One of the most interesting scenes I've witnessed over the past few days has been the construction work occurring near the lobby of our hostel. Shortly before we arrived, they had knocked down some walls to supposedly replace the area with two new bathrooms. Since we've been here, we've watched and listened to the clearing of the debris and the building of the new brick wall; all of which are done entirely by hand and without the use of electric tools. My favorite part is watching in amazement as young women and older men slowly and methodically move debris and bricks into and out of the lobby by balancing them on their heads. One woman had a stack of seven bricks on her head! The silent, methodical movement of these workers just stands out to me because of their drastic contrast to the hectic, noisy lifestyle of the city's street life.

Speaking of street life, I experienced my first auto rickshaw ride today and it was incredible. Some of my friends took some videos of our experiences this morning and I'm hoping they'll post them online so you can really experience it!

That's a rickshaw in front of our hostel.

Basically, we crammed three people (though locals cram many many more) into the back of one of the vehicles and hung on for our lives! First of all, Chennai has been my first experience with driving on the opposite side of the road as the US, which I'm just beginning to get adjusted to. Secondly, these rickshaw drivers (and all drivers here, actually) don't follow the lines on the streets (apparently they really just are there for “suggested routes” so you can keep track of whether or not you're driving straight), rarely use blinkers/lights to signal their movement or approach (instead they honk and use their hands to signal), only follow stoplights when it's incredibly busy during the day (and even then, many ignore this “rule”) and frequently come within inches (if not closer) of hitting things around them. Apparently this driving style is just accepted and the police don't really care. Although this sounds a bit ridiculous, I actually really enjoy this mode of transportation. It's cheap (bargaining is highly encouraged), easy to find (I think it's comparable to NYC and the amount of taxis), and a great way to take in the neighborhood. Plus, their speediness makes for some nice breezes!

The reason we used rickshaws today was to get out of the hostel and find some local clothes and cell phones for the SIM cards we've received from ICTPH (the organization we're working with for this class). Rumor has it we have pretty cheap international rates, so you may be receiving a phone call from me soon! Clothes shopping was such an experience. We went to a place called fabindia which I guess is a chain store with lots of clothing options and linens. I picked up a few kurtas (shirt/top/blouse) with varying sleeve length (I've heard that shoulder exposure leads Indian men to think you're a prostitute), scarves, a pair of salwars (which have endearingly been dubbed MC Hammer pants) and a pair of churidars (tighter-fighting pants, similar to leggings).

Alright, I'm cutting out - it's dinner time.

Hostel updates!

The number of students in our group has practically doubled overnight! We're up to 8 here in Chennai with 5 more soon to arrive!  With our first class starting Monday, everyone should get here within the next day or so.

In other good news, Megan and I finally got a new room at our hostel! The past two nights we've been crashing in our friends' rooms because we had some pretty massive cockroaches, one of which decided to live under one of our paper-thin mattresses and another seemed to permanently reside on the back of our bathroom door. Delicious. Anyway, we've officially been moved to the second floor, complete with a balcony  for drying laundry.

On a really random side note, one of the things I really enjoy about India (or maybe it's just at our hostel) is the electricity-saving approaches utilized. All of our electrical outlets, for example, have a switch that must be flipped to turn the electricity to the outlets on or off.  

Day 1 - Complete

Well, our first day here is almost complete! Though it wasn't too eventful, we accomplished a lot of "jet lag recovery" (aka, sleeping).  We also ventured out of our hostel building to check out the compound we're staying at.  After much discussion, we've decided that we're currently staying in a sort of dormitory for a business school, the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR).  The image below is not of our dorm, but the nicer-looking building in front of it, with a little courtyard....

...and a donkey statue!

Because of the hostel/dormitory's affiliation with the school, we've met a bunch of students from around the country who have been incredibly helpful in showing us where on the site we can buy snacks/soda and how to find the table tennis room.  Clearly it has been a productive day!

We also decided to explore a couple block radius around the school, where we found the best sight of the day:

Yes, that cow is not only tied up to a car, but is wearing some jester-like garb on its horns.  Awesome.


