhi are spent touristing. We get an unbelievable amount of stares everywhere we go. I might not get used to that. Things we’ve seen thus far:

The Parliament house:

wowwwwww

Purana Qila:

coooooool

The Gate of India:

Neat!

The Lotus Temple:

This was actually really cool.

The Red Fort:

Really important in India

A wacky Indian-style market:

Lots of Temples: 

And very many other things, as you could have probably guessed. 

The market was when I finally felt like I was in India. It was extremely crowded, hundreds of people trying to push by each other, barefooted men in carts trying to get through, and motorcyclists honking their horns to let you know there are about to run you over. You’ll have to get out of their way, which means stepping in a pile of urine (everywhere is a bathroom. The word “bathroom” no longer has any meaning in this context) or knocking over a poor old lady. I saw maybe 50-100 jewelry shops in a one hundred meter stretch of alleyway. After our guide brought us through the maze of congested market, we turned the corner to see a snake charmer. FINALLY! I saw him playing music, but I missed the cobra dancing in front of him. Others got pictures of it though. Our director yelled at us to keep going and not take pictures; I think its because she spent all of last semester telling us that India is not just snake charmers and fortune tellers.

I’m excited to start living in India. I think it will be much different once I start school and settle in to Kolkata. Now that Delhi is done, we’re off for four days to Jaipur and Agra. That is all. Thank you for reading.