Welcome Home

Well I've officially arrived back in Pune after my two week trip around South India! It was an amazing time, we saw incredible sites and I fell even more in love with India. Unfortunately all of the travel took a toll on us and by the end most of us had a cough and everyone was exhausted. Technically I got back over a week ago, but I've been resting and trying to recover. After a mix of cough syrup, 4 different pills and a variety of Indian home remedies I think I'm all better. I'll post all about my trip with tons of pictures but it won't be for a few days. I took almost 900 pictures and I need to go through all of them first.

It's hard to believe but while I was on the trip my 4 month anniversary passed. And now just over 2 weeks later I'm getting scarily close to 5 months or the halfway point. Right now I'm so worried about finishing college essays that it hasn't really sunk in yet, but I know once it does it'll be an emotional rollercoaster.

After the trip I arrived home ready to get back to school. Unfortunately (but not too bad) right now there are oral exams going on. Then we have about a week off between Christmas and New Years. Basically the Indian school system is plotting against me ever attending classes. I'm keeping busy though. In early February all of the inbounds are performing a dance at the district conference. We actually had another dance performance in October. Now I realize I never talked about it, sorry! It was at a program to promote Rotary Youth Exchange for students interested in going next year. (If you want to see it here's the links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgvtzjvcbMQ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbk7cE8mcUA) Anyway, those were folk dances and this time we've decided to do some Bollywood songs. It's difficult but also very, very fun! Other than that I've just been relaxing, shopping for Christmas presents and hanging out with friends and my family.

Speaking of which, it's almost Christmas! Though we were told that it would be especially difficult for us to be away from home during the holiday season I'm doing pretty well. I had such an amazing time on the trip and right now I really am in love with India. It's feeling like home and I am incredibly happy here. Even so I've been missing home some. Well more specifically the cold, SNOW, Christmas decorations, huge quantities of Thanksgiving food and all of the cozy parts of winter. I even (sort of) miss shoveling the driveway. Right now it's becoming "Winter" here. It makes Audrey, Hugo, Gustav and I laugh but everyone is freaking out because it's been 10 or 15 degrees. Oh, and that's in Celsius. I've mostly figured it out (multiply by two and add 32) but it's still weird for me. That makes it in the 50s and 60s in Fahrenheit. For Pune it is significantly cold, but for me it seems nice after too much heat and sweating the past 4 months. I'm definitely missing Christmas. I know that I'm going to have an awesome Christmas with the family of exchange students I've made here and I'm planning to try and make cookies and other food for my host parents.

It was decided this week that I'm going to change host families in the beginning of January. I'm both excited and nervous. I have loved my family (the Tilaks) so far, but I'm excited to see what my next family is like. Audrey, Tamara and I are rotating among our three families so luckily I've already met my new family, the Satputes. Our 3 families get together every few weeks and we went to Konkan together during Diwali (I promise to write that blog soon! I don't have much else to do) so I know them at least a little. Their son, Ronak, is in Mexico and because he was the last outbound of our 3 families to leave I got to know him some before he left. Overall I'm excited for my next family and not very worried. Plus the policy with Rotary here is that for the last month I return to my first family, so I'll be coming back for the end which is really nice.

Anyway, I'm settled back at home and glad to be back in Pune. Not much is happening and I promise, promise, promise to post soon!
Merry (Indian) Christmas,
Elisabeth

PS Here's a preview of my trip:

Audrey, Leon and me in front of a palace in Mysore!

Diwali: Food, Family and Firecrackers

First let me just say, sorry I haven't written in a while. I've been partially busy with college applications and essays and also putting off writing about all that's happened. It hasn't really been that much the past 2 weeks, but 3 weeks ago was one of the most exciting weeks of my life! Two main reasons. One, it was Diwali!! The second I'll get to in a blog today or tomorrow (I promise!), but it was going to the beach with my family. 

                                           

Rangoli at my rotary club

Anyway, Diwali! Diwali is known as the festival of lights. It and Holi (the festival of colors) were the only two festivals I'd heard of before I got here. It can basically be broken down into three Fs. Food, family and firecrackers. Hence the title of this post. During this time there's at least 2 weeks off from school and a lot of people have time off from work. People go back home and visit with family and eat. In many ways it's similar to Christmas. 

