Living the Jungle Book

From the train, we had a three hour drive to breakfast.  At first we were all dreading another long commute, until we learned that we had the privilege of looking at this for three hours.  I'm not sure if it's true, but someone mentioned that the Jungle Book movie set was based off of Kerala. I'd believe it.  Oddly enough, we found an astounding amount of things in India could be related to Disney movies.  With 18 american girls together, I know that's shocking.

And this

We stopped to have our first Indian breakfast, and all of our muscles hurt from sitting for so long, so we took a walk around and discovered that you can't go anywhere in Kerala without it being beautiful.  It was just mountains on hillsides on mountains covered in green, and the mountains were bigger than anything I could have imagined.  I think I still don't have my head wrapped around it.  If you've ever seen the Emperor's New Groove, one of the characters talks about the hill he lives on.  He says "when the sun hits the ridge just right, these hills sing." Well I don't think I have ever heard a truer statement.  I wish that pictures could capture it, but they don't.  These are the best I can do though!

 View from our breakfast restaurant

And then I did some bad yoga on a wall?

We then went to a spice plant/museum on the way to Kerala.  Jacob was really good about breaking up the long bus rides.  The spice plant was so so so cool.  We had an awesome tour guide that took us on a walk and could describe the harvestation (is that a word) and uses for each and every plant we saw.  I wanted to dig up every one and send it home to Sean so he could take it to McCormick and look impressive.  We saw rubber trees, and I realized I had a really skewed understanding of how rubber worked.  They basically tapped these trees like maple trees and had a little bowl at the end that collected white thick rubber.  It looked like Elmers glue, but definitely smelled like rubber.  I also saw a cocoa tree, which was really cool! I wish they had a pamphlet or something so I could record what everything did, because I figure that if these women have been using the plants as medicines for all this crazy stuff for thousands of years, they must be on to something.  And I could open an apothecary in the states?

Rubber tree tap!

Our ballin tour guide. He knew literally
everything there is to know about these plants

Cocoa plant! Literal Cocoa nuts hehe 

Apparently insulin comes from a plant?

We then went to a National Park in Kerala, after freshening up at the hotel.  Going to this national park was my first really weird experience of being white here.  We drove up to the entrance, and the line to get in was really long.  When we got out, Jacob just told us to walk up, and we did.  We probably skipped a 2 hour wait, just because of our skin color.  I don't think I'm ok with that, it's not like we did anything to deserve it.  It was just really uncomfortable.  Anyway, this hike was so cool.  

A view from the bus ride up

Well, the ride up was terrifying, because there were even narrower, windier roads.  

A view from the narrower, windier roads

Indians beep all the time, and for awhile we just thought it was for the hell of it.  But I realized they do it to announce themselves when they can't see what's coming around a bend.  So thats why horns were invented! Anyway, after the drive up we hiked up a little further.  

Just a nice, relaxing hike

They are dead serious about their national parks in India.  There kept being signs reminding you that the national park "is not for you alone" and to not disturb the animals.  At the top there was a chain that didn't let you go any further because native tribes still live on the top part of the mountain.  I really like that they aborigines them keep their land and protect their beautiful landscapes.  

You can't really read it, but this sign says:
Remove nothing from here except
Nourishment for the soul
Consolation for the heart
Inspiration for the mind

I know I keep saying it, but the view at the top was incredible (I need to get a thesaurus).  The mountains just went on and on, it's kind of hard to wrap my head around actually.  But I can't describe it as well as these pictures!

This is not real life

We're on a mountain!

I didn't think the view was THAT pretty.  Siiiiiike!

First Day in Bangalore and First Day in Kerala

We arrived to the apartments, after meeting up with Jacob, our USAC man, and getting out Rupees, the Indian currency, from the ATM.  A confusing process as is, but on almost two days without sleep, near impossible.

Some of our group, mostly dead, 

at the airport with Jacob, left

We actually got back to the apartments around 6am, which is about 7pm Baltimore time, so it wouldn't have been that bad had I not slept the night before.  A bunch of winter students were still in the apartments, so 10 of the girls were exiled to a temporary room, in which we decided it was a great idea not to take a nap and just stay up until 9 when we were supposed to meet Jacob again for the day.  Luckily, there were about 50 mattresses (the term used loosely) in the room, so we laid around Princess and the Pea style and deliriously chatted throughout the night.  This was also when I opened my suitcase for the first time and realized my brand new backpacking backpack was missing.  Sweet.  So with almost 48 hours straight of being awake, I promptly emergency emailed the skyped my parents and freaked out.  Personally, I'm pretty proud of myself for how I handled it in the state I was in, because as far as freak outs go it was pretty mild.  But after I talked to the rents and my mom told me she'd call the airline in the morning, I decided that if getting this backpack stolen was the worst thing that happened to me while I was in India, I'll make out preeeeetty well.

