Day Four - Are you from India? ... I'm going there!

Just about one week to go before I leave for India... Last night out at the bar with Francie and some of her friends I met a guy who looked Indian. Completely inappropriately the first words to come out of my mouth when I saw him was "Are you from India??? I'm going there!!! Hopefully, the poor guy wasn't too offended, we actually got into a good conversation about it. Probably should have taken some notes... As I am planning my last week in the U.S. until Christmas I am thinking about what to pack, people to see and things finish up before I leave. The past four months of my life have been hectic between work, school, catching up with friends, spending time with Brad , I can't wait to get on that plane, close my eyes, and get ready for some serious soul searching in India...

Day Three - Travel Planning (easier said than done...)

Those who know me well know that I can tend to be a little bit of a worrier (by a little I mean a lot). My friend Ashley has coined the term "Claire problems" which basically means dumb little things that I stress about extensively for pretty much no reason. However, planning my travels in India, I don't believe fits into this category. There is a lot of preparation and research involved. Even still I wish I had more time to read and learn about the places I will be visiting. While some people are much more "go with the flow" when traveling, I am stressed. I do not want to be late and I do not want anything to go wrong, especially in a country like India where I will be very unfamiliar with just about everything. Typically when traveling I like to think of myself as a chameleon, I do what I can to blend in with everyone else, an attitude which has been successful up until now. However, I am pretty convinced, as is my friend Kateri, that there is NO way we will blend in. Being taller than the majority of Indians, having pale skin and blonde hair is not going to go overlooked. I am not looking forward to what kind of attention we will draw... Regardless, so you can have an idea of the intensity of this trip here is the tentative plan: Kateri and I land on November 25 (Thanksgiving) in Mumbai from there we will grab a plane to Varanasi, a city located close to the banks of the Ganges river. It is the holiest place in the world in Hinduism, Hindus believe that dying in Varanasi will release the soul from its cycle of trans migrations. From Varanasi we take a train to Agra, city of the Taj Mahal. After visiting one of the most beautiful structures in the world we will go on to Jaipur also known as the Pink City. Finally we will finish our first week in Delhi the capital of India. In a nutshell we are visiting four cities in five days. Keep in mind India is a much larger country than you might realize, these trips are not going to be short... And so I am worrying about sleeping on trains, missing planes, and finding hotels. After expressing these concerns to our study abroad director one night in class he responded... "Claire, you are worrying about useless things!"

Day Two - Vaccines... Ouch!

A few days ago I met my good friend Holly for dinner. We caught up on several things, friends, family, work... Holly explained that she travels quite often for work and that she has developed a fear or anxiety even about flying. She worries every time she gets on a plane that she may not make it home. However, she realizes accidents can happen every day so being scared of flying is in a way irrational. For instance, car accidents happen everyday, if you live in Chicago like me you might be more likely to get hit by car; or you could feel off one day only to be told that you have cancer since everything causes cancer these days the possibility is always there; or you could wake up one day and realize a person you care about moved across the country... and you might just die of a broken heart, or emptiness. Regardless, while sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office I began thinking about the concept of vaccines. Whenever visiting a developing country vaccines are typically standard procedure, but what makes us worthy of receiving these vaccines or preventative medications. Indian citizens are exposed to the diseases we are trying to prevent every day. It doesn't seem fair that while they are constantly vulnerable to malaria, yellow fever or typhoid, I have the ability to prevent contracting these diseases although I will only be in India for three weeks. So why the discrepancy, where does it come from, the fact that I am from a developed country, a westerner, an American? Although I am sure there is some perfectly logical explaination, I can't help but wonder why are things so unfair?

Day One - Backpack adventures

After significant consumption of wine, my good Hope College girlfriends peer pressured me into starting a blog (who gives in to peer pressure at 24 right? Well apparently I do). Although I am pretty convinced they will be the only two people reading it, I decided it couldn't hurt. At least this way I will have a log of my trip to India, which is coming up so fast I can hardly believe it. So here it goes...

I am traveling around India with my friend Kateri and we went out for drinks the other night to discuss our plans. She told me about a fabulous backpack she had bought for our trip. It is going to be super comfortable and probably hold just about everything she needs. Well... me being the guilty spender that I am decided to borrow a backpack from one of Brad's friends (Brad assured me this backpack was big enough). NOTE TO SELF: Never believe a guy when he says a backpack is big enough - there is no way I am going to fit all the stuff I NEED for three weeks in this thing. But, I don't really have a choice and since it is India I am going to have to learn how to seriously downsize... yikes. Come to find out, this backpack has actually served multiple people on several trips all around the world which I find pretty cool. This will be the backpack's first time to India but it has been all around Europe, Africa, and I believe Australia - so it adds another country, and I suppose a new continent to its list of backpack adventures.