                                  

Candles outside my front door

My family went to visit relatives pretty much every day. It was nice getting to spend time with everyone. Most are younger than me, but there are a few just a year or two younger than me and a few a little older. Most of my host mom's family lives in Pune. I've been seeing them separately the past few months but now I have basically figured out who is related. One interesting thing about Indian families is that they call their cousins their brothers and sisters. This was confusing at first because I thought both my parents came from huge families (as it turns out they each just have one sibling) but I've come to realize that it shows just how important family is in India.

                                  

Lanterns for sale on the road

Another big aspect of Diwali was the food. So, so, so much food. I help my host mom prepare huge amounts of snacks. Most were sweet but there were also some savory ones. Once we finished they filled 5 big containers on our table. In fact, we continued to eat them for the 2 weeks after Diwali. My favorite was karungi. It's a crescent shaped pastry filled with coconut (a staple of Indian cooking) and jaggery (another staple of Indian cooking). This is then deep fried in oil. They were incredibly delicious and I ate at least 4 of them fresh. 

                                 

                                 

Making karungi

                                       

Each day (there's 4) I woke up at about 6 am from firecrackers going off. The idea is to get up and bathe (in case I haven't mentioned Indians do this every day) before the sun comes up. I was able to do this twice. The first morning I got up at 5:30 so my host brother, Sahil, and I could burst crackers with the other kids in our society. It was weird having fireworks so early in the morning, but also really exciting. These crackers are in some ways similar to the ones in the US (sparklers and colored fountains) but there are also ones that are definitely not available in Minnesota. Namely bottle rockets and the really loud ones that come in two rows tied together. For the few weeks before Diwali stalls were set up on the main roads selling every type of firecracker. 

                                            

                                 

Me and Sahil with sparklers

                                 

We used so many firecrackers!

                                             

                                   

                                         

I've rambled off on a tangent, but let me explain my other early morning experience. A good Indian friend of mine, Aditi, who was an inbound in Sweden last year invited me to go to Sarasbaug with her for some kind of lighting that was supposed to be really cool. Some of her friends would also be going including a girl named Sana who was an inbound in Ohio. The only catch was that we had to reach there at 5 am, and since it was halfway across the city that meant leaving at 4:30. In order to do this I woke up at 3:45 in the morning. It surprisingly wasn't that bad and I was pretty awake. It kind of reminded me of waking up really early for sub-zero APUSH reviews at 6:30 last year! Anyway, I dragged myself out of bed hoping that it would be amazing and totally worth it. I reasoned that I should at least check it out since, after all, I'm only going to be in India for a year and I might not get this chance again.

Boy, was it worth it!! It was amazing. First of all, a temple just across the street was completely lit up and gorgeous. Here's a picture.

                                   

When I finally entered the gardens I was blown away again. It was still quite dark, but all over the lawn there were designs made out of flowers, flowerpetals and candles. And complicated designs too, not simple ones. They were breathtaking and for the first 10 minutes or so I couldn't believe I was really there. At the gardens many people were lighting floating lanterns. (Yes, just like in the movie Tangled!) They were beautiful, and since it was still dark and the sky was clear there were lights filling the early morning sky. It was beautiful to see them highlighted against the palm trees and all of the lights on the temple. 

                             

                              

                              

Me lighting a lantern

                              

Me and some Indian friends at Sarasbaug

Overall Diwali was an amazing festival. I spent time with my family, ate good food and enjoyed lots of firecrackers and new experiences. While it may have been almost 3 weeks ago (yet again, I'm sorry!) it was one of my favorite parts of my time here and I loved every bit of it!

Me, Audrey and Tamara lighting 3 fountains at once

Me and Audrey are on the far left and Tamara is somewhere to the right

An action shot of me (and 2 neighbor kids) running away from the firecracker I had just lit

Tamara and I got fancy with the camera effects

I close with an action shot of me running away after lighting a bottle rocket on my roof

Random Thoughts and a Big Anniversary

On November 1^st (last Friday) it was officially 3 months since I arrived in India! My internet hasn’t been working very well so I wasn’t able to post this blog then, so it’s a belated anniversary. Anyway, these past 3 months feel so long, but also really short when I think of how much I’ve learned and matured and experienced in the past few months. It’s been incredible, and I’m not even a third of the way done!

