I made it! Barely.

I'm sitting here in my hotel/apartment/extended stay place and I think it's about 3:30 in the morning on May 1. See, I'm not really sure because I left Utah on April 29th at 10:45am. I got into Bangalore at 12:30am this morning.

The flights weren't too bad, well that's a lie. 3 1/2 hours to Cincinnati, another 9 to Paris and another 10 to Bangalore. That really was just torture. The only thing that was on my side was the overdosing on Ambien and the Italian woman that sat in front of me. She was loud and obnoxious and couldn't understand why she was getting in trouble for SMOKING IN THE BATHROOM. Now, I hear all the warnings and the regulations and I believe them. Smoking in an airplane is like lighting a match near pure gasoline. It was all I could do to not imagine us all going up in a cloud of smoke because of her narcotic addiction. But, alas, I made it here.
The airport looks much like the ones in Ecuador or Mexico, just a lot more Indian people around. Now mom and dad, if you are worried about me, THIS IS THE PLACE TO STOP READING. Unfortunately, getting here in the middle of the night and standing out like a sore thumb isn't the most comfortable feelings. But, to make it worse my driver didn't show up. To make it even worse, I didn't bring any cash because I was told to just use the ATM at the airport. To make it even even worse, the ATM wasn't working. So, here I am, my starch white hair, my BYU MBA sweatshirt and warm up pants standing in the Bangalore airport waiting to be preyed upon by anyone interested.

After almost crying, almost having a panic attack and lots of praying, I decided to just get a taxi to the hotel. It was about 2:00am at this point and the driver said he would take me to another bank to get cash. I was charged 2250 Rps to bring me here and I have no idea how much money that is worth, and frankly, I don't care. On the way here I saw lots of stray dogs, something I was expecting and lots of people sleeping on the street- something I was hoping that wouldn't be true. The drivers were nice (there ended up being 2 of them), one of them asked me if I was here on "business". I almost laught out loud! Don't you know that I am a child? Don't you know that I have no business being here? But, I said yes. Yes, I am here on very important business of trying not to get myself killed. Luckily they brought me here to the apartment unscathed.
My apartment is a studio and now that I am here I have realized all of the stuff I should have brought (hangers, adapter, hand sanitizer, a bag to carry my computer around in...duh, some nice shampoo, etc.). Luckily, I still recognize myself in the mirror after all those hours and now being half way around the world- my hair is puffy and my make up has melted off.
I should be asleep, but the idea of sleeping makes me sick. Too much time on an airplane and too many sleeping drugs. Instead, I'm uploading pictures of this place for you all to see. And by "you all", I realize that just my family and a few friends read this, so feel included in that statement. Hopefully I'll be able to write a lot while I'm here. Apparently India is a good place to "find yourself", or if I'm lucky, a summer fling! By the way, can I drink the water here? Probably would have been a good idea to look into that before I just used to the sink water to brush my teeth...