Wednesday October 15th

This morning I woke up at 8:00 and got some breakfast. We were meeting in the Union for the hoem stay at 10:30 so I used the extra time to relax and get all of my stuff together. After meeting in the Union we all boarded a bus outside and departed for a stadium in the center of Chennai where we were to meet our families. The bus pulled up and all of the families were standing there waiting anxiously for us. We got off in pairs according to what family we had, met the families and left to spend the afternoon with them. Because this is a Rotarian home stay, it is sponsored by the Rotary club of Chennai. We would all be meeting later tonight for a banquet dinner at a nice hotel with the other families, and members of the club.

Another student, Chris from CA, and I are staying with the Rajenderan family. Raj, the dad, is the CEO of a company that manages a bunch of different businesses throughout Chennai, including Tommy Hilfiger, Nautica, and Toyota etc. His wife Priya manages the Tommy Hilfiger store and also the Nautica store. We went to the Nautica store to meet her. Raj had a quick business meeting at 1:30, so we went to a outside hookah bar down the street from the shop and got drinks. Chris and I hung out while Raj went to his meeting for a half hour. When he came back we went back and picked up Priya and went to a restaurant for lunch. Here is India, they eat lunch fairly late. Their son Amog met us at the restaurant. They have a family driver that drives the kids and Priya around when Raj cannot. The 5 of us had lunch and we tried a bunch of different Indian dishes. You will find that a lot of people in Chennai are vegetarians, so we had a vegetarian meal. We all had dosa, which is a huge thin, flat piece of bread that is crunchy. You dip this in various "gravies" or sauces. It was very good. We also had naan, which is a thicker bread and reminded me of a thick tortilla. Their breads are flat and thin compared to ours which are fluffy and light.

After dinner there was a DVD store under the restaurant. Chris and I went and looked and he ended up buying 8 movies and a couple TV series for $70 USD, I just bought the new Batman movie for $1 USD. They were knockoff DVD's, so some were good quality and others bad. After lunch and a little shopping we headed to their house. It was about a 20 min drive away and in a little more quiet neighborhood. They live in an apartment flat, similar to a townhouse. The entrance is on the ground floor but the apartment is two stories. It was a nice house. The entire floor was stone, resembling marble. There is a sitting room, dining room and kitchen on the first floor. Our bedroom was halfway up the stairs and then the other bedrooms and living room was at the top of the stairs. They were very secretive about the bedrooms so I do not know how big or how many of them there actually were. They did not have the nicest furniture which is surprising for his high level job, but it was home for them. Apart from the driver, they had two house maids that lived with them and helped with cooking and cleaning. They said it is very affordable to have a driver, and house maids and it is not uncommon in India. Chris and I relaxed and took a short nap before the dinner function.

We left for the hotel around 6:30. At the hotel, newspapers were taking group pictures of all of us SAS students. The meeting for the Rotary was in a banquet room where they introduced SAS and the two inter-port students, one being Amog, and then talked about SAS and how special it is. After a bunch of speakers the meeting was over and there was an open bar in the back of the room. Drinking is very uncommon in India and there is a high tax on alcohol to prohibit it. The majority of the people had a glass of wine before moving outside into a courtyard where there was a buffet dinner set up. All sorts of different foods were featured here. We met a bunch of new people, including college students. Everyone gave us their card. I was talking to Krishnan, and he said this was because they hope that in the future you will be able to help them get a job in the U.S. but all were extremely friendly and all spoke English. There were not tables set up and we all ate and socialized for a few hours. We were some of the last people to leave the hotel around 10:30. We went home and were able to use the internet a little bit before going to sleep. This was a real treat for us because it is so limited on the ship. Overall it was a great first day and we met some amazing people and feel right at home with our Indian family.