Time Zone Conversion

Before I forget, I thought I'd mention that we are 10.5 hours ahead of central standard time, which means if you're interested in video chatting and are pondering whether or not I'm awake, just subtract 1.5 hours from your time and then switch the time (e.g., right now it's about 11:30 AM, CST, whereas here it's 10 PM).

Arrived!

After a long journey (30 hours, give or take), Nancy, Megan, and I have arrived at our hostel in Chennai, India!  There were definitely some hiccups along the way and some interesting stories...

We were a little nervous we wouldn't even make our first flight (St. Louis to Chicago), as the entire state of Illinois was getting slammed with severe thunderstorms on Wednesday morning, but somehow we were only delayed 4 hours. Luckily our 8-hour layover at O'Hare gave us plenty of time to make our connection despite the  delays in St. Louis. Unfortunately, the inclement weather ended up causing a cancellation of another classmate's (Allison) flight, delaying her trek until the next day.
When the three of us boarded our plane to Brussels, Belgium, we were pretty excited that the plane was fairly empty (read: more space to spread out!!).  However, as soon as we got on the plane, the pilot came on the PA and said that we were going to wait an additional hour for some more passengers so we could fill up the plane a little more, which meant we didn't get to sprawl out.  Two-and-a-half hours later, we were on our way (7.5 hour flight). 

As we had only a two-hour layover in Brussels, we thought we might be stuck in Brussels for a night because of the delay in Chicago.  Somehow we made the last call for our plane from Brussels to Chennai (9.5 hrs), despite there supposedly being volcano ash in the London area. This last plane was pretty posh, with the sweet first-class pods and tv screens for every seat.  We were given two pretty delicious Indian meals and a Belgian ice cream bar!

Now here's where the story gets interesting (mom, I'd suggest you stop reading!)...  After making it through customs, we headed outside to find our taxi driver, where we were greeted by sooo many people.  Mind you, at this point, it was like 1:30 AM local time and CRAZY hot.  Unfortunately, there were some miscommunications and our pre-paid hired driver was not there to pick us up.  So, there we were: three American girls, stuck outside the airport in a foreign country with no means of communication, at 1:30 in the morning.  Luckily, we were approached by a college-aged student who had just gotten off an international flight and offered to let us use his parents' cell phone.  Megan, being the rockstar that she is, went with him to find his parents (we know - separation isn't the best of ideas, but we had a mountain of luggage that needed to be guarded).  However, the guy couldn't find his parents, so the two of them ended up convincing a local cab driver to let them borrow his cell phone.  Anyway, long story short, Megan called one of our instructors who came and picked us up (mad props to him, by the way, for leaving his wife and 21-month-old daughter at 2 AM to come pick us up) and brought us to our hostel.  On a side note, what they say about Chennai drivers is true: they are seriously crazy drivers.  Words can't even explain the drive we had on the way back, and our prof was being super careful/cautious!

Now onto our current living arrangements (don't worry, I'll post pictures soon)...

Let's just say that after more than a day of travel, we were already a little stressed and just wanted to take a quick shower and pass out.  We passed through the security gate to our hostel, unloaded the mountain of luggage, and signed in at the empty check-in desk, where we were given the keys to the massive padlocks on our doors.  We soon discovered that we had some additional roommates in our hostel room (e.g., fun geckos, less-than-fun giant cockroaches, and evidence of mice). We were very grateful, however, to discover that they supplied us with a few rolls of toilet paper! (For those of you who are not familiar with or are curious about Indian toilets, I suggest you google it!).  Plus, we have wireless internet access, air conditioning, and three meals per day!  And all of this for about 500 Rupees (i.e., about $11) per night.

Even though we all claim to be fairly low-maintenance, I'd be lying if I said we didn't have an initial freak out about our current living conditions. However, I think we're already adjusting fairly well... We've come to terms with the loud monkey calls outside our building, the stray cats/dogs, the lack of walls in common areas, and we even met some business (MBA) students who are staying in our buildling.  All-in-all, it's been an interesting first day/night.

More updates (and pics) to follow soon!

Today's temp: 102 Fahrenheit, heat index 112.