The view out my window

Right now I’m in the midst of Diwali, probably the biggest holiday here. I’ve been on vacation so other than celebrating (mostly eating) not much has happened. I’ll post a blog in a few days describing Diwali (with lots and lots of pictures!) but in the meantime here’s a collection of random thoughts, pictures and things I haven’t talked about yet.

Chai

Since I’ve been here I have drank on average 2 cups of tea a day. I have it in the morning with my host parents when I first get up and usually sometime in the afternoon or early evening when I get home. The tea I have with my family is about like what I drink at home, though with less sugar and it’s drank immediately so it’s usually near boiling. However the tea that you can buy at restaurants and on the street is completely different. I don’t know what they put in it, but it is heavenly. I think only masala is added, but they might also put fairy dust or something else in it. Honestly one of my goals for this year is to be able to make tea that delicious when I go back home.

The view of the street near my school

Shopping

Overall everything here is super inexpensive. Right now the Rupee is actually doing better and is about 61 rupees to one dollar (it got up to 70 in August) but relatively it’s still cheap. Still at the shops on the street it’s very inexpensive. Usually a few hundred rupees, depending on what it is. Compared to these the malls are crazy expensive. The prices are still less compared to the US (maybe 15 dollars for a nice shirt), but relative to all the other expenses here that is incredibly expensive.

Shopping here is very different than in the United States. First of all there are so many different places. There’s regular stores, huge malls, little stalls and whole streets where both sides are lined with stores and stalls. Storekeepers here are incredibly attentive and kind of suffocating. There always seems to be at least 2 employees for each customer and if you so much as remove a hanger from a rack they’ll try and help you. It can be very annoying, but I also feel bad when I don’t get anything, so I guess their tactic is working. My attitude while shopping has changed a lot since being here. I’ve learned that if I go into a clothing store I need to be committed to purchasing something. I’ll pick something (say a scarf or a kurti) that I want to get before I go inside and make that my goal. Especially on roads, like Tulshibaug, where it is completely stalls and a tiny lane for shopping I’ve learned to not touch anything I’m not willing to consider buying and to never make eye contact with a shopkeeper.

Tulshibaug

Cars Backing Up

One of the randomest things I’ve found here is that when cars are backing up they play music. I actually don’t know the reasoning behind this, other than it being a reminder that you’re in reverse, but it’s actually pretty cool though. I don’t think you can customize them but there are tons of different songs. I usually hear Fur Elise from one of my neighbors in the morning and often My Heart Will Go On. Sometimes they’re not even well known songs, just little melodies, but other times suddenly you’ll hear an electronic version of a Jennifer Lopez song as a nearby car reverses.

Random street pictures as per my sister's request:

Street food

On most streets you can find a few vendors selling street food. They have almost anything and everything. Corn on the cob (roasted in front of you!), momos (a type of dumpling), roasted nuts, a lime soda, nearly every kind of fruit and traditional Indian street food like bhel and pani puri. Right outside of my school there are stands that I visit nearly everyday to buy either momos with chili sauce or a little cone of warm, salted peanuts.

A few weeks ago to celebrate the end of exams Audrey and I met up with some of our Indian friends and ate Bhel and Pani Puri. Bhel is kind of like a chex-mix of different ingredients in a soup, kind of similar to chili. Pani puri is a little crispy ball sort of pastry thing. I can’t really describe it, but hopefully the picture below (stolen from Google Images) helps. It’s filled with some sauces and then little spicy cheeto like things are on top of that. They were both really good.

Pani Puri!

Audrey and our friend Kunal eating bhel

By far the most exotic part of street food is the fruit. There’s your run of the mill apples and oranges, but there’s also ones that look like alien eggs out of a sci-fi movie. (Google jackfruit and star fruit if you don’t believe me). The most popular fruit to get is probably coconut. Not only is it really good for you, it’s also fun to eat. The people who sell them cut off the top just enough to get a tiny hole for a straw to drink the juice. Once that is finished they will cut the hole larger and then make a perfect spoon out of a piece cut off the side so you can scoop out the flesh inside.  On our way home from running errands last week my host mom and I stopped to buy some fruit at such a cart on the side of the road. In addition to the many vegetables there was a big pile of pineapple. We decided to get some and right in front of us the vendor cut the fresh fruit and wrapped it up. As we were walking away I realized that though I’ve had pineapple plenty of times I’ve never had it actually cut from the fruit, much less right in front of me. It was just a little friendly reminder of how exciting and different India is. After 3 months here I’ve started to forget, or perhaps just get used to, the many differences between the United States and India. Still, there are little reminders like these that I am in a country halfway around the world from my old home.

