The Streets

Here are some random pictures of the streets, I had a few more, but the photo uploader on here doesn't always cooperate. As I said before the streets are crazy, I'm not sure what driver's ed is like in India, or if it even exists, but if it does I think it can be summed up in a single word, SURVIVE. 

Several of us have commented on an idea for the next Grand Theft Auto game, where you start off as a boy from the country who came to the city to work for an uncle driving auto-rickshaws, and of course you get involved in some shady business going down on the streets. You slowly work your way up the shady business ladder until you rule the majority of the Bollywood industry, and have a banging hot bollywood actress as your wife. 

Of course this would involve all the typical GTA things you find in the games, stealing cars off the street and taking off, punching/assaulting random people. Only you need about 3 times the amount of vehicles, and and 5 times the amount of motorcycles you normally find in a game. The title of this award-winning video game,

GRAND THEFT AUTO: Streets of Bombay

So I haven't been on a bike in years, many years, and now we have bikes to ride to classes. I can't decide if I just want to walk to bike, I have biked for the last few days, and my legs might fall off. On the other hand, walking takes longer, hmmmmmm. Nevertheless, it seems you you really don't forget how to ride a bike, because "it's like riding a bike".

I think that I have a set schedule now, pretty much, there are many things to work around because the class schedules are really odd, and they changed like twice. Also, I have to deal with the contrast between miami's rigidness and India's lack of structure, which is difficult as I have to make sure I get done what I need to get done here for Miami, and the lack of structure here does not help that. So there have been some adjustments to my classes, which are as follows:

-Basic Hindi

-Gandhian Philosophy

-Law and society of colonial India (I think)

-Independent study in Vedanta: along side the regular course of Indian philosophy

I have not looked into the Law and society yet, I will later today, hopefully that works out, and it's still being offered etc. Because tomorrow is actually some kind of Muslim holiday, and we are supposed to take a trip some where for the long weekend before classes "really" start. I find this process of sampling courses and such to be a pain, it would be much easier if you just set the courses that are being offered so that we can judge accordingly. We'll see what happens...

Okay, so classes start tomorrow, but none of us really know where we are going. I think most of mine are in the humanities building, but what rooms I do not know. As I said before, you have to go with the flow. 

I find myself getting tired a lot, perhaps it is the sun along with the malaria meds that cause sun sensitivity lol. I also find that I do not have much of an appetite, not because I am sick though. Perhaps it is the regimented meals, where as I never had a regimented meal schedule at home. So after I eat breakfast, then lunch comes, I am not hungry, but I will still eat because I would not eat again until dinner, and so on. So my plan is to simply eat less with each meal, which wont be a problem as I don't have much of an appetite anyhow. Thankfully I took some last minute advice and packed some peanut butter ;). The food itself is pretty good and has quality, but it's a lot of the same indian food EVERY meal. So sometime I might be ordering a pizza from the pizza hut near by, which sounds very, very good right now. 

I am looking forward to my philosophy classes though, we talked briefly with one of the professors, Dr. Prasad who will be teaching Indian philosophy. So hopefully we will figure out where we are supposed to go lol. 

The Charminar

Yesterday we went with Dr. Pappu and Mrs. Pappu, as well as Dr. Keitges who has something to do with our program from Miami, though I am not sure what exactly his role is, aside from talking a lot. We visited two places, a monument called The Charminar which you can go up into, and a Hindu temple. You can't take photos in the temple, so I do not have many of it. Below are some pictures of The Charminar monument.

Monkeys

So there are wild monkeys that roam the campus, which is pretty cool, above is an example of one such monkey. You may also find roaming cattle (of course), lizards, and supposedly there are all kinds of different snakes on the campus ground, none of which I have seen. The monkeys are by far the coolest though. 

Housing

The Tagore International House

The room that I stay in.

Taken from the balcony of our building, this building is a lot like ours.

Alright, so I did make it hear alright. But i have not been able to blog because they have not yet set up our connections in the rooms, so to connect we must walk to the library, which is not a short walk. So I will make a quick blog.

My first flight was not bad, we were in Chicago in no time. We waited for about 7 hours there for our Air India flight, which was also fine. They fed us a lot it seemed. We landed in Germany so they could change crew and clean, then we boarded again and flew to Mumbai. Needless to say it was long, and slightly uncomfortable after a while. We landed in Mumbai to change plans for Hyderabad, and by the time I got off I missed the shuttle to the terminals that the other were on. So I had to catch the next one and find them, interesting. The air in Mumbai is smoggy, and polluted, so there was a distinct smell to it that you notice right away. The airport itself though, wow...worst experience so far. It was absolutely crazy and disorganized, they just assumed that people knew what to do, and people would shove to get through security and such, it was nuts! But after that fiasco we flew to Hyderabad, the airport of which was very pleasant and organized. 

They did however, lose some of our luggage. Several people (including me) did not have their two luggage bags until yesterday, which was a pain. So I had two changes of clothes to work with. We have it now though, so that is good. 

Obviously, culture shock was something to deal with. I hope I would not need to emphasize that it is totally different here, but it is. It takes some getting used to, mentally and physically. I got sick one night but other than that it have felt fine, and after jet lag is over, which I think it is now, things get settled. Though you get stared at a lot, which also takes some getting used to. It is also very "go with the flow" here, you should come to India with expectation lol.

The driving is an experience of its own. There are painted lines, but there might as well not be, they are not observed. People just honk as they go by, or pass through an intersection, yet there are not wrecks, it's amazing. so organization is not something you will find in very many places here it seems. 

So hopefully we will get connection soon so I can do better "blogging"...