So far this week has been taken up with a lot more staff meetings and orientation. Although on Monday we went to the bazaar again after school and I picked up my new pants from the tailor. They are super comfy! Then Megan and I went to see if the fabric man had some new rag quilts (Emily had clued us in that he might be getting a big shipment). He didn’t have any of that particular kind, but we did get some other rugs and towels and new shower curtains!
Last night we were invited over to Jeanne’s house for dinner- her ayah had made chicken curry and vegetables and rice and dahl. The chicken tasted great! However, on my way over to her house I ran into our ayah (socombri- I don’t know how to spell her name) and her husband, Delip – who can speak some English. The day before Megan had talked to Delip about having Socombri possibly come 5 days a week and do some cooking for us. Last night they had come to talk to us about that situation and after several minutes we came up with a system that a blue dot on a piece of paper meant that we would like our ayah to cook for us that day and a red dot meant that she didn’t need to. Later that night after eating at Jeanne’s, Megan and I realized that we didn’t have any markers or way to tell Socombri that we did not need her to cook the next day (and she really wouldn’t have been able to, because we didn’t have enough ingredients for her to make anything). This morning, Megan decided to be very creative to formulate a blue dot. I guess that when Socombri had washed one of Megan’s new blue kurtas that it had dripped some blue ink on the floor. It had already dried, but Megan got some water to wet the ink and then slapped a piece of paper over it to create a very large, misshapen blue circle… Anyway, it must have worked, because it didn’t look like our ayah tried to cook anything for us!
Also yesterday- but earlier in the afternoon- I think a monkey was throwing up outside my office/studio door. I was in my office sorting through music, when I heard this nasty coughing/barfing noise. Sure enough as I looked out my window, a monkey was walking (which is strange because they usually run and chase around) on the sidewalk. Every few steps he would stop and make that sick noise… I didn’t see any chunks, but there might have been some sort of liquid left over- I didn’t really look too closely.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Weekend of Shopping...
This weekend was a shopping weekend! (although that sounds more fun than it really was) Friday most of the new staff went down to the Carleton for lunch. This hotel (more like a bed and breakfast) used to be some old French estate and now people can stay there if they are vacationing in Mussoorie. We had some really sweet food there, including mutton kabobs, some appetizer made out of a huge leaf from the forest, spring rolls, plum juice, rice and dahl of course, sesame green beans, honey chicken, fish, cinnamon mutton and curry, sour potatoes with spinach chapatti and mango puree. It was amazing! And because the estate was over a hundred years old they had one room in the place that was being preserved from its original state. This room had two stuffed tigers and a bunch more tiger pelts. Apparently one of the stuffed tigers had killed 65 people during its life, so the government gave permission for someone to kill it. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera, so I don’t have any cool tiger pics…
After eating a massive lunch, the school bus took us to the very end of what’s called Library Bazaar in Mussoorie. I guess the bazaar is divided up into different sections and I had never been as far as Library Bazaar. I walked through entire length of shops and all the way back up to school with some other people. I ended up buying a good knife and cutting board and a rug. And then I also stopped by the tailor and picked up my 5 kurtas (my pants and pillow cases were not ready yet).
Saturday the bus and some taxis took a bunch of the new staff down to Derha dun to shop. It takes about an hour and a half to get to Derha dun from the school if you are riding on a bus. We started out a “department store”, which I was ignorantly hoping would be air conditioned because it was so blasted hot and humid. However even though the store had 4 stories, it was open to the street and did not have air conditioning… Collectively, Megan and I bought a big non-stick frying pan, a large pot, a pressure cooker, some big spoons, a dish drying rack and then we each got a clothes drying rack. We actually spent the majority of our “settling in money” that the school gave us at this store. We then proceeded to walk to a south Indian restaurant; I think it was called Kumars. Here I had marsala dosa and it was really good. A dosa is like a huge flat pancake and rolled up inside of it was the potatoes and vegetables with marsala spices. It came with some kind of soup and then coconut chutney, super good!