In the morning we had a very Indian breakfast of Au Bon Pain, then had an almost scavenger hunt of a small part of Bangalore.  Jacob would tell us where to meet and give us directions, then we'd walk as a group to the designated spot that he wanted to show us.

People drive their entire families around on Motorcycles. 

Even little kids look like badasses here

We were waiting for him when we experienced our first beggar.  It was a young woman who came up to us and just held out her hand, and Jacob had told us specifically not to give them money, because most times they just give it back to some boss type person.  It was so so hard.  Everyone was super uncomfortable and we all just wanted to give her money, because we had so much (especially in rupees: $1:50rupees)! When Jacob came up he asked her to leave, but it was my first real culture shock.  It made it harder because we don't speak the language and therefore couldn't communicate with her like a normal person.  I felt like I was very demeaning, but I had no clue what else to do!

We then went to the mall in Bangalore, which was pretty standard, and I got myself a new backpack for 5,000 rupees! Which is about $100, so it was a good deal.  Whoop whoop!  We then ate a delicious first Indian meal (really this time) at the mall.  Mall food in India is way better than Mall food in America.  Although I think we all had our eyes peeled for Auntie Anne's.

Look at dem sampler plates. With some lovely ladies!

We then had a few hours to pack and to ourselves.  I showered for the first time, and it is probably the most different thing here from the US.  You fill a bucket up with water and just use that.  The entire bathroom is the shower, there is no shower curtain or anything.  It's just a spout in the wall.  It's kind of fun and I realized how much extra water I waste in the US letting the water run the entire time I take a shower.  A lot of people didn't like it, but I didn't mind.

Then off to the train station it was! By this time we were all about falling asleep standing up and a few people had taken melatonin (it helps you sleep) before the bus ride to the train station.  Little did they know it was a half hour bus ride to the station, then a half hour wait until the train came.  I think it was good that we were so exhausted because the bunks in the train looked like little pieces of horizontal heaven.  I promptly boarded the train, got out my (well advised, props to Julia) travel liner, which is basically a sleeping bag made of sheets, and passed out for the next twelve hours

Prison cot or soft cloud of miracles? You decide

And Away I Go

I left from the Philadelphia airport, so naturally my parents and I left our house super early so I wouldn't be late.  Well apparently we were the only ones eager to go, because we arrived before the employees of the airlines were there to check bags.  I ended up being the first in line, which will probably never again happen in my life.  It was kind of nice having four hours to relax and prepare mentally for the trip.  There was  group of older people all flying on a trip together, and I was immediately reminded of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, if any of you have seen the movie.  

I had never seen a flight as empty as mine from Philly to Frankfurt, Germany.  I got 4 seats in a row to myself, which was awesome, but I was too wired to sleep at all.  Takeoff was when it really hit me that this was happening.  It's all been such a whirlwind until I had time to sit and think.  I really think everyone should go abroad for a while, and if you can't just tell everyone that you are, if for no other reason than to see how much the people in your life care about you.  The outpouring of love and support of all those around me was unreal.  So to my family, friends, and pretty much anyone I've come in contact with, thank you so much.  I would be 6 thousand times as nervous about going if it wasn't for your excitement and love you sent my way.  I just hope I can repay you one day when you go off on an adventure!

The view from my window during takeoff.  I wanted

   to print it for my moms art room because it was the 

  perfect example of ROY G BIV and monochromatics

I arrived at Frankfurt where I met up with some more USAC students.  In case you didn't know, USAC is the study abroad program I'm on.  Everyone was really nice, but you could tell most of us were dead from not having slept for a full day.  But we had another eleven hour flight ahead of us, which unfortunately was more crowded than the previous one.  I sat next to a grad student from Northwestern (holla Kate) who was going to an engineering convention in Bangalore.  Apparently there was a big one in which some Harvard fancy people were speaking and doing demonstrations, so that was cool to meet someone from the states.  Also, I refer to the US as the states now, which is kind of weird.  Also, Germany has incredibly beautiful people.  And everything in Europe I think is much cooler than America.  Including the bathroom signs:

Hello Hello

This is my first blog post and my first in my endeavor to actually record my life in some form, so be patient.  I just got back from a week-long study trip, so I am going to break it into separate blog posts so it's less intimidating!