20 More Days Until I'm Home!!!!

I can definitely say I have learned a lot on this trip. What is one of the biggest things I have learned?????? I AM A HOMEBODY, NOT A WORLD TRAVELLER. A few days of travelling and sightseeing is good, but then I am ready to be in my own home, in my own bed, with my own family, and in my own church.

I am travelling with four other people and I am very thankful for their company. Today they all went to a forest to see monkeys, elephants, and tigers (in the wild) and then after dinner they were going to see a snake charmer. I stayed behind to work on my classes and write a humongous paper (that still isn’t done...maybe tomorrow.)

It has been quite an adjustment, in many ways, here in India. I wish I had time to share them all but that would take days. One thing that is very strange for me is how they wait on me hand and foot. As I was writing this I had to stop because they were bringing me my laundry – washed, folded, ironed the whole nine-yards! And they don’t want tipped for it. I have discovered that they will take American chocolate though. A good friend from work told me to bring a lot of that when I came and now I know why – they love it and think it is the biggest treat in the world.

It is just odd not doing anything....no cleaning, cooking, etc. You may think, “How great!!!” but no, I don’t know what to do with myself. Thankfully, in 20 days I will be home!!! Here are a few pictures. I’ll try to do some better ones tomorrow.

These are two little children I see walk by each morning on their way to school. This is from my balcony window.

Also from my balcony window, the "house" with the blue tarp is where these children live.

This is kind of hard to see. I will try to get better ones later. The buildings you see in the background are the buildings we drive by as we go to and from work each day. About a half mile past this you enter what is known as Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is where I work. It is the high tech industry. Other than the people looking different and the guards surrounding the building you would have no idea that you were outside of America.

This is another view from my balcony. This is our pool, which is actually located on a roof. It's hard to believe that looking one way I see this and looking another way I see a shack with a blue tarp.

This is the last view from my balcony. It overlooks some of the other highrises that are in the area.

Day 6 - Now in India

I can’t believe I’ve already been gone for 6 days!! It has gone by very quickly. I’m writing this at 1am on Sunday morning (India time) and that is because my body is NOT convinced that it is night time. Yesterday I finally went to bed at 4am and slept until noon.

Thursday and Friday were pretty long days with working and trying to adjust to a different culture. It really is a different world here. It make me realized just how blessed people in America really are.

One thing that amazes me here is the people. They would do anything in their power to service you. I asked one gentleman if they had any magazines in the hotel and he told me he would bring some to my room. I found out he ran down the street and bought them for me, just because there wasn’t any here. They service your food, dish it up on your paper and when they see that you a re almost done they are right there ready to dish you up seconds.

I am trying many different things – food wise that is – because I will probably never get another opportunity like this again. Here are a few pictures – but I have some others that I will share later.

This is a typical street that we drive by on the way to work each day.

Driving here is an experience in itself. I am going to actual video our drive to work one day for that you can actually see the whole trip!

Traffic got held up one this day because a cow decided to lay down for a bit to rest. When this happens you just wait for him to get up or try to find another way to go.

These were school children getting a hot lunch served to them.

Day 3 - London sightseeing

There is no way to describe London!!! And no way to see even a touch of all the beauty in a day.....but we sure did try. Today was a day of sightseeing. Here are just a few of the things we saw:

The gates of Buckingham Palace

The back of one of the castles (I'm tired and don't remember which one)

London Bridge

Beautiful statues like this are EVERYWHERE!!!

Another gorgeous fountain

Part of the changing of the guards

This was our tour bus. We sat up on top in the open area part....even when it was sprinkling!! It was a wonderful experience that even the rain couldn't mess up. We had a terrific tour guide that shared SO much information.

This is Wanda - the very sweet lady that I am traveling with. She is in front of the gates at Buckingham Palace.

One of the many pictures I have of Big Ben. What a remarkable sight!!!

I wish we would have had more time. There are so many museums and churches that I would have loved to have toured. I took over 200 pictures and video taped and I still missed so much.

Dairy of my trip – Day 1 and 2

I am going to try to keep a daily dairy for my kids while I am away – and I thought what a great way to share it with my friends and family too.

I am currently in London. We arrived this afternoon and came straight to the hotel and slept for 3 hours. I can’t believe how tired I was.

I left Sunday at 1:15 pm, flew to Denver and then SAT for 8 hours until we finally boarded our plane to London. The flight was great. I slept for most of it (so why was I so tired when I got here??) I still feel like I could sleep some more, which is good because it is 10:00 pm here. Tonight we ate at the hotel restaurant and now we are spending the evening relaxing in the hotel room.

Tomorrow we are doing an all day tour on London. I know we’ll be exhausted when we are done, but we only have one full day here so we want to take advantage of it. I’ll try to get pictures posted each day.

Here is one for today......