After lunch Jim took us to an electronic store so we could get outlet strips with surge or spike protection as they call it in India. And then we were going to this ice cream place that everyone raves about, but apparently the owner had just died the day before and they shut down the shop in memory of him. Instead we went to McDonalds (yes they have McDonald’s in India, but instead of hamburgers you can get veggie or chicken burgers - there is also a Dominos in the bazaar in Mussoorie). A bunch of us were going to get ice cream there, but there were out of ice cream. I just drank some Fanta instead, but it definitely wasn’t as good as ice cream would have been…
We had a fairly long bus ride back to Woodstock (although it is was so much fun to watch the scenery as we climbed up the mountain). Megan and I ate dinner at school – not very tasty- with James and Saahil, who are both are age and Julie and Ray (the couple from Ireland). Then we just had a relaxing night hanging out at our place for the night! Today, one of the families is hosting “high tea” in the afternoon and I will probably continue cleaning and organizing my studio.
After eating a massive lunch, the school bus took us to the very end of what’s called Library Bazaar in Mussoorie. I guess the bazaar is divided up into different sections and I had never been as far as Library Bazaar. I walked through entire length of shops and all the way back up to school with some other people. I ended up buying a good knife and cutting board and a rug. And then I also stopped by the tailor and picked up my 5 kurtas (my pants and pillow cases were not ready yet).
Saturday the bus and some taxis took a bunch of the new staff down to Derha dun to shop. It takes about an hour and a half to get to Derha dun from the school if you are riding on a bus. We started out a “department store”, which I was ignorantly hoping would be air conditioned because it was so blasted hot and humid. However even though the store had 4 stories, it was open to the street and did not have air conditioning… Collectively, Megan and I bought a big non-stick frying pan, a large pot, a pressure cooker, some big spoons, a dish drying rack and then we each got a clothes drying rack. We actually spent the majority of our “settling in money” that the school gave us at this store. We then proceeded to walk to a south Indian restaurant; I think it was called Kumars. Here I had marsala dosa and it was really good. A dosa is like a huge flat pancake and rolled up inside of it was the potatoes and vegetables with marsala spices. It came with some kind of soup and then coconut chutney, super good!
After lunch Jim took us to an electronic store so we could get outlet strips with surge or spike protection as they call it in India. And then we were going to this ice cream place that everyone raves about, but apparently the owner had just died the day before and they shut down the shop in memory of him. Instead we went to McDonalds (yes they have McDonald’s in India, but instead of hamburgers you can get veggie or chicken burgers - there is also a Dominos in the bazaar in Mussoorie). A bunch of us were going to get ice cream there, but there were out of ice cream. I just drank some Fanta instead, but it definitely wasn’t as good as ice cream would have been…
We had a fairly long bus ride back to Woodstock (although it is was so much fun to watch the scenery as we climbed up the mountain). Megan and I ate dinner at school – not very tasty- with James and Saahil, who are both are age and Julie and Ray (the couple from Ireland). Then we just had a relaxing night hanging out at our place for the night! Today, one of the families is hosting “high tea” in the afternoon and I will probably continue cleaning and organizing my studio.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Monkey Alley
Yesterday, Tuesday, wasn’t too eventful, although right as Megan and I were leaving to go to school we saw Emily walking towards our house with an Indian woman. The woman was to be our ayah and apparently she had gone to Emily’s house first, because she didn’t want to come and bother us by herself for the first time. She waited for Emily to get ready (finish showering) and then both of them came to our house. I cannot even pronounce her name right not, let alone spell it… Anyway, we gave a key to our house and then let her begin cleaning while Megan and I went to school. I spent most of the morning cleaning out my office – more specifically going through some instrument repair items and dusting. In the afternoon we had another new staff orientation session which was an introduction of all the new staff and an introduction to the school. At 3:30 Megan and I booked it home, because we had told the grocer that we would be home after 3:00 to receive our groceries that we had purchased the day before. Sure enough, a man came to deliver our groceries not long after we arrived home. He had them packed in a crate and strapped onto this back/head and he must have walked all the way up the hill from Mussoorie – which is a good trek! Later that evening we went to the Hatches for a pot-luck dinner (although we didn’t have to bring anything). There were quite a few people there, mostly the “young people of the east side” – I guess that’s what we are calling ourselves… Emily and Jared had stuff to make BLT’s – I guess you CAN get bacon in India. And then were a variety of other things that people brought. And that was pretty much Tuesday!
