From Masala to Bollywood and everything in between! Catch up with me and my time around South Asia

Alright so today was by far the most exciting day I've had here in India yet! The day began with some meetings with the administrators planning for our future travels and such. We squared away our class schedules, and planned for our first week of school. I am continually surprised by the value of the American dollar in India. Our travel agent through the program has arranged a 4 day, 3 night stay in the beach resort town of Goa with luxury accomodations, guided tour, meals included for only 90 american dollars!!! So then in the afternoon we (Stacy, Gigi (other American students) and I) got a taxi into the city where we went to a western shopping market so we could get whole wheat bread, peanut butter and some other essentials. We continued on into the heart of the city where we had a little lunch between the Modern art museum and a beautiful Lotus Pond. After lunch we explored the Building museum that had the most wonderful exhibits of model engines, pulleys, levers, and old models of computers, typewriters, and sewing machines. In the museum I had my first public squat-john experience...I was glad I had chosen to wear a skirt. After we had seen enough of the museum we headed out to try and find the main post office so we could buy stamps and mail some postcards. It ended up that during our walk the skies opened up and we were caught in an afternoon monsoon storm!! So here we were unsure of our final destination, running around in the rain amongst all the cars, cattle, motorbikes, etc. who were splashing puddles and muck around us. We were quite a sight I'm sure, because every few blocks Stacy would have to stop and do something--either take a photo, fix her bag, take off her shoes and walk (she had decided to wear heels)! Needless to say I felt like the only one who was truly equippted to roving the city during the afternoon downpour. The best part of today's outing was that I really bonded with Gigi, which was unexpected. We had been scheduled to return home with our fellow ICMIS student, Josh from California, who's been interning here for three months. He was going to show us how to take the busses from the city back to our campus. Josh was dumped on last minute at work so he couldn't accompany us home. So we decided to not take our chances and find a rickshaw to take us back home. So we found a trusty driver, his name is Chandru, and he has promised to be our rickshaw driver whenever he is able and we need a lift in the future. In conclusion it was a day filled with adventure and discovery in hectic and chaotic Bangalore. Now that I have gotten all this out of my system and am sufficiently exhausted I am ready for a good night's sleep so I can begin my classes tomorrow!!! Check out the pictures that I collected today in the gallery.