It`s already been four days here in Pune, and somehow I am already starting to feel at home. Everyone is incredible openminded, helpful and interested in getting to know us, and it feel a little like i am flying on this cloud of "everything is new and intersting". It helps a lot to live in a room with two others as well, since we are necessarily talking a lot all day. That way it gets more natural to ask all those questions I have during a day about where I should go, what I should try and things like that.
Right now I am trying to enjoy all that energy and adrenalin you get when everythin is new, and so far, I think I have been pretty good at it. There is a LOT to figure out with my classes at school and an enormous amount paperworks to fill out, but I am sure it is right now I have the most time and energy for it. Even the most interesting things become everyday things after a while, so I am trying to see as much of the city now - before all the schoolwork and exams hit my face.
OK, so these are a few things I have noticed and done since last time:
I had an amazing lecture in a class called Strategic Marketing Management today. And at the point that the class started, I would have never belived it. The class started with a bang, when the lecturer smacked the door and locked it. Slightly shocked, I guess I thought things could only get worse from there. But from there it got sooo good. We solved a casestudy in groups and in plenum, and for three hours we had an intense discussion. It was really cool, because even though people heavily disagreed, they agrued in an incredibly intelligent and impressive way. These guys obivously know what they are talking about, and I sat there and knew I am going to learn a lot from them. There is never a one true answer in marketing, which is pretty cool, praticularily because I already can see that they do have a different perspective on things here than we have back home - which is exactly why I wanted to come here too.
In the evening, one of the guys in my class took let me sit on the back of his scooter and showed me parts of the city. That was, I think, the very first time I have ever sat on a scooter. And man, it was so much fun! We drove around in quite a big part of the city, ate north Indian food (yes, there is a difference), ate ice cream with coconut taste and went to an Indian optician. That last one was a big mistake of course, since it turned out that I do in fact need glasses. After..six (already?) years of studying it turns out I have finally burned by eyes properly from the reading. Well, it has been a lot of fun too at least.
In India the price of one liter of gas is 72 rupess, which is something similar to 9 NOKs or 1,3 euros. A little bit cheaper than back home, but relatively it must be a lot more expensive here, given the average salary here. Still: nobody seems to be complaining about it on this side of the globe.
Hm... and yes, outside the campus I have noticed that I look a little different than the others walking the streets here. There are quite a few people who stops and looks at me in stores and on the street. A kid almost fell down the stairs at a store called D-mart, because he looked up at me instead of the steps. That was a little cute, but mostly horrible to realize. Anyways, till now I have just smiled and greeted them and it works just fine. Most people greet me back, some even stops and start talking. I like that. And not to sound arrogant or anything like that, but: god, how many phonenumbers I have been given. It seems like people spread them everywhere. I can call them aaanytime I want, for aaany kind of reason at all. At home I would have found this to be the dumbest pick-up-line/trick in the world, but here I think they actually seem to want to be helpful. It is either that - or I am a lot easier to charm than I was aware of.
Another thing I notice it by, is that the service workers are... a tiiiny bit... extra helpful. The rickshaw drivers, the waitorers, the store workers, they come after me the second they see me, and are willing to do whatever I need. In addition to that, they are more than willing to charge me a little extra too it seems.
I don`t think I have a jetlag, at least not anywhere else than in my stomack. I wake up at what is the middle of the night here, and suddenly I have to pee. It happens exactly half an hour after I usually went to the bathroom and then to bed in Berlin. And of course, I have tasted a lot of good food. When I was about to leave from Norway, I was told to be very careful in the beginning. Major fail. I am kind of thinking I am bound to get food poisoning at one point or another anyways, and I have more time for it now, than when I am having exams in those 17 classes I am taking. Yap, 17. Also, without knowing it, I made the most epic fail of them all, without realizing it, already the first day I was here. I drank the o so dangerous tap water. It turns out the water in the cafeteria and in school is not really mineralwater, which I was thoughouly warned against drinking the first three weeks by my doctor at home, and the administration here. But I am perfectly fine, so when I found this out today, I figured I might as well continue drinking it. Well, that is basically what I have to tell you so far, but I am building up a respectable amount of pictures for you. Hopefully I will find a solution to this internett-issue at some point. In the meanwhile you will just have to "suffer and hang in there". If that turns out to be too hard, I have to say you need to get a life. As an alternative to that you could visit google.in and search for Hinjewadi. That is where I live at the moment. Bits and piecesKaren ____________
Right now I am trying to enjoy all that energy and adrenalin you get when everythin is new, and so far, I think I have been pretty good at it. There is a LOT to figure out with my classes at school and an enormous amount paperworks to fill out, but I am sure it is right now I have the most time and energy for it. Even the most interesting things become everyday things after a while, so I am trying to see as much of the city now - before all the schoolwork and exams hit my face.