Today, Wednesday, I spent a lot of time continuing to clean out my office and sorted through half of the flute music that was stored in a cabinet. Megan and I also took a look at the band room and well, it’s something else… I will have to take a picture of it, because it’s hard to describe. Let’s just say that I like my office/studio better. At lunch we ate with a pair of dorm parents from India, whose children attend the school. They were really interesting to talk to and seem like nice people. Then we had a long orientation session to fill out tons and ton of forms – medical, registration, bank and several other forms that I am not really sure are used for. I spent a little more time in my office after that and discovered why my office is located in what is known as “monkey alley”. It’s on the third floor in the corner of the Quad and there are trees that come up right against the railing of the walkway outside my office. I have to have metal bars on my windows so I can open them and let air in. This afternoon, I was ready to go and wash my hands after handling so much dusty old music, but then I looked out my window and saw two brown monkeys (the not nice ones) sitting right in front of my door staring at me. So I decided to wait a while… Luckily they left fairly quickly!
This evening we went over to Beth and Dave’s house for dinner. Beth and Dave are new Woodstock teacher’s as well and they are from Chicago. Their ayah had come for the first time today and made lasagna for them, so they decided to invite a few people over for dinner. It was really good (no beef though, I think they said their ayah used mutton). Tomorrow morning we have our first department meeting – and the music department is the largest department in the whole school! Quite a change from what I’m used to!
Today, Wednesday, I spent a lot of time continuing to clean out my office and sorted through half of the flute music that was stored in a cabinet. Megan and I also took a look at the band room and well, it’s something else… I will have to take a picture of it, because it’s hard to describe. Let’s just say that I like my office/studio better. At lunch we ate with a pair of dorm parents from India, whose children attend the school. They were really interesting to talk to and seem like nice people. Then we had a long orientation session to fill out tons and ton of forms – medical, registration, bank and several other forms that I am not really sure are used for. I spent a little more time in my office after that and discovered why my office is located in what is known as “monkey alley”. It’s on the third floor in the corner of the Quad and there are trees that come up right against the railing of the walkway outside my office. I have to have metal bars on my windows so I can open them and let air in. This afternoon, I was ready to go and wash my hands after handling so much dusty old music, but then I looked out my window and saw two brown monkeys (the not nice ones) sitting right in front of my door staring at me. So I decided to wait a while… Luckily they left fairly quickly!
This evening we went over to Beth and Dave’s house for dinner. Beth and Dave are new Woodstock teacher’s as well and they are from Chicago. Their ayah had come for the first time today and made lasagna for them, so they decided to invite a few people over for dinner. It was really good (no beef though, I think they said their ayah used mutton). Tomorrow morning we have our first department meeting – and the music department is the largest department in the whole school! Quite a change from what I’m used to!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
2nd Blog
Today, Monday, we had our first official work day. I was going to wake up at 8:00, but instead I woke up around 7 and could not go back to sleep – maybe that’s because it is really like 9:00 pm in MN time. Anyway, I decided to go out and finish washing some dishes in the kitchen. While I was doing that I noticed through our kitchen window that a man was knocking on one of our neighbors doors. When Andrew answered the door, I heard the two mention cinnamon and I knew that this was the bread man that Emily had told us about the day before. I got really excited and made Megan come over and watch. We kept trying to get Andrew’s attention through the window to tell him to send the bread man over to our house, but sadly he didn’t see us. However, the bread man rang our anyway! I was so excited that I raced to open the door, we ended up buying two loaves of freshly baked bread, one cinnamon and one white, for 75 rupees – which is less than 2 dollars. Megan and I started our day off with fresh cinnamon bread and mango tea – it rocked!