The view from the hill behind my house (my building is the one in the center on the left side of the corner)

Finally in honor of it being a big anniversary and all, thank you to everyone who has helped me with this year and continues to help me. It has been the greatest experience of my life and it can only get better from here!

A gigantic dhunyavad (thank you in Marathi) to everyone!

Elisabeth

Views from each side of the pedestrian bridge over Karve Rd

School

After getting back from the trip to Karnataka I’ve been getting back into the routine of going to school. School here is set up very differently than in the United States so I’ll try and explain it all, but fair warning it’s going to be a long blog.

I am enrolled in Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce and I’m in 11^th standard in the Arts stream (hopefully by the end of this post you’ll understand what that means). All of the exchange students are in this class and in addition to us with the Rotary there’s 3 girls from AFS, 2 from Italy and 1 from Thailand.

I have school 6 days a week (we have Sunday off) from 11:30-5. To get to school every day I leave my house at 11 and walk about 10 minutes to the main road (Paud Rd.) to catch a bus with 4 other girls, Tamara (from Mexico), Jaee, Aditi and Abah. The bus costs 10 rupees (16 cents) to get to SNDT, which is an all-girls college and the stop we get off at. From there we take a rickshaw (usually just over 20 rupees, or about 35 cents) to Symbiosis.

Symbiosis is on one of the main roads in Pune and after passing through a gate there’s a long courtyard, our favorite hangout spot, with benches on each side. To the right is the building with my college, Arts and Commerce, and the Law College inside. On the left is the canteen (or cafeteria) and housing for some students who live on campus and go to the school of Liberal Arts.

Each day we have 7 periods (one of them is free time) of 45 minutes each. I have my first period off so I don’t need to be at school till around noon. My classrooms are on the 5^th floor (also the top level) and we rotate in between just 2 or 3 rooms. Other than that the teachers come to the rooms for each new class. Most of the classes are just straight lectures and although we have textbooks we often just read straight from them and take notes on it.

The school system here is very different so here are some of the important differences:

- “College” in India is 11^th and 12^th grades (or standards as they call them here) and it is separate from School, which is 1^st to 10^th grades. At the end of 10^th grade students take really big board exams to determine what college they can go to. However their admission is based purely on what score they get on the test. Each college sets a score percentage (it changes slightly each year depending on how people do) and if you get above that then you get into the college.

-The score you have to get depends upon your caste. There’s a system that’s similar to Affirmative Action in the US where based on their caste they need a certain score to get into a college. For example, in order to get into Symbiosis (one of the more competitive colleges) some castes need to get scores in the 90s whereas others only need in the 60s. This definitely causes some resentment, especially when there's so much pressure to go to a good college.

-Because of this competitiveness and the sort of single shot to get into a good school basically all of 10^th grade (and often 9^th as well) is spent studying hard for the exams. Then when people get into 11^th all they want to do is relax and have fun.

-Attendance isn’t really compulsory (although we’re told that in order to pass you must attend 70% of classes) and often isn’t even kept track of so a lot of people just don’t go to class. Even the teachers don’t always come to school. My host mom explained to me that it’s a vicious cycle. Because they students don’t go to class or don’t pay attention the teachers don’t find it fulfilling to come to class so they don’t show up and if the teachers aren’t there students find it pointless to come to class and so it continues. However it’s not like in the US where if the teacher is gone we have a substitute. Instead that class is off and we’re free to do whatever. On multiple days we’ve found out in the morning that all the classes of the day are off and I have yet to attend a full day of school.

-While in “School” everyone studies the same subjects (except for maybe language) in “College” there are 3 streams: Arts, Commerce and Science. Sometime in 10^th standard everyone has to decide what field they want their career to be in and therefore what stream to follow for college. Considering in the US we don’t need to decide until junior year of University (College for us) this seems like a big decision for a 15 year old to make.

Based upon their stream there are certain classes specific for it. For example in the Arts stream I take: Geography (a lot like Earth science), History (of Maharashtra and India), English, French (there’s also German and Hindi), Information Technology (basically computers) and Economics.

