India Day 1

                What a day! I got up and got ready for the day, finished packing, and went through immigration all before 9am. I met my group for my big trip to northern India at 9:30 and then waited. Immigration took forever to go through so we left almost an hour after we were supposed to. Our ship was docked over an hour away from the airport, so our bus had to hurry. Not only did the bus driver drive like a maniac (which is how most drivers in India drive) but the airline held our flight over a half hour for us to get on the flight. I thought this was so nice, but also very strange. I mean what about the other people on the flight who had connections to make? I guess when a group fills over half the small plane it will do almost anything to keep that money. The security was also interesting at the airport. All carry-ons had to be stamped a seal of approval which is different than in the states. The security was also not as tight as it is in the states. I mean we got all 70 some of us on through security in like 15 minutes. Once we were all on the plane we left almost immediately. The captain didn’t even wait for us all to sit down before he pulled away from the gate. The flight was good, a little rockier than U.S. flights but good. I think the weirdest part about the flight was that it made a stop halfway through to let half the people off and then a new group of people filled the plane. We were all so confused because we had never experienced this is the states. I mean could you imagine taking a flight from Dayton, Ohio to Atlanta, Georgia and stopping halfway through but not getting off. Instead you sit and wait for some people to get off and some new people to get on. It was so strange.  Once we landed I began one of the coolest adventures on this trip.

                Once I arrived in New Delhi we got a very brief tour of the government buildings before we got to the hotel.  We got to drive past where the President of India lives. It looked like a castle. It looked as though a whole army of people could live in this house with plenty of room to spare. We also got to see where the Vice President and the Prime Minister live. After we say some other government buildings our guide told us that most of them are old British buildings from when the British ruled India. This made it interesting to see the architecture of the city because it had a combination of British architecture with some architecture I would say was inspired by the Indian culture.

                We then arrived at the hotel and it was beautiful! This was definitely one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in. To give you an idea of where we stayed the ceilings were painted in elaborate Sistine chapel style paintings, the top of the pillars were in gold, and there were always at least 5 people in the lobby waiting to assist any guest with anything they needed. The rest of the evening (which wasn’t much) I just went and got money and then ate dinner at the hotel with the rest of my group. After dinner I went up to my room, where my shower alone was as big as my whole bathroom on the ship, to get ready for bed. While getting ready for bed I flipped on the TV just to see what it was like. I ended up watching Supernatural the TV series! I was so excited to see real TV. ON the ship we have 5 channels that play nothing but movies for class and play a repeated playlist over and over, so I welcomed the site of TV. Well, actually I watched for a little while but then realized I wasn’t even watching it so I turned it off. It is amazing how much time people spend watching TV. I hope that my habits from the ship can continue once I get off. We will see though. Once I flipped through the TV and wrote in my journal, I went to bed. I had a 4:30am wakeup call the next day.   

This is one of the government buildings that we passed

This is the hotel that we stayed at!