After our breakfast, we went off to school for our first day. It was basically just staff meetings and tours of the schools etc. I am going to be teaching the woodwind lessons and directing the intermediate band and pep band. This means that I am technically a middle school teacher (even though I will also have high school students). So I went to the middle school meeting this morning at 9:00 and then the principal gave the new middle school teachers a tour of the school. Later I met up with the current chair of the music department, another strings teachers and the choir teacher. The chair took me on a brief tour of the music building and I found my office – which is sweet! It is on the third floor and the door opens to the outdoor balcony, it has windows on both sides that look out over the open air quad and the mountain. Also the floor is wood from trees that fell down after a huge storm that happened a few years ago. My office is way better than Megan’s – although hers is closer to a lot of the instrumental music things, like the ensemble room and instrument storage.
After checking out my office and all the sweet woodwind repertoire then entire faculty met for lunch in the middle school cafeteria. Then the new principal addressed everyone, which was pretty boring. And THEN the new teachers had to sit through an hour and a half of “computer training” which consisted of getting us logged onto the network and getting into our email. This really should have only taken 10 minutes, but somehow they dragged it out for 90… Thank goodness Emily and her friend Laura volunteered to take us to the bazaar after our workday. Megan and I both had a list of items we wanted to purchase – although we definitely did not get through everything. It takes about 15-20 minutes to walk down to the bazaar in Mussoorie, but it was so worth it. There are so many little shops just lined up along this tiny “road” and Emily knew all the best places to buy what we wanted. We walked a ways down the bazaar as she pointed out various items until we got to her grocery store (which is maybe a little bigger than my bedroom at my house in Annandale). Here she introduced us to the store owner and then we picked out what we needed. Tomorrow someone from the store will deliver our groceries to our house. Then we moved on to the place where she gets her fresh produce. Megan and I bought 3 mangos, 4 apples, ½ kg of potatoes, ½ kg of onions and 1 clove of garlic for 73 rupees (again, less than 2 dollars…) We had to carry those along with us for the trip (and by “we” I mean Megan carried everything in her backpack…) Then we went to the fabric store and picked out what kind of fabric we wanted to make our clothes (and my pillowcases) with. I brought along a pair of pants that I wanted copied and Megan and I both picked our fabric to have kurtas (the long Indian shirts) with and our neighbor James was also with us and he bought some pants and kurta fabric. Then we walked back to the tailor and described what we wanted with each fabric and then were measured. We will be able to pick up our clothes this weekend- I’m very excited! Tomorrow is another day of meetings ect. I think I might also bring my clarinet to my office and play through a bit of the solo/lesson music that is there.
After our breakfast, we went off to school for our first day. It was basically just staff meetings and tours of the schools etc. I am going to be teaching the woodwind lessons and directing the intermediate band and pep band. This means that I am technically a middle school teacher (even though I will also have high school students). So I went to the middle school meeting this morning at 9:00 and then the principal gave the new middle school teachers a tour of the school. Later I met up with the current chair of the music department, another strings teachers and the choir teacher. The chair took me on a brief tour of the music building and I found my office – which is sweet! It is on the third floor and the door opens to the outdoor balcony, it has windows on both sides that look out over the open air quad and the mountain. Also the floor is wood from trees that fell down after a huge storm that happened a few years ago. My office is way better than Megan’s – although hers is closer to a lot of the instrumental music things, like the ensemble room and instrument storage.
