Traveling to Chennai

Traveling to Frankfurt

The trip over here wasn’t too eventful but had a few unique moments. I was first dropped off at the North Terminal of the airport by my mom and grandma at 3:45 or so when my flight didn’t leave until 6:40.

Travel Swag...I never take bathroom pics but the airport was so empty I thought it was okay to take this.

This was my first time in this terminal and I was unimpressed because it was very boring compared to the McNamara terminal. Soon enough, Evan and Morgan arrived and we hung out until we had to board. It was an odd coincidence that we were on the same flight as a professor I had for a (boring) soil mechanics class I had. He was traveling to Turkey with his family to visit more family. But I was first in an aisle seat in the very back of the plane and it seemed that no one in the other two seats next to me. Then a lady with two kids in the row ahead of me asked to switch so her kids wouldn’t be kicking the seat ahead of them so I did that and then realized I had all three seats to myself…until a baby, mom and grandma showed up about five minutes later. I was pretty bummed especially because the baby was crying but somehow I managed to fall asleep during the take off. Then I got woken up by a flight attendant asking me to move to a window seat so the baby could have its own seat. I was not a happy camper because I prefer aisle seats but I didn’t let it show because I guess the baby had a cold so it needed my seat. So I got squished in a window seat next to a 55 or so year old man and we ended up talking for a while. I found out he lives in Canada in about 2006 but is originally from Lebanon and was a dentist. He moved overseas because he liked Canada when he visited a friend, it seemed like he could easily become a dentist over here and there’s no risk of an occasional bomb blowing up nearby. When he got here he found out he had to take an English test and also that they only give out a certain number of dentistry licenses per year so he still doesn’t have his dream office in Canada. Right now he’s visiting with friends in Frankfurt I guess and then will visit his family back in Lebanon. I also asked him about conflicts in Lebanon because I’m intrigued by the stuff going on in the Middle East and this turned into a mini history lesson of happenings in the Middle East. I found it very interesting because I really enjoy hearing a resident’s opinion of the happenings in their country. I then tried to sleep, could not at all because I felt cramped and then finally landed in Frankfurt.

Frankfurt Airport

The Frankfurt airport was very large but we eventually got to our gate and found out that Evan did not have a seat. They then offered him 600 Euros to take a flight to Delhi then to Chennai and then they were also asking for more volunteers to do the same. So us cheap college students were ecstatic to hear we could get over $700 USD that easily. The Lufthansa workers took a while to put in our information so we sat aside, then the workers looked distraught after everyone boarded and soon enough they told us we had to hop on the plane to Chennai. We were really bummed because then we could have had a nice lunch and beer in Frankfurt, a shorter flight to Delhi and would get so much money but oh well.

Plane Ride to Chennai and travel to hotel

The plane ride to Chennai wasn’t too bad because I was able to sit next to Morgan and we both slept for pretty much the first half of the flight. It was quite chilly though so the travel blanket I brought came in handy. It wasn’t too eventful and I kind of watched a documentary about whales and soon enough we landed about 30 minutes later than expected. Going through customs was breeze and it took a while to get our bags but we then left, could easily see the guys with our “MSU” sign and hopped in a car with three people in the front, the three Americans in the back and the driver on the right side of the car. The car ride was interesting because the infrastructure is quite different here but not too much different than expected. They have a lot of construction going on with highways it seems like but if you asked me it looks like an organized mess. And the concrete design doesn’t look like what I (supposedly) learned in my concrete design class.

We then got to our rooms, I had to unpack all of my stuff because I found that cereal of mine broke open in my backpack, and then we got ahold of our parents with the not too hot wifi. The wifi in the hotel is quite frustrating because it’s not a strong connection and also logs out after a certain amount of time so then we have to log in again.

First Morning in India

I slept fine but woke up a bit early, then took a warm shower which was nice and waited to go to breakfast at 9:00 am. We get breakfast for free here and had to go to a cafeteria on the first floor and then in a side room for our meals. I had two small donut looking things that went in a spicy—ish soup, with a hard boiled egg, a tortilla looking bread thing that was kind of spicy, toast and coffee. They also had pineapple juice that I didn’t like and watermelon that I wanted to eat but then didn’t because Evan then told a story how his doctor went to India and got sick because she had pineapple from the street and the knife was washed with dirty water so then I was nervous about the watermelon. It sucks that my immune system isn’t strong enough to eat whatever food I want here but oh well, not much I can do. Oh, there was also a really funny painting on a wall with a bunch of ugly white people that I’ll have to take a picture of and show you and a different painting somewhere else of characters from Popeye which I’ll also post later.

The view from our hotel room is pretty sweet though. There’s some sort of construction going on below us which I’ll find interesting to watch as it progresses, there’s also a forested area, the Bay of Bengal, colored houses or buildings which I really like and a view of the city. When we went to go visit Evan’s room before breakfast we saw a more forested view and I saw kids playing cricket in an ally way which I also loved. Our room is a bit smaller than I would expect and not much room for clothing but at least I only packet probably a sixth of what I did for Turkey. The creepiest part of our room is this weird cultural painting of a person with their head painted and an elaborate hat/crown thing and I need to think of a good name for him/her/it so I’m less creeped out by it.

View outside our room looking at the campus

View below our window from the 11th floor

Only motorcycle parking spots here

Our room with that creepy picture shown on the left

Our shower with three shower heads

Toilet with toilet paper!

Now we’re waiting to go to the campus and see the lab I guess and then will hopefully be shown around the city. I hope they show us where basic stores are, tell us how much a rickshaw should be for us, and give us some ideas for exploring the city tomorrow and Sunday before we go to work on Monday.

TTFN, hope all is going well in the States or where ever you may be.