I'm Here

After leaving DC at 5 pm Wednesday, arrived Paris Thursday morning - spent an hour going through security (good thing i had a 4-hour layover). After misplacing my passport in my state of exhaustion and, thanks to the honest indian people who found it and gave it back to me when i realised i had left it by the gate...decided i better get some caffeine into my system.

Waited anxiously for my traveling compainion - my cousin Miriam to amke her connection from Amsterdam. Fortunately she arrived just as our flight to Chennai was boarding. What i thought would be a 7 hour flight was more like 9 hours and i'm still goofed up about the time difference - which is apparently 4.5 hours earlier than paris - go figure.

Arrived friday morning in chennai - and by morning i mean 1 a.m. and then waitind a full hour for our bags - which fortunately all arrived. were met by our global volunteers coordinator, Stephenraj and another volunteer - Nikki and were driven through the dark streets to the guest house in Porur. In the dark saw my first indian cows roaming the streets, as well as numerous stray dogs, palm trees, and piles of rubble.

By the time we got to our room - we were totally exhausted and went right to sleep - got up around 8 a.m. and I actually feel like i'm on the local time zone...so that's pretty good.

Still rather spaey, however...i learned the hard way why they tell you not to lie down for 30 minutes after taking doxycycline 9my antimalarial drug). I took it 1st thing on rising and then forgot and lay down for a bit. Ended up barfing before breakfast (yuck)... all better now.

so - today we are going to get organized and then wander around porur a bit...hope to get some photos up soon.