After checking out my office and all the sweet woodwind repertoire then entire faculty met for lunch in the middle school cafeteria. Then the new principal addressed everyone, which was pretty boring. And THEN the new teachers had to sit through an hour and a half of “computer training” which consisted of getting us logged onto the network and getting into our email. This really should have only taken 10 minutes, but somehow they dragged it out for 90… Thank goodness Emily and her friend Laura volunteered to take us to the bazaar after our workday. Megan and I both had a list of items we wanted to purchase – although we definitely did not get through everything. It takes about 15-20 minutes to walk down to the bazaar in Mussoorie, but it was so worth it. There are so many little shops just lined up along this tiny “road” and Emily knew all the best places to buy what we wanted. We walked a ways down the bazaar as she pointed out various items until we got to her grocery store (which is maybe a little bigger than my bedroom at my house in Annandale). Here she introduced us to the store owner and then we picked out what we needed. Tomorrow someone from the store will deliver our groceries to our house. Then we moved on to the place where she gets her fresh produce. Megan and I bought 3 mangos, 4 apples, ½ kg of potatoes, ½ kg of onions and 1 clove of garlic for 73 rupees (again, less than 2 dollars…) We had to carry those along with us for the trip (and by “we” I mean Megan carried everything in her backpack…) Then we went to the fabric store and picked out what kind of fabric we wanted to make our clothes (and my pillowcases) with. I brought along a pair of pants that I wanted copied and Megan and I both picked our fabric to have kurtas (the long Indian shirts) with and our neighbor James was also with us and he bought some pants and kurta fabric. Then we walked back to the tailor and described what we wanted with each fabric and then were measured. We will be able to pick up our clothes this weekend- I’m very excited! Tomorrow is another day of meetings ect. I think I might also bring my clarinet to my office and play through a bit of the solo/lesson music that is there.
First official blog from India!
Ok, first blog entry from INDIA. It is currently Sunday, July 20, 2008 (although we don’t have internet access yet, so I am really writing this on word and then it might not really be posted until Monday or Tuesday…) Megan and I made it safely all the way from the Minneapolis airport to our new house/apartment at Woodstock school.
Wednesday my family and Andrew and I all left my house in Annandale around 3:30 (well really 3:45 or so) and got to the airport around 5 am. Our flight left at 7:00 and we arrived in NYC at 10 something and then Megan and I had to spend 9 hours at JFK to wait for our Air India flight, I would not recommend that… We boarded our next flight and left at 7:45 and the plane was pretty sweet. Thank goodness for individual tv screens in the back of each seat and a wide selections of movies, tv shows, music etc. We knew our plane needed to stop to refuel in London, but we did not know that everyone had to get off the plane and go through security again. I had been lucky so far that no one question my rather large carry-on and “purse” (aka, my clarinet). However, apparently to the Brits, my clarinet looks shady. I had to wait a long time for them to get to my questionable bag and then after they looked inside, decided it was fine. BUT, once we were boarding the plane it was decided that my other large carryon bag was too big and had to be checked, I was not happy. Anyway, we boarded and had another long flight to Delhi (about 8 hours, the first leg had been about 6.6). We arrived in Delhi at about 11:00 pm (this is Delhi time- which would be 12:30 pm MN time) on Thursday evening. It took a while to get our luggage and then we went through customs, which was surprisingly easy. Polly, Jim, Pete and Dot (from the school) were all waiting for use when we came through with all of our bags and soon we got a on a bus that took us to our hotel.
I forgot to mention that as Megan and I had been traveling we slowly found/met other teachers that were going to Woodstock for the first time. At the New York airport Beth and Dave introduced themselves to us. They from Chicago and Beth is going to be teaching elementary art and Dave is doing middle school social studies. Then in London we met Andrew, who will be teaching high school English and is also from Chicago. Immediately after we exited the plane in Delhi and we waiting to go through security we met Alison who is going to be a dorm staff member for the elementary school dorm and Stephanie who will be working in the high school girls dorm. We met the rest of the new faculty after receiving our luggage and going through customs. There is a family from St. Paul who has three young children, Lily – 8, Ella – 5 and Mohali – 3, Scott will be teaching ESL and Angie will be teaching 9th grade science. We also met James who is from Illinois as well and will be teaching high school chemistry. There were a few more teachers new to Woodstock, but we met them later at our hotel.