Having school is nice because it adds some structure to my schedule and gives me something to do during the day. It’s also a really good way to meet people. In addition to the kids in our class I’ve made friends with people who have just come up and introduced themselves and asked me where I’m from. Jesus (from Mexico) and Audrey also somehow collectively know half of the people at Symbiosis so when I’m with them I invariably meet someone new. Though my fellow exchange students are my absolute best friends, I’m trying to make an effort to meet more Indian students and make some good friends.

After being enrolled in school for almost 2 months I’ve realized that I’m not going to be able to get a lot out of it. The classes happen too erratically and the style of teaching don’t exactly make the classes enjoyable when they do happen. Still, I need to be there during the day so my task now is to figure out what to do at school so that I can still get something out of it.

One place I’ve been going a lot is the school library. A nerdy as it sounds it’s air conditioned (a huge draw because for some reason it gets hotter in October here) and there’s a good collection of books. It’s very disorganized within the sections,but I’ve found the English section is basically all classics that my Mom has recommended I read at some point. Recently I’ve been picking a book to read (right now its Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude), hiding in a less frequented section (usually the finance and tax shelves) and reading for a half an hour or so.  I still haven’t had an English class (the teacher is also the Vice Principal) so I don’t know if we will have books to read. But in the meantime I’ve found some good bookstores (there’s a chain called Crossword that is heavenly) around Pune and I’ve already bought quite a few books, so I always have that to fall back upon.

I’ve also been hit with the reality of applying for college. Luckily because I took some online classes this summer I can graduate with my grade when I come back in June and I’ll be attending college next year. Unfortunately that means I need to do all of my college stuff here. I did a lot over the summer, but somehow I suddenly have less than 3 weeks to finish up my applications if I want to apply Early Action by November 1^st. Though I’m almost done my biggest stress is writing and finishing up my essays. I’ve started carrying around a notebook with me so whenever I get a chance I can try and get some writing done. At school my classes are on the top floor and there’s an outdoor walkway connecting the two sides of the school with a terrace in the middle. There’s chairs and tables there and with the breeze and shade from the roof it’s a great place to try and get work done.

I have found some of the classes that are actually worthwhile. Economics happens pretty regularly, the teacher takes attendance strictly and we have good discussions. I don’t know much about the particulars of economics, but she makes it interesting and really involves the class. My favorite class by far (though there’s not much competition) is French. It’s the first year of it for everyone else (my seventh) so it isn’t much of a challenge. However, the teacher is really good and pushes everyone to work hard. In just a few months I think they’ve already learned more than I did in my first 2 years. She speaks as much as possible in French and expects everyone to pay attention and be ready to read aloud with a semi correct accent. I don’t know if I will learn anything new, but as long as I get the chance to keep speaking French consistently I’m happy. Gustav and Hugo both speak French so sometimes just to liven things up I attempt to communicate in Franglais with them.

Right now exams are about to start for everyone else (we don’t need to take them thank goodness) so even less classes have being going on than usual. This past week I’ve been meeting up with the other exchange students and a few Indian friends who want to take a break from studying and just relaxing (in between reading and working some on college essays) around Symbiosis. After exams finish up (sometime around the 22nd) we have maybe a week of school until Diwali vacation, which is (brace yourselves) between 3 and 4 weeks! It gets even better. Right after that I’m leaving on a two week tour of Southern India with the Rotary, so I’ll get almost 2 months off from school overall! 

I think I've covered all there is to say about school. I don't have a big conclusion (or at least not one I've already said) so to close here's a low quality picture of school that I did my best to take really casually with my iPod. (My college is the farther one on the right)

Karnataka Tour

Firstly let me say that I’m sorry I haven’t written in almost a month. It’s been daunting to put down all of my experiences on paper, but I’m going to force myself to post at least every other week from now on. There’s so much going on that I really do want to share with everyone. That being said, let me dive right into the past week. It was the first trip for the students of my district and it was to Karnataka, the state directly south of Maharashtra. Though it went incredibly fast and I’m not sure how we managed to squeeze all that we saw into just a week, I had an awesome time.

Fourteen inbounds went on the trip, ten from Pune and four from towns nearby. Of the inbounds from Pune all but one went. There were Audrey and me from the US, Gustav and Hugo from Sweden, Bruno from Brazil and Tamara, Jesus, Ana, Grecia and Pato from Mexico. In addition to us 4 students from outside of Pune came along. Iury and Paola from Brazil, Peter from France and Leon from Germany.

