Kerala

So this weekend was Independence day for India.  (Happy birthday India!).  There are parades and students raise the flag at school in honor of India.  However, I was unable to watch this, as I was exploring the wild Tiger and Elephant reserve in Thekkady Kerala.

Let me begin from the beginning.  Two of the other fellows and I took off a day, making it a four day weekend.  We boarded the 18 hour overnight bus on Wednesday and arrived in Madurai, Tamilnadu around 10:30 in the morning.  My supervisor said that the temples were a must see, so we took a short 1 kilometer walk to Meenakshi temple.

Meenakshi Temple

No pictures allowed inside, but believe me when I say that it was huge.  After exploring the temple, we meandered our way to the bus stop and took the four our journey to Thekkady.  It was quite a lovely ride and the scenery was amazing.  We cruised slowly up the mountain and entered the small town around 7.  After checking into the hotel and taking a well deserved shower (mind you we had been on a bus for 18 hours and then ran around the city all day) we went to the Rose Garden cafe near by and had some delicious Kerala fish.  

In the morning, it was off the the reserve, where we met up with the Bangalore fellows (who were late because their driver got lost several times.)  We took a raft/ hiking trip and encountered a wild elephant mom and her baby.  Apparently, they will attack you if you wear bright colors.  Good think my only t-shirt was grey!

Before we could start our hike, we had to cross the river on this makeshift raft/bridge.

Tiger prints.  Didn't see a tiger though.  Our guide said he has only seen a tiger 5 times in his 12 years there, so our chances were pretty slim.

our rafts

Aman and I in a raft

other friends in another raft

beautiful scenery

a leech! We had to wear leech booties, and they came in handy!  Aman got the leech, not me.  I forgot how small they were.

elephant mommy and baby sighted!

After our raft safari we did an elephant ride.

selfie from the elephant

an elephant

view from elephant.  

Pictures of me on the elephant will come soon.  They were taken by other fellows so I need to wait till they post them on Facebook.

The next day we were off to Allepey, the backwaters of Kerala.  For the entire day we relaxed on a beautiful houseboat and lazily made our way around the rivers.  I even got a chance to steer!  The food was cooked by chefs on the boat, and again the fish was amazing.  It was nice to catch up with the Bangalore crowd, as well as meet some new friends.  

house boats and beautiful rivers

Unfortunately, Sunday morning came too soon, and we had to say goodbye to our friends.  We traveled for an hour by local bus to Cochin, a metropolitan city by the sea.  At Cochin, we visited the Dutch palace and briefly explore an area known as Jew town.  

We took a ferry to get to the main part of town.  Cochin was once ruled by the Portuguese, so their is a lot of influence in their buildings.  After the Portuguese they were captured by the Dutch and then finally the British.  Tough luck

beautiful canals

shaky picture, but the ruined house was very cool

Hyderabad has street dogs.  Cochin has street goats

and we past by some camels

We weren't able to get too far in, or visit the synagogue because we had to hop back on the bus for our long journey home.

The bus ride back did not go as smoothly as before.  We arrived three hours late, and they didn't tell us that we had to get off, so we hd to rush to get off the bus.  My friend left her jacket in all the hurry and my water bottle had slipped off my pack. :(  On top of that, the bus we had to transfer to didn't stop at the place that they said they would, so we were dropped off at a place that was farther away than we wanted.  Then we had troubles with the auto drivers trying to rip us off.  When I finally got to work I was pretty tired.  

However, I get tomorrow off because they're conducting a survey and everyone's required to be at home.  Recovery before my next adventure!

Pondicherry

Last weekend (the weekend of the 19th) one of the fellows from Hyderabad and I took the overnight bus to go meet up with the Bangalore fellows in Pondicherry.  For those of you who have read or watched Life of Pi, Pondicherry might sound a little familiar.  It's the setting of the entire first half of the book, a small costal town infused with French culture left over from it's colonial days.

It was awesome seeing the other fellows and catching up!

We also visited the nearby Auroville, which according to Wikipedia "is meant to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity.

So basically, it's a hippie town.

water vortex

The Matrimandir...the center and symbol of Auraville.  It looks slightly of Epcot...

Me hugging a Banyan tree, basically the best tree ever.

