First week already?!

I am alive and safe…and some of you may be surprised but I’m also very full-not starving  I have been in India for 6ish days and it feels like a very long time and yet also a very short time. It hasn’t really hit me yet that I’m studying abroad here since we have only been to one class and that was just to sit in. We have been on exposure visits for our field placements but I don’t know if I’m going to choose any of the ones we’ve been to yet. Everything is slowed down over here. I’m thankful that I am an easy going person or else I may have burst by now. So let me see what I’ve been up to…
The trip started off with loooong plane rides. It was good bonding time with the other BCA girls (Alison, Annie, Emily & Mary) and Robert (our BCA director). We all hit it off right away which I was very happy about. 2010 came when we were flying over the ocean and the whole plane cheered a little bit but nothing too exciting. I feel like ever since we got off the plane in Mangalore everything is filled with color and contrast-I love it so far!
We went to a zoo type place on Sunday and we saw a lot of interesting animals as well as riding an Indian elephant!! Who’da thought that within the first week in India I’d be on an elephant?! All 5 of us girls hopped on the same one and a little boy led us around. Guess how much it cost? Ohh about 50 cents/person. And we could videotape and take pictures the whole time for free and no forms of liability were signed….welcome to India. We also went to a Hindu Temple and St.Alyousius (spelling may be wrong) and got tours at both of those places. The Hindu Temple was very elaborate and neat to look at all of the statues of gods they had everywhere. St.Alyosius is a Catholic school and church-the ceiling was painted with very elaborate murals of the stories of Jesus.
We went to school and got a full tour and met with the principal who is very nice. The school is so quaint and full of trees and such but very different than a college in the States. Compare Juniata to Roshni and you’ll find many differences. For instance, we are trying to pick our 2 elective classes and so Joselyn, the head director type guy for us, told us to look at the time table and look at when our classes would start and try to find when we could do our field placement. They have the ENTIRE schools class schedule on one paper. For college. Now I know it’s much more specialized and it works for them but it’s different. Also Indians run on IST-that’s Indian Standard Time-or as they joke-Indian Stretchable Time. They don’t worry about time except for classes and appointments.
Food. I hit a PR (personal record) for eating spicy food consecutively. Friday morning we ate at our hotel (where we stayed for 4 days until our flat was ready) and ate spicy food for breakfast. So 3 meals on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday-I had spicy food at each meal!!!! Whoaaaa! Be impressed! The girls learned fast that my tolerance was not as high as theirs but I still try everything and eat a lot. At every meal we have either bread or rice-the bread is all very tasty-I’m trying to figure out what the different names mean though. And then we have what they call gravy. Everything else basically is gravy. It’s a meat or veg dish in a sauce. Overall it’s all very good-just spicy 
Running….yeah. About that. So far I have not been able to run because we have been busy every day getting adjusted and we don’t know where/we\hen we can run. BUT Saturday is sports day and I am signed up for the 1500 as that is the longest distance they have…it may be really ugly. Also the fitness type lady is going to hopefully find us and talk to us on Saturday and Alison and I can find out where we can run and when! Alison was a sprinter in HS but now she runs distance. We were boty very excited when we found out that we both really really wanted/needed to run while here.
I feel like I have done so much and we have so much that we are going to do while here. So far I really like everything a lot. The autorickshaws are so fun to ride in , the chocolate is tasty and the people are kind. WE just moved into our house yesterday and we are trying to figure out the internet but I think we will soon and then I can update more regularly. Although not having any cell phone or internet connection for a week was kinda nice. We got our cell phones about 3 days ago and opened bank accounts but we don’t have ATM cards or SIM cards yet….oh India…so we can’t use them just yet but contact with the world is coming. Right now I’m at the school computer lab…signing off. Love you all!