I'm here.

So I landed at the Bangalore airport at around 3 o'clock this morning. My Dad had told me to sleep as much as possible on both flights, but especially the latter. Of course though I hardly slept on either flight...
I did manage to catch up on a fair amount of movies on the first, 20 hour, flight from LAX to Dubai . I believe I saw 17 Again, Jerusalema, Bride Wars and Black Hawk Down: Columbia. Jerusalema was an incredible picture. A boy from South Africa's slums gets caught up in crime after being admitted to university, but with no money to pay the fees he soon drops out of school. He eventually becomes known as the Robin hood of the area after he turns apartment buildings into co-op type consortions, essentially evicting the landlord on the premises that the rich white are leaving the poor black to live in squabble while continually upping the rent.
While I did have an end seat which theoretically gave me more leg room on that first flight, I found myself unable to stretch out my legs in the isle because the stewardesses would "accidentally" ram the drink carts into my legs. There was also the issue of the man sitting next to me, an Indian who continued on to Bangalore on the same flight as me. Not only did he have very, very strong B.O., he would tap me after I finally did fall asleep because he had to go to the bathroom.
Flight number two: Dubai to Bangalore, 4 hours.
I actually did intend to sleep on this flight, but I was seated next to an adorable little Indian girl. During the fall while in Vizag someone observed that I tended to make friends that were either older or younger than me, but usually not my own age. Well, this girl fit that pattern. She, her mother and younger brother were traveling from Bahrain to Bangalore to visit her extended family. Her immediate family lives in Bahrain where her father works. She said she attended a English-speaking school and I immediately remembered Thomas Friedman commenting in his book Hot, Flat, and Crowded about the US shutting down the premier American school in the country years back due to a with drawl of their personnel in the area (and thus there was no longer a need for their American children to be educated), or maybe it was Kuwait? I also remember a boy I met at Georgetown summer school who was Bahrainian and whose tuition at an elite US boarding school and his future college plans were all funded by the prince of Bahrain.
And those were the flights. When I got off the flight, I was checked for swine flu! A scanner type device was held up to my head and apparently that constitutes an examination. All I could think about though was how on the swine flu questionnaire there was a question about whether you had come into contact with anyone who has had the flu. I wanted to write, yes, my friend Dani, but I decided to refrain. After I got through customs and collected my luggage, I met with the i to i driver but had to wait another 3-4 hours for another volunteer's flight to get in. I passed the time by reading my book-- Holy Cow by Sarah McDonald, gifted to me by my brother's girlfriend, is actually a surprisingly good read and while some of what she touches on is rather typical, she does undercover some hidden gems (like the white Sikhs, who knew?!). As a matter of fact the weather was quite chilly, but the arrival area was not too crowded and there were several rows of chairs to sit in. And I also bought the July India Vogue, Deepika is on the cover in what I think is a gorgeous D&G dress.
I arrived at the group home after about a 45 minute drive. There is an older woman who runs (and owns the house). She will make the meals and help us figure things out. I have a room mate who I think is British but I'm not really sure because she went off to Mysore on a day trip with someone shortly after I arrived. I think there will be 7 boys/girls in the house and there is a similar house down the road.
So about the city... there are street names and, gasp, street signs! I must admit though, even though the climate is much more temperate here (aided tremendously by the fact that it's monsoon season) I think I'm really going to miss the water. In Vizag it was literally right there, boom, I look out my window and there's the Bay of Bengal. But alas, I am in Bangalore now...
P.S. I think I shall wait until I get back to the US to post my photographs and I'll probably end up doing so all at once on my facebook as I did before.