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!