Arrived Safely in India!

I'm safely here in India and had no troubles getting here! I flew from Seattle to LA, LA to Dubai, Dubai to Bangalore. The LA-Dubai leg was my longest single flight so far: 15 hours! I'm not a good plane sleeper, so I'm a little dopey right now. I arrived in Bangalore at 3 a.m., and it was maybe 3:30-40 by the time I had my bag and changed money and headed out the doors. It wasn't nearly as chaotic as I'd expected. I thought that people would be pushing and yelling and offering lots of taxi rides, but it was pretty calm. People were all lined up behind a metal railing directly in front of the exit, and most were holding signs with people's names, but no one was talking or shouting. So I saw my name and caught the eye of the young man with the sign. He nodded to the side, and I walked around to meet him. The drive to the apartment was maybe 20 minutes, maybe less. I got here around 4:20 a.m.

I have my own room, which is clean and simple. I like it just great. It has two twin beds, a tiny little desk built into the corner, and a wardrobe built along one wall. The floors throughout the apartment are a shiny white tile, and I may possibly have my own bathroom.... Not sure about that. I haven't seen any of my flatmates yet, but there were lots of shoes piled by the door when I walked in, so I think there are several of us: 5? 8? I'm not sure...

Well, Diwali kicks off today. For those of you who don't know, Diwali is the festival of lights, and it's all firecrackers, firecrackers for the next few days, and people put Christmas lights up on their homes. (But, of course, here they're lights for Diwali, not Christmas lights.) Anyway, since between 5-6 a.m., people have been lighting firecrackers right outside my groundfloor window. Whew! If some friends of a friend hadn't warned me, I'd've been scared to death when they went off, but I've been in email with some people who are friends of a former classmate of mine, and they warned me not to be scared. When I talked to Tony earlier via Skype, I told him that when the first of the crackers went off, I was in bed, lying on my stomach. My heart started pounding so hard, that my torso was moving up and down with the force of my heartbeats. Geez.

I already have an invitation to lunch today with one of my former classmate's friends and an invitation to dinner and Diwali celebration with another for tomorrow! God is good. I'm not lonely and have people to celebrate what, to me, will be a new holiday. Yay! I'll take good pics and will post more later.