Local Hindu temple for Ganesh (we weren't allowed to take pictures inside)

One of the churches in Pondicherry

Watching the service being done in Hindi was really interesting

The ocean

The beach

It's great to be able to see more of India.  Hopefully more weekend trips will be to come....

First weeks at work

After a disappointing start, things began to look up when I started work.  I am working at Gray Matters, a school assessment company that wants to improve the affordable private school sector (and the education sector in general) through data-based assessment.  These assessments will not only provide schools with needed information that will help them improve their student's learning outcomes, but it will also create transparency in the sector that will help parents be informed decision makers as well as pressure surrounding schools to also increase in quality.

I was really impressed with Gray Matters quantitative approach that was based heavily in research.  Their passion was also infectious.  The first week was mostly orientation.  They really wanted all employees to have a deep understanding of the product, which was actually quite complicated and technical.  The first week of work is always the hardest for me, because I feel like I'm not really contributing anything.  Necessary, but still a little frustrating.  By the end of the week I was exhausted, but felt like things were looking up.  I liked my work, we were slowly getting the things we needed for the apartment, and my roommate and I cooked for the first time in India!

cutting vegetables....accidentally created India's flag

For the weekend we met up with the other fellows.  One of the fellows lives way out of town (and requires a 2 hour bus ride to get to our place). She stayed over for the weekend since it was so far away.

One of the fellow's coworker's friend (I know, he said she said) was getting married at the end of the weekend and was invited to the wedding.  Somehow, we were able to tag along.  (Apparently, weddings invitations are often handed out in this manner).  I was excited.  One week in and I was handed the opportunity to go to a wedding.  We arrived at 9ish (after getting all doled up in our fancy new salwar suits (traditional indian clothing).  There was so many people, and so much food!  Unfortunately for the groom and bride, they had to stand and take pictures with all of the guests, and weren't allowed to eat.  The actual ceremony, contrary to that in the US, actually began after everyone was fed.  Not surprisingly, a fair amount of people ate and then left before the ceremony started.  Around 1:30am (yes that's correct, 1 AM!) the ceremony finally began and lasted for an hour as the priest coached the bride and groom through the very complicated ceremony.  The ceremony was in Sanskrit, so the priest had to explain what he was saying in Hindi every two or three minutes.  Apparently it irked a lot of the guests because it extended the ceremony even further.  Around 2:30 the ceremony was over, but the wedding was scheduled to go on till around 3, even 5, with more ceremonies and rituals.  We decided we saw enough.  It was a long day.

were we invited?...kind of :)

 Exciting and extravagant! 

 The long procession of the groom

confetti!

On the second week of work I was assigned several big projects (including a social media campaign and market research), I shadowed one of my business development co-workers on some sales calls to several schools, and I did a lot of research.  I realized at this job, way more so than my past internship, there is a lot of sitting.  I know this is "the real world" and that's how things work, but I definitely felt antsy at the end of the day.  At least with school you sit down and study for 3 hours, and then you walk to the other end of campus and sit in another area and study for another 3 hours. You also have meetings and classes that you have to run to.  At work you sit for 3 hours, get up to the bathroom, come back and sit some more.  I thought school was sedentary, but "the real world" takes it to the next level.  Thankfully, I just bought a mat and will be doing regular exercises in order to work off some of this excess energy.

As the weekend came upon us, me and the other fellows started planning a tourist adventure.  We decided to go to Golconda Fort and Charminar, which is this huge watch tower structure surrounded by an even larger market place.

Golconda Fort

Charminar (view from the tower...I somehow forgot to take a picture of the actual structure.

Sunday was more laid back, but we decided to go visit the lake in the evening.  There was this huge buddha statue in the middle of the lake, and we took a boat over to go see it.  

Buddha!

Next weekend one of the fellows and I will be meeting up the Bangalore crowd in Pondicherry! It should be a fun weekend!  

New Adventures in India

For the third time, I've packed up my bags for the long term, said goodbye to America and headed off to another country and another adventure.  After China and England, the next logical choice would be India, of course.  And so within the last three months, and a long series of disappointments, successes, and surprises, I decided to work in India for six months.  Within this last month I graduated Dartmouth, traveled to New York, back home, back to New York and then to India.

