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India
Hi! I'm in India! I am on a home stay visit with one other American (Adam, my roommate) in Chennai here. The house we are staying at is very nice, and the lady of the house, Geeta, took us to a bookstore earlier and then to the beach. Now we wanted to use the internet cafe just around the corner from her and she is preparing dinner for us.
I'm still meeting new students every day. Today I met these two girls from Minnesota, Kate and Jamie. Today I also played Badminton in the hot Indian sun for about 15 minutes at the Sindhi College. Yesterday I went to Mamallapuram and saw amazing temples, Elephants, etc. carved straight out of stone. For example, imagine a boulder twice the size of our house, carved into faces, people, windows, and a granite palace. That is what I saw, and on the way back we stopped at a Crocodile farm for 40 cents and saw about 1000Crocodiles (one underwater tank held a croc that was easily nine feet long, and about five feet wide).
After the Crocodiles we were dropped off at the interport student's house (Reethika came on the ship in Tanzania, to be a guest speaker in classrooms, and answer questions students had about India as we sailed that way) and even though they were not expecting us they were so accommodating! Reethika's mother made us (Me, Lisa, and Corrin) some food and set us up with a reasonable rate for a rickshaw ride back home (70 rupees, about $1.50).
Driving in India is terrifying. The road is divided not necessarily by the yellow line in the middle but more so by an unofficial three inch space from the side of any given car. Cars, cows, rickshaws, bicycles, buses, motorcycles crowd the road at varied speeds, passing each other liberally and oftentimes into oncoming traffic (which yields the three inch space needed).
I'm learning a LOT about politics, the world, the US, international relations, global thought. I feel very informed and have a good foundation for being an upstanding citizen.
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Japan 1
In the past couple of days I have seen a volcano, hiked for a while, bought origami, and just loved the city here. It is so modern and clean and efficient (and expensive!).
I love traveling. I love to look something up in a tourist map and then somehow get there (walk, tram, trolley, bus, etc). Its like magic! This makes me want to explore my own city more and to help other tourists around Santa Barbara. Because helpful people around are like GOLD.
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