Today we arrived in India! It has been an amazing day. I wanted to get up early to watch us pull into port, but my alarm didn't go off, so I woke up to an announcement about how to go through customs this morning. We had to meet face to face with people from immigration and take our passports. If we leave Chennai, we have to take them with us. We also have to carry a landing card, and a customs declaration form at all times and show them whenever we leave and come back on the ship. It is all very touchy but it also makes me feel very safe. Nobody is setting foot near our ship without the proper documentation. Anyways, I had kind of a long day but it was great to be in India. First of all, we heard about how India has a very distinct smell, and I didn't think it would be that bad, but wow. It really does smell. And all the clothes I was wearing smell, which in turn makes my room smell, but now I am actually kind of used to it. It is also very hot here! But let me tell you about my day. Ally, Hayley and I took a rickshaw and we wanted to go to some kind of marketplace. Our drivers said the market was closed since it was Sunday, so they proceeded to take us to all of these really high end shops. Apparently they get free gas or some commission if they bring tourists there, so they ended up taking us to three. I did not buy anything there, although we did get an offer from a guy on the street near one of the shops who offered to let us watch his cobra fight a mongoose. We of course had to pay him, but even if that wasn't the case, we passed. We rode around for a good while and let me tell you, driving in India is super scary. Apparently it is optional if you want to stay within the lines of the lanes on the road. And it is not optional to honk your horn every 2 seconds. I really thought we were going to knock some people right off their mopeds, but everything was ok. We ended up getting really hungry, so we asked our drivers to take us to a restaurant. Again, they took us to some highly priced place and said they would wait, but we didn't want to stay there, so we said we would pay them and they could go. We agreed to pay them 100 rupees to take us where we wanted to go before we got in the rickshaw with them, but when we tried to give them that, the driver suddenly turned on his meter and was like, 'no, you have to pay this price.' It said 14.00 - we didn't know if that meant fourteen dollars, fourteen rupees, fourteen hundred rupees, we had no clue. But we heard all about how they will try to rip you off and make you pay ridiculous amounts, and if they do, it is okay to just walk away. So that is what we did, and one of the drivers followed us, but the other one came by and just said that it was ok. Because he was the one that set the price for us. Anyways, we ended up finding this smaller vegetarian restaurant (which there are a lot of here, I am in heaven!) and ate so much food! There is this bread stuff called nan, and this other bread stuff called dosa. I ate so much, none of what I ate could have been healthy, but it was so delicious. I actually ordered another plate of what I had because it was so good. So far, my stomach is doing ok, but it is only my first day we will see. If there is any port I gain weight in it will be this port. (Which I better not because Katie already ordered my dress for her wedding! Don't worry Katie, I teach my kickboxing class everyday when we are at sea, I should burn it off. Remember Indian food in Florida!? Good times!) The food is amazing. After we ate, we looked around at some shops that were nearby. We got some clothes, and I got a beautiful saree. We just walked around, talked to some people, bought some Indian music. I got a CD with 60 Indian love songs, and it is just great. Everything here is really cheap. The exchange is 43 rupees equals 1 US dollar. Our money goes very far. Like my plate of food was only 35 rupees. That is not even one dollar! Its crazy! Before we caught another rickshaw back to the ship, we had the opportunity to use a squatter toilet that we had heard so much about. Well, Ally and Hayley did, I luckily did not have to go, I am kinda nervous to use one. But, there is a funny picture of me pretending to use it! Looks interesting, huh? The rickshaw ride back was just as scary as the first one, but luckily he took us straight back. Even if the people don't speak English, we just have to tell them that we need to go to the 'student ship' and they know where it is. We had a family from India join us on our voyage from Mauritius, and they said that our coming into India was announced on their prime-time TV. So we are a pretty big attraction. When we got back to the ship, I attempted to put on my saree with the instruction guide they gave me. I figured it would be easy, it had pictures and everything. But I just kept messing it up. It is a lot of freaking material. Luckily, Indian tour guides were on our ship to be available to answer questions, and they were both ladies, so I went up to them and asked them to help. They were both super nice, and one of them showed me and explained how to do it. I went back down to my room and practiced twice and did it perfectly. But I took it off because I was going to eat dinner and knew it would be bad news if I kept it on. So after dinner I tried to put it on again but totally forgot how. I had to bunch it all in my hands and get on the bus for the welcome reception with it only like half on. It was quite the scene. Once we got the hotel it was at, I found three girls from the University that put on the reception and asked them to help. They just kind of laughed and began to help. Apparently, I really messed it up, because it took three of them, and like 10 minutes to figure out what I did and they eventually just had to take it off and redo the whole thing. The guy who films the SAS DVD got the whole thing on video and then had me say something after, so hopefully that will end up on the DVD. It was pretty funny. There is a picture of me with one of the girls who helped me with my saree. We talked to those girls for a while and they were incredibly nice. They were all studying engineering. Anyways, after the saree situation was figured out, I got a henna tattoo on my hand, got some more great Indian food, and then got to watch a dance performance, which was amazing. The woman who did it was beautiful, and she let people take pictures with her, so I included that picture for ya. It was a very fun night. Everybody got some fun Indian clothes, my roommate looked amazing, so there is a pic of me and her there. It was just great to see everybody all dressed up and enjoying their evening. When we got back to the ship after that, we found that there are people who let us use their cell phones to call internationally and only charge 1 US dollar per 3 minutes. So I called my parents (who are in Vegas right now - drive home safe mama and daddy!) and Timmy and got to have nice conversations with them. But then it was time to come in and take a shower because I definitely needed to get the smell off of me! I think I will be taking a record number of showers here. Tomorrow I meet my host family at 11 am and I am so excited. SAS paired up the students, and my friend K-Lee and I are going to the same host home, so it should all be great. They are going to take us to see some temples, and I really don't know what else, but I think it will be amazing to spend 2 nights with a family here. I hope they have some kids! Even though I don't meet them 'til 11 tomorrow, I gotta get some sleep, I have an early day planned before then.