Even before I reached India I got a taste of some of the craziness that awaited me.  Visa troubles abound!  After weeks of calling the visa application center at least once a day, getting ambitious answers, and fearing my visa would not be processed in time, my friend and I spent a total of 17 hours waiting at the India visa application center for my visa (my friend clocking in more hours than me).  Thankfully, I have an amazing friend who was willing to wait at the application center when I had to go home and picked up my visa after waiting for 8 hours (14 hours in total).

Another good friend kindly let me sleep at her place (since my plane from Durango to New York came in at midnight and my flight to India was not until 4:30 the next day).  We went into New York City together to meet up with my friend with the visa, enjoyed some dim sum, and then turned around to head back to the airport.

The flight to India, though extremely long was not too bad.  I enjoyed watching movies (one American and one Bollywood) slept a lot, and thought the food was much better than what was served on United.  After 20+ hours I arrived at the hotel in Bangalore where orientation was held.

The best part of orientation was getting to know the other fellows.  Unfortunately, most of them are based in Bangalore or Mumbai, but hopefully they'll be able to visit us in Hyderabad and perhaps I'll be able to visit them in Bangalore and Mumbai.

On Friday, we traveled to Hyderabad by sleeper train.  I was reminded of my travels in China.  By Saturday morning we had arrived at our new home.  It was pretty bare in terms of amenities.  Though we were given a stove, a dead-bug infested fridge, a bed (no bedding), a sofa and coffee table, we were missing basic necessities, including, but not limited to: everything else.  On top of that, though we were told that we would have someone who would show us around and help us get settled in with internet, buying stuff, etc. we were promptly left to fend for ourselves after our 'guide' got us breakfast (street food...probably not the smartest idea, but I haven't gotten sick yet, knock on wood).

Welcome to more unexpected surprises in India.  I was feeling a little overwhelmed, with a lackluster orientation, lackluster accommodations, and a fear that maybe this entire thing was a scam (I am not being paid to work and I actually had to pay the program I am with, IDEX) I took a shower and promptly took a nap.

After waking up, my roommate and I decided to explore.  We ate at McDonalds, (I had a Maharaja Mac burger), found a cafe with wifi, bought some basic things for the house and cleaning supplies.  When we returned we cleaned the house.  I was definitely feeling much better.  Cleaning is definitely therapeutic and can get you out of any funk.  On top of that, when I was at the cafe I was able to get in touch with my mentor at my host site and she invited me to dinner.

Mickey-D's, India style

At 7 my mentor picked me up and we ate at this wonderful South Indian restaurant.  She told me a little bit about Gray Matters India, the place I would be working at for the next 6 months.  I was pretty impressed with what she told me (I had looked up the organization online, but you get a better sense of the culture and what they do when you hear it from someone who works with them).  She also gave me a lot of advice on where to eat and how to get to places and where to go to visit.  By the time I got back to the apartment I was feeling much better about the next 6 months.

I remember my two-three first weeks at the orphanage in China and the amount of frustration and uncertainty I felt.  I remember not being able to shower for the first few days, being completely useless because the ayis wouldn't let me do anything in the baby room, and being the only English-speaker in what felt like a 10 mile radius.  At the time, I thought those next three months would be a complete waste of time.  Instead, they became probably the most important of my Dartmouth career and sparked my passion in social impact.

Comparatively, the set backs I've had so far in India have been minimal, and I'm sure that these next six months will be just as or even more transformative than my time in China.  Let the adventures begin!

The view from the rooftop of my apartment

Week One and Two in London

After departing Paris at 11:00pm in the evening, going through UK/France border control (it was intense, drug dogs and everything) boarding a ferry and crossing over, I finally landed in London at 7:30 in the morning on September 29th.  I walked to my hotel to pick up the luggage I had left and meandered my way over to the Hampden house, my residence for the next three months.

I don't have pictures....but I'm sure I'll take some eventually.  The girls got the flat in the basement, fully furnished with four bedrooms and three and a half baths for seven girls.  The first day I used to settle in, so I didn't do too much.  It's weird because moving to London didn't feel like I was in a different country, it just felt like I was in a new city.

