We made it!

We made it after lots of traveling. Our 14 hour flight was more like 15 hours and we missed our connection in Dubai. They automatically rebooked us so we had 40 min to go through security and check in to our next flight. the next plane was waiting for us so we made it. We flew on an indian airline instead of arab emirates. we got lots of food on the flights, 2 meals and a snack on the long flight and an Indian meal on the india flight. It was good, they asked "vegetarian or non-veg." it's going to be pretty easy for me to eat vegetarian here. we also were told our bags wouldn't make the india flight. but i guess they decided to wait for the bags because we sat on the plane for 45 minutes. We were very happy to see our bags in India. I exchanged some money and we had a driver waiting for us outside the airport. It was a van that was a perfect size for the 7 of us. We will have the same Indian driver until may 18. we drove about 45 min to get to our hotel. we saw some interesting sights on the road, trucks stuffed full of chickens, rickshaws (like a motorcycle with seats in the back and a covered top), trucks with people sitting on the back, and lots of honking. it was 5:45 am so we saw the sunrise. People were out going to work already. I wasn't sure what the hotel was going to be like as we turned down an alley, but it is really nice. I'm sharing a room with one other student, there's AC, western toilets, and a flat screen tv!! There's also a rooftop pool that has an awesome view. People have been really nice so far, especially when they serve food.

At the hotel we were given a red dot on our foreheads and a fresh flower lei (not sure what the Indian word for it is). The traffic here is crazy! We had to try and cross the road and it is pretty scary. We met our travel agent Sapna and she gave us carved wooden cases with wooden toys in it. She is awesome! We stopped at an old palace and took some pictures. It was all wooden and carved. My favorite display was a carved wooden tiger attacking a British soldier that was an organ. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the displays, though. Then we went to a modern shopping area that had lots of American stores. The prices were decent but I'm not interested in American clothes while I'm in India. We looked at some cool and colorful sandals but my feet were too big for them! My ankles were really swollen after the flights so it looks kind of strange.

We went to a 5 star hotel for dinner and sat outside. It rained and so it was fairly cool. I am loving the food here! It was a buffet so there was tons of really good food to eat. We also saw lots of beautiful saris and younger people in some more modern, western clothes. There were also cows on the roads, which we thought we would see. I was surprised to see so many parks and trees around. Apparently Bangalore is the Garden City of India. There's also lots of trash on the ground, which is not surprising in a developing country.

View from our hotel

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Being greeted in the hotel

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