sensory overload

i guess that's the best way to describe india so far. the sights, the sounds, the smells....they smacked me in the face the minute i stepped off the plane in New Delhi. I arrived a day before my group started our "adventure tour" so i spent all day saturday wandering around the Karol bagh zone of the city. I ventured out on my own for the first few hours, and returned to the hotel, jet-lagged and overwhelmed by the "foreign-ness" of it all. the streets of delhi consist of different worlds existing side-by-side... businessmen in shirts and ties riding in the back of bicycle rickshaw-style taxis. 1960's era cars whizzing by the Nike store in connaught place.

Later, I randomly bumped into an american tour leader from new orleans that had just finished 9 weeks of leading high-school kids around india in two-week stints. he had picked up some pretty good Hindi over the past few months, and he showed me how to navigate the (brand new) delhi metro. He also gave me some solid advice about scam artists and where to get the best cheap (and safe!) food around town.

sunday night, i met up with our international group for the first time.
everyone is awesome - there are 10 of us (8 girls, 2 lucky british guys), no other americans, and everyone (except for two girls) is traveling solo. we've all hit it off surprisingly well and i think the next 12 days are going to rock.

we're in agra now - took the local train (an experience in and of itself) from delhi this morning at 6am. got some great photos (the best of which was with the indian army taj mahal guards who insisted that all 10 of us plus 4 army officers get onto a rickety wooden rowboat for an "authentic" photo) -- unfortunately the internet connection here varies between 'slow' and 'reaaaaaaaaaallly slow' so i'll save the pics for another day. i'm not spell-checking or grammar checking, so you can enjoy the errors.

hope all is well wherever you are.... more soon! xox