Estoy aqui' en Begnaluru

6.7.08

Only a couple days have passed yet there's so much I want to post. The more I wait to post more on New Zealand, the more it feels like it'll be awkward or too late to post pictures or write about it. I don't know when I'll be able to have internet access from my laptop, so I think uploading scenic pictures of New Zealand will have to wait. Perhaps I'll just have to have the longest blog entry in history in August when I post an obscenely humongous number of pictures of my entire 11-week trip. I know I've said this was 10 weeks, but I've actually counted the number of weeks in my planner and it's 11. Anyway though, the pictures will have to wait but hopefully these entries made it to my blog in a decent amount of time if I've been able to get my hands on a USB flash drive or something.

Being in Bangalore already makes me miss New Zealand a bit, especially since Bangalore is quite noisy and the traffic is chaotic to say the least. It's not that I don't like that, but I guess it makes me think of how green and peaceful it was in New Zealand and how a lot of times we'd be the only car on the road.

I think it was a bad idea to wait until I come back to take my driving test because I think I've become a little more accustomed to the traffic being on the left side of the road and everyone here changes lanes without signaling and sometimes there could be 4 cars crammed side-by-side on a 3-lane road. Everyone whizzes past one another really closely, and despite the insanity, I have yet to see an accident or injured pedestrian.

So far the hardest part of adjusting to my stay in India has been the food. Oh, and I think the sporadic water supply will eventually get to me as it's somewhat inconvenient when I try to wash up in the morning but I have barely a dribble of water coming from the faucet. But, back to the food: it's not that it's bad food; I'm just still adjusting to eating a lot of unfamiliar things for nearly every meal and I'm still getting accustomed to the flurry of unfamiliar spices and flavors. I was so afraid that I'd absolutely hate everything, but actually in New Zealand, there were quite a few Indian dishes that I enjoyed so that was a good transition. My diet has been primarily vegetarian which is something I've always wanted to try and don't mind so that's been kind of cool. For the times that I do go a little hungry, I have a stash of dried cranberries and apricots from New Zealand (NZ's biosecurity would not have permitted me to bring those into the country from the US but fortunately, India does not have any sort of biosecurity) as well as some crackers and Oreos from an Indian grocery store.