I'm in India!
After a 15 million hour flight, my group landed safely in India. My "folding footrest" came in handy by helping me to not be as uncomfortable as I might have been...although I imagine the poor guy setting next to me wouldn't realize the benefit of it since I was still very restless overall. (Setting directly in front of one of the bathrooms didn't help.)

Anyway, we loaded up on a bus from the airport and headed to the beautiful hotel. We were escorted to a nice seating area, given a lei (I don't know what the Indian term is for it), handed some refreshing fruit juice, and had a dot put on each of our foreheads.

Even though I was very tired, it was hard to sleep too long with the excitement of being in India. I think everyone was up early the next morning and wanted to take advantage of our "rest time" by going shopping. Although each group started out intending to walk, I believe we all eventually caved to the rickshaw drivers (little green and yellow golf-cart size 3-wheelers) that followed us offering to take us to markets. My group gaved in at the end of the block from the heat and humidity...and realizing the traffic patterns might be a bit different than in the US.

The drivers told us that they would take us to a market for only 10 Rs total...about 25 cents in US money. The market that we wanted to visit was closed so they took us to another one. From what we understand, they get something back from shops when we make purchases. After shopping that morning I realized I am horrible at bargaining! One of our local leaders said that she thought that even the best bargainer in our group still paid too much (needless to say, I didn't offer to share the story of my "deal" I got with her.)

Our first meeting was in the afternoon followed by a reception in the evening. Around 5pm, jetlag hit me like a ton of bricks. Apparently, most of our group had the same experience although I, unfortunately, ended up in the front row. The notes I took from that session are not really legible... After awhile I got a second wind and seemed to be fine with listening to the other sessions. We had a nice reception later that evening and met various educational leaders, Fulbrighters from various fields, and some people from the embassy.