The next day we had lunch with the entire FSP.  I found out we actually don't have class till Thursday, which left the entire week to do whatever we wanted.

On Tuesday the FSP went to the Shakespeare Globe Theater and watched Taming of the Shrew.

On Wednesday we took a campus tour

On Thursday we had our first class

On Saturday we went to Tate Modern and the London Eye and watched the sunset

Week 2:

We had our first week of class, and our first paper due.  Yay!!!! I'm taking War in the 21st Century, The European Union, and a class about Memory, War, and Nationalism.  

On Monday I got to go to Westminster Abby for free!! I watched the evening choir and got to tour the Abby without other tourists, just a group of LSE students.  It was amazing!

On the weekend we went on a scavenger hunt...and we won tickets to Selfridges Fashion Show + goodie bag.  Yay!

Versailles Pictures

As promised

Stirling, Edinburgh, London, Rome, and Paris...In 3that order (Part 2)

LONDON/ROME Day 4

The next morning was mostly us trying to get to the airport. By the end of the day, we were in Rome.  We spent the evening wandering around Trevi Fountain, and eating gelato.

Trevi fountain a night.  We found it, I thought it wasn't Trevi (for some reason I thought Trevi was the four rivers) so we went around looking for it only to come back. lol

ROME Day 5

We spent most of the day at Vatican City.  We went to St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museums.

The Pieta!!! Apparently some crazy Australian in the late 1990's attacked it and broke parts of it.  Now it's behind glass.

School of Athens!  My favourite Raphael!  

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the Sistine Chapel, but that didn't stop some people. -_-  People need to learn to respect sacred places.  Needless to say, the Sistine Chapel was amazing, and I wish I could have spent all day looking at the paintings (though my neck would probably hurt afterwards).

In the evening we went to the Piazza Venezia,Piazza del Popolo, and the Spanish steps.

 Piazza Venezia

 Spanish Steps

ROME Day 6

We woke up early so we could beat the line at to see the Roman Forum, the Palatino, and the Colosseum.  We even got to go on the lower floor of the Colosseum.  We also went to the Pantheon and Piazza Novona.  At night we wandered around Trevi Fountain again.

Arch of Titus at the Roman Forum!!

Colosseum!  We got to go to the lower levels and the third levels. 

Pantheon

The Four Rivers fountain.  For some reason I always thought it was bigger than in real life.  Still amazing though.

Rome was so amazing, because I finally got to put all my AP art history to use.  Seeing all of the ancient architecture and the amazing art was truly a once in a lifetime experience (that is unless I come back).

ROME/PARIS Day 7

Alas, it was time to leave Rome and head to Paris.  We woke up at 4 in the morning to go catch a bus to the airport. By 1pm, we were settled in Paris and off to the museum Rodin.  His most famous art is the thinker.  (He made many different copies of the thinker)

It started to rain, and we got soaked, so we headed back to where we were staying.

At 6pm it was still raining, but we headed off to the Eiffel tower because I had already booked tickets.  It was raining when we made it to the top, but it stopped after 30 minutes, giving us a chance to take some pictures. :)

We're at the tippy top.  Ah!  The beautiful Paris sunset.

Eiffel Tower all lit up

PARIS Day 8

The Louvre!!! One of the days I was most looking forward to. We spent the majority of the day there.  However afterwards we visited Saint Chapelle (one of my favorite cathedrals) and Notre Dame. 

The Famous Louvre Pyramid.  Designed by a Chinese-American artist, I. M. Pei.

 Victory of Samothrace! My favorite statue.  (I seem to have a lot of favorites.)

 Hmm...what's that behind us?  Let's get a closer look...

 Why, it's the Mona Lisa.  

 Saint Chapelle.  The beautiful blue ceilings with the little golden patterns make it look like the night sky, contrasting with the breathtakingly intricate stain glass.

Notre Dame. Unfortunately, we did not see the Hunchback. 

PARIS Day 9

It was the last day of our European adventure.  We decided to take it slow and relax for a bit, especially since we've been so busy for the past week.  We had a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower and just wandered around our area before Eric had to catch his plane back to the US.  I had lots of time before my night bus to London, so I went off to Versailles for one last tourist stop. 

Versailles pictures coming later...blogger doesn't want to load them.