Week One

So after a day of searching and failing to find an internet cafe in the heart of India's technological centre (Bangalore) we eventually found one right on our doorstep - typical!

After a G&T fuelled flight and landing to Taylor Swift's 'I Knew You Were Trouble' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNoKguSdy4Y - banger.) we arrived at the nunnery (!). The first day was spent meeting all the nuns and children, and later enjoying the first of many many curries. 

Probably one of the most alien things is that we're literally treated like celebrities - signing autographs, being gawked at literally all of the time and the fact did our own washing up was the point of much amusement.

In the week days we're split between teaching at here at the 'Infant Jesus Children's Home' and the 'Divine Mercy School', our experiences have been different in that Lucy and Ana were abandoned in front of 20 raucous kids whose attention span seems to record at 20 seconds, whereas Mil and Liv's has been squeezing their bums into wooden benches designed for 5 year olds; watching them revise, teaching them the occasional song or rhyme and enduring one of Father Gerrard's sermons over lunch. We get our dose of madness riding on the school bus, each seat stuffed with five or more children all eyes on us!

Living in a Catholic convent, it was only a matter of time before the inevitable question: "Are you religious?", to which our answer was "Umm, kind of!" and found ourselves in mass at 7 o'clock on Sunday morning in an attempt to repent for our lack of holiness.

Although Bangalore is said to be one of the milder Indian cities, our experience was pretty hectic; everything resulted in taking about 8 eight times longer than it should have; from crossing the road, to negotiating a rickshaw ride, it was quite an assault on the senses but also hilarious. