Hi from India!

Hello!
As we said earlier, we had a great flight and great food greeted us.

I was pretty nervous before the plane ride about how different the culture would be. I was drastically a minority on the plane, maybe six other white people, but it's really great here I don't feel that different!
There are many subtleties of the culture that I am already getting used to, but are nonetheless different! I will share some: one, many people, on the plane and in the airport, do not use deodorant. The airplane's smell reflected that slightly. Then, the airport, some parts were air conditioned, others were not. Coming out of the airport was CRAZY! Cars ran right up next to pedestrians pulling luggage, and in the first moment we stepped out of the airport we saw a girl almost get run over, her bags got hit by a car. It took us a little bit to find Rachna's family, but her cousin came and found us.
They were SO hospitable to us, bringing all of our luggage for us and cooking us a whole meal at 11:30 in the night!! Her cousins stayed up, chatted, and played cards with us rather than going to sleep.

A little first funny culture-story, well a few of them:
When I first got in the car to go to her cousin's house, I freaked when her cousin's hands weren't on the steering wheel! I whispered to Radhika (Rachna's sister), "Oh my gosh, he's not holding the wheel" only to realize that that was the PASSENGER side of the car, haha.

Another moment was after customs, there was a "lush" bathroom, and I went in the first stall i saw and there was a toilet with a fancy hole in the ground and a shower hose to clean yourself. I sucked it up and squattted and did my business. Afterwards, I found out that all of the other stalls were regular.. rachna and her sister didn't even use that kind!

So, I am adjusting little by little. I liked the Indian food so far.

We're off to the airport to fly to Rachna's grandmother's area!

Rachna -- We're in Mumbai, India!

Hey everybody! We finally reached India safe and sound after a long ordeal yesterday and an even longer flight today. The flight went smoothly, and we got a lot of sleep and watched many, many movies. Right now, we are at my cousin's house just resting up and playing cards before we take off at 5:50 am (India time) to go to Vadodara to meet up with my grandmother. We had a wonderful dinner here that consisted of 2 types of Indian bread (puri and roti), a potato dish, a dish consisted of Indian cheese, and pureed mango. It was delicious, and our stay here (although it will only be for a few hours) has been wonderful. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to stop by and see my family since I haven't seen them for many years -- they've been so hospitable!

Alright! Well, we're off and on our way to Vadodara, India. We'll blog from there... stay tuned!

~Rachna

Bad Weather

As Jess said, bad weather prevented us from leaving today, so we will be embarking on our journey tomorrow! Hopefully, we'll be at my grandmother's house by evening on June 18th (morning of the 19th in India). We'll keep updating the blog, so keep checking!

Major flight delays

So, both of us got indefinitely delayed into Newark, and so are staying in Cleveland (Jessi)/Atlanta (Rachna) until tomorrow when we will leave in the MORNING this time to Newark to try catching the 8:20pm flight tomorrow night from Newark to Bombay. Who would have thought that 4 hours in between wasn't enough safety room. There were lots of storms in the Newark/New York area, and many flights were delayed and lots canceled too. Just all part of the travel experience...

So, we will delay our India trip by a day. Goodnight for now, and we will (hopefully) be blogging from India by Wednesday night or Thursday morning!

We are leaving tomorrow!!!

We are leaving tomorrow (June 16) for India! We depart Newark at 8:20 pm tomorrow and arrive in Bombay on Tuesday evening June 17 (India time).

The time in Vadodara, the city where we will be staying where Rachna's grandmother lives, is 9 hours and 30 minutes ahead of Eastern Standard Time.

We will be bringing Jessi's computer, so you can e-mail us and see our blogs that we plan to update at least once a week!