Namaskaar! (Hello!)

It is very hard to believe I have only been here for a few days!

I feel like I'm starting to adjust to life here very quickly, but I think the westernized hotel is a very easy way to help me to adjust. The group is also bonding really quickly, so I feel like I know the personalities of my other ACM-ers fairly well. The group is very congenial, and we like to go out together. Though I am loving getting to know everyone, I am anxious to move in with my home stay family this Saturday because I know that it will be nice to spend more time with Indians and exploring places on my own (this is mostly why I haven't posted any pictures yet--I haven't had time to go out and take pictures on my own and I don't want to carry it everywhere with me yet).

The past few days have been a long and tiring blur, though I know that here I will constantly be running from place to place in hopes of keeping up with all the things I want to do! I hope that in the next week I will experiment on a bike (though the traffic is a little unnerving). There are dozens of heavy old cruiser bikes in oily gray you can buy here for about $20, or rent for 20 rupees/a day, which is only about $.50 a day. This is only one example of the way prices seem so skewed from normal. Later today, I am getting a 50 minute full body massage for 250Rs, or $5. What?! It is funny that many things seem to be "expensive," even though when you think about translating the prices they are almost nothing at all. The only truly expensive things are cell phones and American products (we saw a Nike store up the road). Ben bought a Snapple at CCD (Cafe Coffee Day, what seems to be the Starbucks of India) that cost 120 Rs, more than 5 times the cost of some of the meals you can get on the street, or about $2.40. [As a reference, $1 = approx. 50 Rs, though of course it's changing every day].

Yesterday we started classes. All the staff here in India seems incredibly knowledgeable about all facets of things we might be interested in. We began with a lecture on the colonial influence in India, and I was surprised to find that the book I've been reading recently (Life, Inc.) is actually very informative on this topic. This was followed by a chaha (chaha is Marathi for Hindi chai, or essentially tea. Here is is served seeped very strong with lots of steamed milk and sugar, between 3 and 5 times a day for about 15 Rs in the hotel or 2-5 Rs on the street) break. Then we had Marathi class. Sucheta is the teacher for Marathi, and the language is incredibly fascinating and I love her class! She is a fantastic language teacher with lots of experience teaching Marathi to American ACM students. We are learning useful phrases and verbs and the script slowly, which is very interesting. Sometime soon I hope to post a more linguistic blog entry about my Marathi studies so far, but I think for now I will just start incorporating some Marathi phrases into my posts.

The afternoons have been full of shopping, or what are essentially outings to practice crossing the street. This is a bit like Europe on steroids, and there isn't such thing as "pedestrian right of way" I've enjoyed so much at CC. You have to sort of run/jog across the street in gaps between bicycles, motorcycles, vespas, cars, busses, and rickshaws all going at different speeds and swerving around one another (oh, and on the left of course). I'm sure I will be deathly afraid of traffic for weeks after getting back to the United States, where here I'm sure I will be honked at and run into if not paying attention.

Shopping is interesting, because we are quite aware that people are trying to rip us off and get us to pay more. I'm interested to start learning Marathi and prices a little better from living with my family so I can get things for the "actual" price. I know it seems stingy, but I'm going to be here for another 18 weeks or so and want to save my money as much as possible. I'm saving off on most of my shopping for later, though I'm already excited to start buying textiles and clothing here (particularly scarves, which are absolutely beautiful).

I have to go, because like I mentioned I am about to get a massage from a massage student coming very soon. I will write more on specific topics soon, and hopefully in the next week or so get a chance to post a few pictures of my life here in Pune. I also bought a cell phone yesterday and will be getting it activated tomorrow, so I will send my number to many of you in the near future so we can potentially talk on the phone (for 6 Rs/minute) sometime soon. Love to you all!!