Incredible India

Chennai, India
07:45pm
Hot

Namaste,

I am finally here in India and am enjoying myself immensely.

Early Friday morning after about 4 hours of sleep, Sandra drove me to the airport (Tegel, Berlin), where I caught my flight to London.

After hanging around on the airport for about 4 hours, the plane that took me to Chennai, India, finally took off. There were a lot of families with young children on the plane, though they were well behaved. The guy next to me had his arm on my armrest all the time, until I pushed him off, because my arm hurt. Anther positive thing were the Stewards! *wink*

I arrived right on time (3:25am) in Chennai, got through Immigration alright and received my suitcase from the almighty baggage claim. By 4:30am I called Renu and she and Navin were off to pick me up.

Traffic in India is an experience you should make if you can stomach it!

They use the horn constantly, there are no lanes on the street, mostly there are no streets and they have many types of traffic participants: cars, trucks, buses, rickshaws, two-wheelers (motorcycles), bikes, ppl in wheel chairs, carts and pedestrian. Renu and Scott are very good drivers and surprisingly so, I was not scared. As a pedestrian you have to be fearless to cross the street – use the magic hand (palm open, facing down and moving it in an up-down-fashion) and walk.

The Weiss family took me into their home in a strife. I have my small room with a small bathroom and even though the facilities are nothing compared to Germany, everything is clean and neat and I feel very comfortable here.

After arriving at their apartment complex, we read, greeted Scott, had breakfast (French toast and fruit) and Renu and I left for a medical conference.

The conference itself was awesome but I was already so tired that I nearly fell asleep before lunch break. The topics were from Rheumatology to TB and much more. Some were entertaining, others lots of information, but a bit dry. Lunch was amazing – soup (lime and coriander), rice, 6 different dishes (chicken stuff, macaroni etc), salad, dessert (ice cream + flan + Indian sweets). After lunch Renu called Scott and he picked me up. Scott and Renu are an odd couple, but they fit very well – he has a great sense of humour and a quiet, almost shy intellect (meaning you wouldn’t suspect that he is as smart as he is) and she has a strong personality, great sense of humour and an air of authority not even man twice her size posses sometimes.

I napped for 3 hours, then played video games with Navin and had dinner (apple, rice plates and chicken). Renu told me that 7am is good enough for getting up on Sunday, the 2^nd day of conference.

Sunday came all too soon, though I slept well with my fan on all night. After a quick shower (nearly cold water- best thing in the morning and best thing in this kind of weather) and breakfast, Renu and I headed back to the conference. One speech was about woman and mental health which was very good! Again Lunch and we headed back to the apartment seeing that it was only a half day. The four of us spend the evening buying clothes for me, grocery shopping, at the beach and having burgers at a local restaurant. It really helps being here with Renu; she knows whether the water is safe and the food edible. It is also very nice to have someone to converse with!

Today is monday - there's a bandh (strike) - so we slept in, watch a movie, played rummy...

CU
Love, Rea