Day One… I LOVE INDIA!

Hello! Since I last posted we have had quite the adventure! My last post was from the Abu Dhabi  international airport where we boarded our flight to Dehli and arrived in India. Upon arriving in Dehli and securing all of our groups bags (they all made it!!!) we went outside to find our ride. One initial thing that surprised me at the Dehli airport was the amount of fog that was inside (the outside was even more foggy). The fog was so thick inside you literally could not always see full down hallways!

Once outside we ended up piling 27 students (our group and another group) into a very retro looking 1970’s orange interior bus which for a few moments we did not think would hold all of  us and our luggage… but it did! On our way to the hotel we could only see bits and pieces of India in the dark but those few glances  were enough to cause a stream of excitement which later prevented much needed sleep from occurring sooner.

It was about a 30 minute trip to our hotel in Gurgaon which we arrived at just past 6am local time. Once in our hotel room the sheer energy of excitement we had was too much to let us sleep right away. Instead we stayed up until 7am for breakfast at the hotel and had a very interesting surprise on our way to find food. While we were walking from our hotel room to the other side of the hotel we pass through an outside rooftop. Outside it was dark and foggy with the sun slowly rising and as I looked down from the roof I could see several large figures running across the street below to an open lot… which turned out to be a colony of wild pigs (which now we know are a common sight for where we are staying but at the time was certainly a surprise) there looked to be about 15-20 pigs and dozens of piglets nursing right below us! Being an animal lover my initial thought was that I wanted to snuggle one of the littles… however I think it is safe to assume these are not the snuggling type. As I am writing this I can hear them outside chatting (screeching) with one another haha.

After wolfing down our first Indian breakfast, which consisted of varying curries, naan, and mini omelets we headed back up to our room to try and get some sleep. Being incredibly jetlagged and our bodies screaming for sleep we ended up crashing around 7:45am and woke up to greet our first ‘full day’ in India later that afternoon (besides a few irritating stomach pains sleep was delicious)!

I have loads more to post about our first day including our introduction to the NGO we will be working with, IRRAD, and some funny/excited/terrifying experiences with driving in India, however I am going to have to call it a night and resume tomorrow so that I do not continue to feed into my jetlag. I promise to post more tomorrow!

Take Care!