in india!

i finally made it to delhi. after traveling for a little over 24 hours, jojo and i landed in delhi without any complications at all. the flights were all on time, and british airways was a MUCH better choice for an airline than air india, which is how i flew last time i came here.

anyway, after going through immigration, we found out that jojo's luggage was still sitting in london. after a long, confusing hour which involved jojo running back and forth between different officials (fill out a form here, get it stamped over there, bring it back here, fill out another form there, etc.), and me sitting in the airport with all my bags, we finally went through customs, changed our cash into rupees, and made it out of the airport. jojo's friend's brother, tenzin, was nice enough to meet us at the airport. he had a car waiting for us and booked us a room. the poor guy had to wait until nearly 1AM to meet us because of the lost luggage ordeal.

stepping out of the airport to get to the car, the familiar smell of india hit me. i was thrilled to be back here again. it's nice now, knowing what to expect - i wasn't terribly overwhelmed by everything after stepping off the plane. india is such a sensory overload that it's kind of a lot to take in when you're exhausted. we climbed into the car and made it about halfway to the place where we're staying, and then our car broke down. we sat in the dark on the side of the highway for about 20 minutes, while the driver jiggled random wires in an attempt to fix the problem. at one point, he pulled the driver's seat completely out of the car to get at some more wires, and just set the seat down in the middle of the road. tenzin flagged down another car for us, and we finally got to the hotel around 2AM.

i was so thankful that he had met us there - had jojo and i been alone when something like that happened, i don't know what we would have done. but that's pretty typical of india. if i was in the states and they lost my bag and my cab broke down, i'd be pretty upset. but here it's all par for the course. and really, i can't complain. things are good here.

school.

Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies

photos

hopefully these will upload...



varanasi and sarnath (where i'll be living)

test post

i'm home in ohio.

it still hasn't hit me that i'm leaving in a week, and it probably won't actually hit me until i'm back in india again, navigating cluttered streets, avoiding children, cows, and vendors yelling, 'hello madam! look here! very cheap!'

i don't know how much i can update once i actually get there, but i'll upload some photos once i figure out how to do that.