Bengaluru

Hello friends, I know it’s been sometime since my last post. So, let me fill you in. The Global Corps portion of our program ended (thank goodness….let me tell you it’s been a long, long road, especially because we were in hubli for two and a half weeks straight, there was no weekend travel like our internship/service learning portion of the trip). Our project presentation went really well and I was so proud of my group for pulling it all together. It was a crazy last two days, I don’t think any of us slept more than 5 hours trying to work on our final presentation and packet.

Two nights ago we had our huge goodbye party. It was so fun! All the Indian students and American students came. It was at a nice hotel in town by the pool, complete with DJ and Indian buffet. All the girls got dressed up in saris. Saris are serious business, let me tell you. All the Indian girls came over and helped us get our saris on. I have to tell you, I felt like a princess in it. It was a little difficult to walk, so clearly a man invented it, so it would be hard for women to get away. They played all of our favorite American and Bollywood songs and we GOT DOWN.

The next day we got on a plane to Bangalore. We’re here for one more night and then tomorrow about half the students are leaving for America. But of course I’m not. I’m traveling for about 3 weeks after with two girls, Dana and Abby. We are going to have an AMAZING time. Here’s the itinerary:
From Bangalore we’re taking a 15 hour bus (woof) to Kerala (a southern state), where we’ll be stopping in Thiravandum, to see temples and things. Then we’ll get picked up by our driver who’s going to take us to a backwater bamboo boat, that we’ll float on for about 24 hrs. Then driver comes back and sweeps us off to a mountain village, where we’ll stay at tea houses and endangered goat farm. (random right?) Then we go to Cochin for a last day of sightseeing. THEN we take a flight to Hyderabad to eat some birayani and see lots of Mughal ruins. Then we take an obscenely long bus to Mumbai, to stay with our friend Renuka. THEN we’ll go to Varanasi, the holiest city on the Ganges river. THEN we’ll take a train to Jaipur. THEN we’ll go to Delhi for a few days. Fly to Bangalore, fly to Frankfurt, Germany. We extended our layover in Frankfurt for 5 days, so that we’ll have time to explore beautiful Chermany and be around white people. We’re training it up to Kolne, and apparently our train ride will be beautiful! It follows the river and goes through all the mountains with all sorts of castles. All this, and then finally we fly back to Boston. Then I’m in Boston for 48 hours and then I fly home! To beautiful California!!!! J
I’m gonna be exhausted.