Sunday, September 22, 2013

Good morning

Good morning.  It's 7:00, and I've been up since 4:00.  Why?  I'm in India this morning.

I've been horrid at keeping up wonderful stories for you, Aidan, during this last year; it's been a bit of a doozie.  But better starting now than never, right?  I thought that, when you're bigger, you might like to hear more about this trip first-hand.  As we saw on the globe in Audrey's class last week, I'm on the other side of the word.  Amazizng.

The plane flight was kind of fun; hopefully someday, if you fly this far away, you'll be able to fly first class too.  I don't know whether you remember, but you really, really wanted to come here with me, which would have been so fun.  I'm here for work, though, and I couldn't bring you.  Part of the reason for that is that the plane ticket alone is $10,000, which is a lot of money.  The pod on the plane had my own TV screen, where I could watch movies or TV shows, and my own ear phones.  They served all kinds of food while we flew, even an ice cream sundae bar.  I'm trying to eat as much local food as I can, so I had the Indian dishes, and they were good!  I slept some on the plane, which is good because I couldn't sleep very much last night.  It's 7:00 in the morning here, but 9:30 at night at home where you're dreaming away.  How crazy is that?  I missed 9 1/2 hours of coming this way, but I'll get it back when I fly home Friday night.

The taxi ride from the airport was fun - there really wasn't much traffic, so I wasn't very nervous, but the driving is very different here.  At home we drive in our own lanes and give others plenty of room.  Here, they just drive wherever they want without worrying about where lines on the road might be.  They do seem to notice traffic lights, but it's pretty different driving around.

I have to be careful not to drink water here, because their water can make Americans sick.  As you know, I also had to get some special shots before I left, and I have to take some special medicine while I'm here so I can stay healthy.  I only drink water from bottles, even just for brushing my teeth, and I can only eat fruit that I can peel, like oranges or bananas, not apples that have been washed in the water here. 

The people here have been very friendly so far, and many of them speak English, which makes traveling here easier.  Even most of the street signs are in English.  That surprised me - does it surprise you?

Because the team here is supporting us at home, they work different hours than we do, so I'm not going in to the office until 4:00 this afternoon, when I'm usually starting to think about how long it will be until I can get home and see you!  But the 4:00 in the afternoon here will be 6:30 this morning at home, and they want to overlap with us.  The good part of this is that it will let me see some of the sights here during the day.  I think tonight I'll be extra tired because I couldn't sleep last night, but we'll see what I can do.  I'll tell you about it when I get back.

Wish you and Daddy were here with me, but this is the next best thing - I'll take lots of pictures to share with you, too, when I get home.

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