What a difference a day makes

There I was, sweating in the mass of what appeared to be refugees while waiting for the illustrious August Kranthi Rajdhani express to Delhi from Mumbai Central Station. All would be fine after my two hour wait when I was to board the train for a 17 hour journey to Delhi. I had a confirmed seat in the a/c sleeper car. It had the makings for a very relaxing trip. I thought there would be a bit of privacy, some comfortable beds, and good food. I was mostly right, except for the privacy. The beds weren't bad. They supplied us with clean linens which is something I haven't had once during my trip. And the a/c worked so well that we actually needed to use the blankets! They served us multiple courses of food which was at least above par. As my luck would have it, when it came time for everyone to sleep, I came to the disturbing conclusion that all of the snorers on the train were located within 5 feet of my bed. Fortunately, the slow rocking of the train eventually lulled me to sleep. It turned out to be much more refreshing than I expected. I even met a gentleman who works in the Prime Minister's office that gave me his mobile number and told me to call him if I had ANY problems. I assured him that I would, but hopefully I wouldn't have to.

I was retrieved at the station by my uncle Ron's friend Anu. He was amazingly accommodating and took me immediately to find some housing in his nicely air conditioned Chevrolet. The journey was nice, but we did have to stop for directions multiple times. Delhi is a big city. Nobody really knows all of it. We settled on a place in Pitampura (about 3km from the school I will be at). I actually get my own room and bathroom! It is amazing to have privacy at last. There is no shower, so I have to do that Indian style with a couple of buckets. However, there is a Western toilet. I'll take that trade off any day. Tonight, I did realize that I do have several unofficial roommates. Those two inch long cockroaches just moved right in. I managed to take care of them with a few swift swipes of my shoe. I do also have a flat mate from Texas. It is great to have some company from America. He is here working on graduate research concerning micro-loans. Very interesting stuff. I may accompany him out to some of the slums where he is working just to see how it all operates. I also will start at the Bal Bharati Public School tomorrow. I will have to endure a course of interviews which should be pretty intense. Then I will be busy observing, questioning, and writing. Overall, it has been a crazy eventful day or so. I am looking forward to the next 4 weeks. There is a tentative plan to head down to Goa for some R&R during the end of my trip. It would be a great conclusion.