We were able to jam tons of things into just 7 days and even though we spent a lot of time on the bus, we saw lots of great landmarks. The best way for me to show all that I saw and experienced in the past week is through all of the pictures (almost 500!) that I took, so here are a sampling with helpful captions:

We visited more temples than I can count

 

 We saw 3 different waterfalls

We went swimming in the ocean

We went white water rafting and to a natural Jacuzzi at a beautiful hotel in Dandeli

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We saw a Buddhist Monastery

I made friends with multiple cows, monkeys, a kitten and an elephant

Best of all I hung out with the coolest people on Earth

Some of the most fun we had was just all the exchange students hanging out together. When we weren’t in the bus on the way to somewhere we did have a lot of freedom to do what we wanted. Although we couldn’t really go anywhere (sorry Mom, no wandering around unknown Indian towns by myself) we still had a good time.

On the bus we ranged from dance parties (mostly to Brazilian and Mexican dance music) to everyone doing their best to sleep (mostly on top of one another since we had very little space). Each place we stopped was also an opportunity to take countless pictures (both serious and funny) of everything and everyone. We also were responsible for getting lunch and dinner on our own, so we usually all ate together. Dinner was mostly a full typical South Indian meal, but lunch was often a mix of snacks while we were on the bus. We must have consumed more chips, soda, candy and nutella in one week than I had the month before.

One day for lunch we stopped in a tiny village to get food. There weren’t any actual restaurants to get a real meal so we just bought whatever we could find. Hugo and I decided to try all of the different Indian chip like snacks we could find and so we bought probably 5 bags, combined them into a weird, oily and heavily spiced mix and ate them while sitting on the roof of the bus.

A lot of the eating was definitely experimental. We have our old favorites to rely on (my personal choice being Masala Dosa) but depending where you are (region as well as restaurant) dishes can be very different. Therefore it was always a bit of a gamble whether the Kolhapuri chicken would be delicious or would permanently burn our taste buds off. This mystery made it fun too though. At the canteen at school our choice of lunch is always Chinese Chicken Noodles, so each and every time that was on the menu during the trip someone would get it to compare it.

We also had fun comparing our experiences (in the city of Pune) with Leon, Peter, Iury and Paola’s (each of them in small towns). While they definitely envy the fact that all of us are together in a city they had to admit they have certain advantages. They are forced to make Indian friends and are more directly exposed to the culture, and they are able to pick up the language easier. Though I love my fellow inbounds in Pune and am very happy here, I am a little jealous of them.

Returning to Pune after this trip was a weird experience. The tour was like a vacation within this year-long trip. I had a feeling of coming back home, even though it isn’t my real home. Pune is definitely becoming familiar to me and I really love it, but I still really think of Edina as my home. Still, coming back and seeing all the familiar landmarks was comforting and I did miss sleeping in my own bed each night.

While I was on the trip my 2 month mark passed. During all of time I was on the bus I was able to reflect on my time in India so far. I realized not only how lucky I was that I was given the opportunity to be in India and travel around with such awesome people, but also that this year was without a doubt the right choice for me. Sure I felt nostalgic looking at pictures from Edina’s Homecoming and I’m sad that instead of getting cooler and the leaves changing colors it’s getting warmer and dryer here. But forcing myself out of my comfort zone and diving into a new culture has been the best thing I could do for myself. As I so eloquently told some friends back home “I miss you, but not in a ‘buying a plane ticket as we speak’ sort of way.” That’s probably the best way for me to sum up my feelings. I think I’m at a place that I hope I will be for college next year. I appreciate all of the great things and people at home, but I accept and am okay that I don’t have them at the moment.

I’ve been getting into a habit (I’m not sure if it’s good or bad) of ending my blogs on a deep and sentimental note so to change it up I wanted to say that I’ll be trying to write more about what’s going on and I’ll put up pictures (for those of you who can’t see the ones on Facebook) soon. I’m still trying to figure out how to balance staying in touch with people back home with my day to day life here, and I’m also trying to establish more of a routine so bear with me until I do. If I don't get back to anyone immediately know that I'm having the time of my life here and I'll try to use my blog more to keep everyone updated!