While en route Andrew had told us that he had checked out the hotel we would be staying at on trip advisor and all of the reviews were not good… After hearing this I was a little worried, but once we got to the hotel it really wasn’t bad. The first night we sat up with some of the new teachers and had lime soda and some food which I don’t remember the name… The next day was a free day. Some people went shopping in Delhi, but Megan and I opted to sleep in and stay in the hotel (mostly because is was ridiculously hot and soooooo humid – way more humid than MN outside!!! At 6:30 we all met for dinner at the hotel restaurant and then we basically went to bed.
The next morning, Friday, we woke up at 5:00 am so we could leave our hotel by 5:30 to catch the train in Delhi. Driving in India is insane, by the way. I knew that it would be, but still…. We made it to the train station at around 6:30 and the place was just packed with people. I am so glad that our train car was air conditioned! We spent 8 hours on the train and then got off in Dehra dun. We ate lunch as a group in Dehra dun and then divided up to board the small bus or taxis to ride up the winding mountain road to Mussoorie. I rode the bus and sat and talked to Pete and Dot (hr people from the school ) and Sawml, who was coming to work with IT for the next sixth months. Sawhl had actually attended Woodstock for 6 years as a student before moving to London with his family. So he knew exactly where we were going and everything. I was going to try to take some pictures, but I guess nothing really shows up during the rainy season, because it is so foggy/misty all of the time.
We arrived at school and went straight to the Quad building. Here I found my buddy, Emily Hatch and her husband Jared. Megan was already there with them (she had taken a taxi up the mountain) and Emily’s friend Laura was visiting her this week, so she was there too. We sat and talked for a while and then we got the keys to our new home. Emily, Jared and Laura took us to our apartment/house and apparently we have one of the best views from our place out of the whole school. AND even though it is monsoon season, when we go to our house, the fog and mist had kind of cleared away, so we could actually see down the mountainside! It was insane! I did get some pictures, so everyone can see the view from our house. Our apartment is pretty nice, it has three bedrooms each with their own bathroom, a living room/dining room and small kitchen. Megan’s room is upstairs and my room is right underneath hers. We might be getting another roommate for the third bedroom, but we really don’t know. Emily and Jared made grilled cheese and tomato soup and mangos for us for dinner (they thought that we might be a little sick of Indian food by now – which was correct). And they showed us how to work some things in our house, like the water purifier and stove etc. They also brought us a bunch of stuff, like an electricity stabilizer and converter as well as some good food. They kept saying that they wanted to be good buddies and they definitely were! After dinner, they went back to their house and Megan and I put all of our belongings away and watched a friends episode and then went to bed.
Today, Sunday, I slept until after 11:00, I know shocking… and Megan made some eggs and toast for lunch/breakfast. Later we might go over to Emily and Jared’s and then also might go into Mussoorie to check out the bazaar and buys some things for our house and clothes (I barely brought any clothes with me). Well, that’s about it for now!
Wednesday my family and Andrew and I all left my house in Annandale around 3:30 (well really 3:45 or so) and got to the airport around 5 am. Our flight left at 7:00 and we arrived in NYC at 10 something and then Megan and I had to spend 9 hours at JFK to wait for our Air India flight, I would not recommend that… We boarded our next flight and left at 7:45 and the plane was pretty sweet. Thank goodness for individual tv screens in the back of each seat and a wide selections of movies, tv shows, music etc. We knew our plane needed to stop to refuel in London, but we did not know that everyone had to get off the plane and go through security again. I had been lucky so far that no one question my rather large carry-on and “purse” (aka, my clarinet). However, apparently to the Brits, my clarinet looks shady. I had to wait a long time for them to get to my questionable bag and then after they looked inside, decided it was fine. BUT, once we were boarding the plane it was decided that my other large carryon bag was too big and had to be checked, I was not happy. Anyway, we boarded and had another long flight to Delhi (about 8 hours, the first leg had been about 6.6). We arrived in Delhi at about 11:00 pm (this is Delhi time- which would be 12:30 pm MN time) on Thursday evening. It took a while to get our luggage and then we went through customs, which was surprisingly easy. Polly, Jim, Pete and Dot (from the school) were all waiting for use when we came through with all of our bags and soon we got a on a bus that took us to our hotel.
