Travel High: Getting out There!

It's barely two weeks into my life in India and boy did I hit the ground running. My first week I didn't seem much more than my apartment and school as I was trying to make a classroom out of not very much at all and catch up on my severe case of jet lag. As the weekend rolled around I was feeling like I finally had recovered from the jet lag and well... that classroom was what it was going to be until I received more supplies.

Friday nights so far... well the two that I've been here for... seem to be teacher happy hour nights. Which is great! Like I mentioned before there aren't many places to drink, alcohol is only served at hotels. Conveniently enough there is a hotel within a 5 minute walk from my place... PERFECT!!! Some of us are going to check it out tomorrow evening. It's not supposed to be as nice as some of the other hotel bars but it's close and they have alcohol!

Last Friday I met up with some teachers and we went to a restaurant called Eden's. It was delicious, my first real taste of Indian food! I had this amazing coconut and cashew curry. But what was even more amazing was the cost of the meal! Ten dollars got me... are you ready for this... my delicious coconut and cashew curry, a bed of rice, 2 buttered naan (basically a buttered tortilla), a big bottle of water and a brownie sundae!

Naan

Coconut and Cashew Curry

After dinner we had quite an adventure. Eleven of us squeezed into an SUV of one of the teachers and traveled 30 minutes across town, in Indian traffic, which is not the smoothest or safest of rides, to a hotel bar. We met up with 15 or so more teachers and had a great time getting to know each other and for those of us who were new learning some insider information on how different things worked around town. About halfway through our evening a few of us girls found ourselves in the bathroom (yes we travel to the bathroom together, even/especially in India) chatting. When in walks two girls looking very NY, but of Indian decent... out of the blue one girl turns around, throws here hands up in the air and yells AMERICANS! I find myself giving one of those confused, probably not one of the most friendly, looks... for a split second I'm trying to figure out do I know this girl, is she being friendly, does she hate Americans, and then instantly she yells, I'M AMERICAN TOO! Haha, how cute and funny, well the long and short of it was this girls is 22, maybe 23, she came to India in September, after graduating from NYU to do some volunteer work before starting a career back in the US. Well she is not returning to the US now, she met a man here, fell in love, they were engaged by December, she went home for a month or so, came back and got married in May! Wow... talk about a whirlwind, she seemed happy and extremely friendly, took our numbers and said she'd be in touch. She was so excited to be around so many Americans especially when we told her that there were more of us :)

Saturday brought some adventures as well... another new teacher, Terry, and I went out and did some walking and exploring around our town Adyar, which is in the city of Chennai. Chennai is absolutely huge! We walked around to a few shops then made our way back to my apartment to catch a taxi we hired... 3 hours for $10, I know craziness! We went to a shopping mall (not quite what your picturing I'm sure) but nice enough and did some looking around. A lot of things had or were elephant patterned so I bought myself an elephant key chain and a small wristlet with an elephant imprint. I also bought a beautiful blue printed shawl, which I'm not using as a shawl but have placed over the back of my couch to add some color and decoration to the apartment.

After returning home I ventured out on my own to buy some groceries, about a 15-20 minute walk down the street to the store. I also have a wonderful fruit stand about a 2 minute walk from my place, which is another shocking price story. Eight bananas, one papaya, are you ready for this... 40 rupees (47 rupees = $1)!!!

Random sights on Saturday...