It's our second day here in Delhi, and there is so much to talk about. Unfortunately, I only have a half hour bought at this internet cafe and I used up most of it writing home.
So far, no elephants or camels. :( But some cows and tons of stray dogs.
The digs are alright and the food is awesome. I. Love. Chai.
Apparently we're spending New years at the Taj Mahal!
I have to go now, but needless to say I will have tons of pictures when I return.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Pre-Departure 1
So I was staring off into space yesterday, having recently finished my giant term paper, and it hit me that I'm leaving for India in exactly 2 weeks.
Ho.Ly.Crap.
It never really hit me how soon I was going, since last time I went abroad I had nearly the whole academic year to prepare - applied, got a passport, got accepted, applied for scholarships, went to meetings, filled out a host family form, etc., etc. I sure the fact that I was actually enrolled at a Spanish University was what required more time and paper work.
But this time... I seriously applied on a whim. I was in IB 102 of all places, and I was talking to the girl next to me about Portugués (look at me! I spell it the right [read: prenentious] way!). She whips out this pamphlet for UIUC courses abroad 'cause there's a Brazil program, and while I'm looking at it I realize - hey, there's Delhi.
So, being the sucker for this kind stuff that I am, I research the program, call my Dad to negotiate the finances, and once I got 'clearence from the tower', I applied online and waited. The fact that I'd already been abroad meant that a) I had a Passport and b) I had attended all the madatory pre-approval meetings, so the aplication was finished in like a day (which was good, since I applied like a week before the deadline). After waiting FOREVER I finally got accepted. So, in under a month, I went from not even thinking about going abroad again to spending wingter break in India.
Thursday when we met with Prof. Gandhi and he basically gave us the 'look, I'm kind of a big deal over there' talk (he put it much more modestly, of course) so we'd uphold our/the university's/the USA's/his reputation while gallivanting around Delhi. We also got the 'we might not go' talk, since the Mumbai shootings have put everyone on edge, and even though things are looking better over there and we're going to Delhi (800+ miles away) the University may have to cancel if the State Department issues a warning for India. Frownie face.
So I'm simultaneously freaking out about going and freaking out about not going. In the likely event that I go, I've figured to jump on the travel blog (tlog?) bandwagon and jot down my experiences. The impression is that we'll have semi-reliable internet access, and my primary communication back home is going to probably be Email, so my hope is this thing will actually get used and that it will be somewhat interesting.
Now I need just need to find a power adapter. Anybody? Indian power converter? Bueller?
- Allie (ऐली)
p.s. - I'm pretty sure I'm the only student going who knows Hindi. That said, I plan on annoying the crap out of every Indian I come across.
Ho.Ly.Crap.
It never really hit me how soon I was going, since last time I went abroad I had nearly the whole academic year to prepare - applied, got a passport, got accepted, applied for scholarships, went to meetings, filled out a host family form, etc., etc. I sure the fact that I was actually enrolled at a Spanish University was what required more time and paper work.
But this time... I seriously applied on a whim. I was in IB 102 of all places, and I was talking to the girl next to me about Portugués (look at me! I spell it the right [read: prenentious] way!). She whips out this pamphlet for UIUC courses abroad 'cause there's a Brazil program, and while I'm looking at it I realize - hey, there's Delhi.
So, being the sucker for this kind stuff that I am, I research the program, call my Dad to negotiate the finances, and once I got 'clearence from the tower', I applied online and waited. The fact that I'd already been abroad meant that a) I had a Passport and b) I had attended all the madatory pre-approval meetings, so the aplication was finished in like a day (which was good, since I applied like a week before the deadline). After waiting FOREVER I finally got accepted. So, in under a month, I went from not even thinking about going abroad again to spending wingter break in India.
Thursday when we met with Prof. Gandhi and he basically gave us the 'look, I'm kind of a big deal over there' talk (he put it much more modestly, of course) so we'd uphold our/the university's/the USA's/his reputation while gallivanting around Delhi. We also got the 'we might not go' talk, since the Mumbai shootings have put everyone on edge, and even though things are looking better over there and we're going to Delhi (800+ miles away) the University may have to cancel if the State Department issues a warning for India. Frownie face.
So I'm simultaneously freaking out about going and freaking out about not going. In the likely event that I go, I've figured to jump on the travel blog (tlog?) bandwagon and jot down my experiences. The impression is that we'll have semi-reliable internet access, and my primary communication back home is going to probably be Email, so my hope is this thing will actually get used and that it will be somewhat interesting.
Now I need just need to find a power adapter. Anybody? Indian power converter? Bueller?
- Allie (ऐली)
p.s. - I'm pretty sure I'm the only student going who knows Hindi. That said, I plan on annoying the crap out of every Indian I come across.
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