I forgot to mention that as Megan and I had been traveling we slowly found/met other teachers that were going to Woodstock for the first time. At the New York airport Beth and Dave introduced themselves to us. They from Chicago and Beth is going to be teaching elementary art and Dave is doing middle school social studies. Then in London we met Andrew, who will be teaching high school English and is also from Chicago. Immediately after we exited the plane in Delhi and we waiting to go through security we met Alison who is going to be a dorm staff member for the elementary school dorm and Stephanie who will be working in the high school girls dorm. We met the rest of the new faculty after receiving our luggage and going through customs. There is a family from St. Paul who has three young children, Lily – 8, Ella – 5 and Mohali – 3, Scott will be teaching ESL and Angie will be teaching 9th grade science. We also met James who is from Illinois as well and will be teaching high school chemistry. There were a few more teachers new to Woodstock, but we met them later at our hotel.
While en route Andrew had told us that he had checked out the hotel we would be staying at on trip advisor and all of the reviews were not good… After hearing this I was a little worried, but once we got to the hotel it really wasn’t bad. The first night we sat up with some of the new teachers and had lime soda and some food which I don’t remember the name… The next day was a free day. Some people went shopping in Delhi, but Megan and I opted to sleep in and stay in the hotel (mostly because is was ridiculously hot and soooooo humid – way more humid than MN outside!!! At 6:30 we all met for dinner at the hotel restaurant and then we basically went to bed.
The next morning, Friday, we woke up at 5:00 am so we could leave our hotel by 5:30 to catch the train in Delhi. Driving in India is insane, by the way. I knew that it would be, but still…. We made it to the train station at around 6:30 and the place was just packed with people. I am so glad that our train car was air conditioned! We spent 8 hours on the train and then got off in Dehra dun. We ate lunch as a group in Dehra dun and then divided up to board the small bus or taxis to ride up the winding mountain road to Mussoorie. I rode the bus and sat and talked to Pete and Dot (hr people from the school ) and Sawml, who was coming to work with IT for the next sixth months. Sawhl had actually attended Woodstock for 6 years as a student before moving to London with his family. So he knew exactly where we were going and everything. I was going to try to take some pictures, but I guess nothing really shows up during the rainy season, because it is so foggy/misty all of the time.
We arrived at school and went straight to the Quad building. Here I found my buddy, Emily Hatch and her husband Jared. Megan was already there with them (she had taken a taxi up the mountain) and Emily’s friend Laura was visiting her this week, so she was there too. We sat and talked for a while and then we got the keys to our new home. Emily, Jared and Laura took us to our apartment/house and apparently we have one of the best views from our place out of the whole school. AND even though it is monsoon season, when we go to our house, the fog and mist had kind of cleared away, so we could actually see down the mountainside! It was insane! I did get some pictures, so everyone can see the view from our house. Our apartment is pretty nice, it has three bedrooms each with their own bathroom, a living room/dining room and small kitchen. Megan’s room is upstairs and my room is right underneath hers. We might be getting another roommate for the third bedroom, but we really don’t know. Emily and Jared made grilled cheese and tomato soup and mangos for us for dinner (they thought that we might be a little sick of Indian food by now – which was correct). And they showed us how to work some things in our house, like the water purifier and stove etc. They also brought us a bunch of stuff, like an electricity stabilizer and converter as well as some good food. They kept saying that they wanted to be good buddies and they definitely were! After dinner, they went back to their house and Megan and I put all of our belongings away and watched a friends episode and then went to bed.
Today, Sunday, I slept until after 11:00, I know shocking… and Megan made some eggs and toast for lunch/breakfast. Later we might go over to Emily and Jared’s and then also might go into Mussoorie to check out the bazaar and buys some things for our house and clothes (I barely brought any clothes with me). Well, that’s about it for now!
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