India!

So I'm in India! I'm staying in an apartmenty thing for the first week while I have language and culture orientation, and we have wireless, which is super. It's me and another American girl and three French girls, plus our coordinator Rajan and our adorable cook. The first day I didn't even leave the apartment because when we weren't having our little introductory class, I was napping soooo hardcore, but today we went out to a big bazaar and it was a lot more interesting. India is a lot like China, but people were accosting us even more. I was a little bit tired of it, but I didn't know any good way to tell them to go away in Hindi like I could in Chinese. I feel like when you can speak the language, the vendors treat you differently, and it's easier to maintain your dignity ("face," if you will) and not get frustrated. I couldn't actually buy anything at the market either, because I hadn't gotten an opportunity to get and local money, but it's probably better if I wait a little bit to get a better idea of how much things should cost before I go buying anything. I try to translate rupees into kuai because I figure things should cost about the same in India as in China, but I think things are even cheaper here! Although I really need to cut back a bit on the shopping because I spent sooo much money in China ahahaha.

It's disgustingly hot and humid here, although it hasn't rained once. Weather.com is a liar! It's been saying that there are thunderstorms every day, and I was like okay makes sense, it's monsoon season, right? But so far it's been a lie. It's definitely humid enough anyway, though. We don't have air conditioning, although there are ceiling fans in every room. Still, it gets oppressively hot sometimes. Our shower doesn't have hot water (I feel like there might be some way to unlock the secret to turning it on, but I don't know what), but it really doesn't matter because I wouldn't want anything but a cool shower anyway.

We're playing English/French Pictionary and it is a pretty silly time! I am picking up bits and pieces of French along with the Hindi that we're supposed to be learning. Yesterday we learned basic small talk (hello, nice to meet you, etc) and today we learned question words and pronouns and numbers some adjectives and basic sentences. Rajan says maybe tomorrow we can have verbs. I am excited. Our favorite word is sukriya, which means "thank you very much." "Nice to meet you" is also super fun to say. Apse milkar achchha laga! I wonder how similar any of this stuff will be to the Sanskrit I'll be taking in the fall. Yay Indo-European languages!

p.s. - how awesome is the consonant cluster chchh in achchha ("nice")? very awesome.