OK, so these are a few things I have noticed and done since last time:
I had an amazing lecture in a class called Strategic Marketing Management today. And at the point that the class started, I would have never belived it. The class started with a bang, when the lecturer smacked the door and locked it. Slightly shocked, I guess I thought things could only get worse from there. But from there it got sooo good. We solved a casestudy in groups and in plenum, and for three hours we had an intense discussion. It was really cool, because even though people heavily disagreed, they agrued in an incredibly intelligent and impressive way. These guys obivously know what they are talking about, and I sat there and knew I am going to learn a lot from them. There is never a one true answer in marketing, which is pretty cool, praticularily because I already can see that they do have a different perspective on things here than we have back home - which is exactly why I wanted to come here too.
In the evening, one of the guys in my class took let me sit on the back of his scooter and showed me parts of the city. That was, I think, the very first time I have ever sat on a scooter. And man, it was so much fun! We drove around in quite a big part of the city, ate north Indian food (yes, there is a difference), ate ice cream with coconut taste and went to an Indian optician. That last one was a big mistake of course, since it turned out that I do in fact need glasses. After..six (already?) years of studying it turns out I have finally burned by eyes properly from the reading. Well, it has been a lot of fun too at least.
In India the price of one liter of gas is 72 rupess, which is something similar to 9 NOKs or 1,3 euros. A little bit cheaper than back home, but relatively it must be a lot more expensive here, given the average salary here. Still: nobody seems to be complaining about it on this side of the globe.
Hm... and yes, outside the campus I have noticed that I look a little different than the others walking the streets here. There are quite a few people who stops and looks at me in stores and on the street. A kid almost fell down the stairs at a store called D-mart, because he looked up at me instead of the steps. That was a little cute, but mostly horrible to realize. Anyways, till now I have just smiled and greeted them and it works just fine. Most people greet me back, some even stops and start talking. I like that. And not to sound arrogant or anything like that, but: god, how many phonenumbers I have been given. It seems like people spread them everywhere. I can call them aaanytime I want, for aaany kind of reason at all. At home I would have found this to be the dumbest pick-up-line/trick in the world, but here I think they actually seem to want to be helpful. It is either that - or I am a lot easier to charm than I was aware of.
Another thing I notice it by, is that the service workers are... a tiiiny bit... extra helpful. The rickshaw drivers, the waitorers, the store workers, they come after me the second they see me, and are willing to do whatever I need. In addition to that, they are more than willing to charge me a little extra too it seems.
I don`t think I have a jetlag, at least not anywhere else than in my stomack. I wake up at what is the middle of the night here, and suddenly I have to pee. It happens exactly half an hour after I usually went to the bathroom and then to bed in Berlin. And of course, I have tasted a lot of good food. When I was about to leave from Norway, I was told to be very careful in the beginning. Major fail. I am kind of thinking I am bound to get food poisoning at one point or another anyways, and I have more time for it now, than when I am having exams in those 17 classes I am taking. Yap, 17. Also, without knowing it, I made the most epic fail of them all, without realizing it, already the first day I was here. I drank the o so dangerous tap water. It turns out the water in the cafeteria and in school is not really mineralwater, which I was thoughouly warned against drinking the first three weeks by my doctor at home, and the administration here. But I am perfectly fine, so when I found this out today, I figured I might as well continue drinking it. Well, that is basically what I have to tell you so far, but I am building up a respectable amount of pictures for you. Hopefully I will find a solution to this internett-issue at some point. In the meanwhile you will just have to "suffer and hang in there". If that turns out to be too hard, I have to say you need to get a life. As an alternative to that you could visit google.in and search for Hinjewadi. That is where I live at the moment. Bits and piecesKaren ____________
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