Sorry it has taken me 2 days to post, wifi here has been spotty and we have been busy!
But let's take it back to day 0:
Our plane landed a little early, 0230 local time. I had a less than ideal plane ride with a neighbor who felt entitled to share my seat with me but no matter, it was only 3 hours. The food was nowhere as delicious as on the flight to Dubai - to be honest the smell of it woke me up and gave me a stomach ache (a scent and feeling that I haven't escaped much since). After making it through customs (that was an adventure because I didn't have my hotel registration to prove I was staying somewhere - since I didn't book it and it was booked for me, I didn't even think about it, but that's my fault for not looking into documents I would need, I thought a visa was enough! It was hard enough to get!! Anyway, once I made it through, it was about 3AM, and I went to baggage claim. Our whole plane's bags were unloaded, and naturally my bag was not there. They began unloading another plane, still no bag. Almost 90 minutes later, my backpack appears on the conveyer belt and there was a huge sigh of relief because I would have seriously flipped out if my bag didn't make it. I gave you 8 hours at each airport to find my plane! However I can't complain because my bag did in fact make it. Upon exiting bag claim I was able to spot the gentlemen picking us up from the airport with their World Congress sign, and me and about 10 other delegates made our way to the buses. Everyone on the bus was from Sudan and Jordan. The girls were awesome and taught me some Arabic on our hour drive. We arrived at the hotel around 6:00, and after being dropped off at the wrong place, we found the hotel. We could not go to our rooms until 7:00 or else we would have to pay for another day, so we had to wait in the conference room. An hour nap and 100 mosquito bites later, I was able to register, eat breakfast, and get my room. Since I knew basically no one, I just started trying to make friends, so I sat down at a table for breakfast and met a boy from Iraq. He was happy to meet someone too, so we had breakfast together. I somehow wasn't tired even though I didn't sleep at all the past 2 days, but no matter. It was only like 8:00 in the morning so we had the whole day ahead of us. He still had to get his room, so I went upstairs to try and get my phone to connect to wifi so everyone could know I was alive (wasn't successful) we had plans to meet up later and go exploring, but there was a bit of a language barrier and our plans didn't work - we didn't find each other again. I was going to just go exploring myself, but when I asked the hosts about good places to go, they were very hesitant to having me leave. I've been around Europe basically by myself, I can handle India, right? But after much deliberation, I wasn't sure about it. I looked up things to do that are top rated here in Hyderabad, and there's a park about a mile away. I could walk there! It was supposedly closed from 12-2 though and it was just coming up on 11:30, so by the time I made it, it would be closed. So, even though I wasn't tired, I knew the smart thing to do would be to nap and then contemplate exploring. Well, my head hit the pillow, and I fell asleep until 5:15 and our evening began at 6:00. Well, no exploring for me! It's probably for the better anyway. We had some opening ceremonies, dinner, and I got to meet other people both from the U.S. And around the world. We had a flag ceremony and ice breaker games that were a lot of fun, including "speed dating," "blind dating (finding s partner who's name is on a slip of paper)," and team dating, where we were broken into groups and had to fit all of us onto these sheets of paper, and the paper got progressively smaller! We came out on top, but some other groups had to get really creative, balancing team mates 3 people high! My blind dating partner was one of the girls from Sudan I met on the bus that morning, so we found each other really quick! We were very close to winning which would have been awesome but oh well, I made some new friends and that's what's important. They had a dance party after, but everyone was exhausted so basically no one stayed. My roommate Christine arrived about 12:30 so we were up chatting and meeting for the first time even though we've been talking for months. The jet lag had us not wanting to sleep. This did not work out in our favor.
We had to be up so early on Day 1, 6:30!! The Indian government was going to be there so we had to be present, timely, and dressed respectively. Well, we started a bit behind schedule, but that's okay, because there was an awesome ceremony with a candle lighting and speeches by multiple Indian dignitaries. I learned a lot about IPSF, attending the workshops about introduction to IPSF, our region - PARO, and Model UN really opened my eyes to just how amazing of an organization I belong to. Here for this conference we have over 350 delegates from 55 countries here to represent 350,000 pharmacy students around the world all with a goal of promoting the improvement of global health. It was an awesome experience.
In the evening time, Christine, me, and a fellow US delegate named Ron decided to go on an adventure - I haven't mentioned yet the view outside my window. It's a cemetery. We decided to try and find it. We were unsuccessful, however, it got us to go outside the grounds and see a sliver of Hyderabad, but also to explore the grounds and see everything the Marriott has to offer. We found some really cool artwork, gardens, and the pool. Unfortunately, the original theme of the party, Pool Party, was cancelled for reasons I'm unsure of, so they changed it to an Indian Wedding theme. It was kind of a skit put on my some of the executive council. I didn't exactly follow along because I couldn't see or hear, so we decided to take advantage of the awesome sky bar views up on the top floor. We were able to get s good image of the city of Hyderabad and see the area we want to explore.
After the "wedding party" ended, the DJ played fun music until midnight. While the party was over, no one was done having fun, so everyone moved upstairs to the sky bar where another DJ was jamming. It was the most fun we've had yet and we met more people out dancing then we had in our whole day of the conference.
We are having a great time and I really can't wait to see what's in store for the rest of our time here!
The Internet is a bit more regular now so I plan to keep this updated better. Thanks to anyone reading along!
Namaste