Are you wondering what you've gotten yourself into?

January 1 - Arrival at Modale Hostel for International Students

I left off after the cab ride from Chennai to Vellore, so let's start with our arrival at Modale.  Our "hostel" is on campus at Christian Medical College, and it is housing strictly for visiting international students.  It holds up to 20 students at a time, and right now there are many more students than the hostel can actually hold.  Here is a few pictures of the hostel from the outside:

When we arrive to Modale we weren't on that days list of expected arrivals, but the list was hand written and this was quickly resolved with a phone call.  While we were waiting for our keys Andy looked at me and said, "Are you wondering what you've gotten yourself into?"  All I could do in response was look at him and say, "Yes."

 Front desk

Lobby 

Upstairs common area 

 "Computer Lab"

(Thank goodness for wireless!) 

We split up and each went to our own rooms for a little bit to get settled it.  Shortly thereafter my roommate Deviti arrived back to the room.  I was exhausted and was having a hard time getting her name, so she told me that I could just call her Devi (pronounced similar to "Davie").  She is originally from Singapore, however is going to university in Tasmania.

The rooms are pretty bare but do have 2 twin beds, closets, and desks.  The climate here is incredibly humid and we don't have A/C, so I'm very thankful that it's winter!  I was pleasantly surprised that we do have our own bathroom in our room.  I don't have any pictures to post of our actual room yet, as there was laundry drying everywhere when I went to take the other pictures here.

Door to my room

Later Andy and I walked around campus for a bit.  The campus is largely set on dirt roads and nothing like you would expect for a college campus in the States.  The is a small store on campus where you can find almost anything, and it has been great for finding snacks when the canteen doesn't sound too good.

View of our road

There is an ATM directly across the street from the campus, so we walked over there to get some money.  The ATM would not recognize my card, so now I felt completely dependent upon Andy for everything at this point.  Andy was nice enough to buy me dinner in the canteen, which cost around $2 for both of us to eat, and then we just went back to our rooms.

Our showers have their own individual water heaters that have to be turned on 10 minutes before showering to let them heat up.  Apparently I did not let the water heat for long enough, so I ended up taking a cold shower.  At this point I was too tired to care though.  I didn't even notice that I had 2 bottles of shampoo, instead of having any conditioner, until my second shower because I was so tired!  I then went to bed around 8:00 and slept for a WONDERFUL 12 hours!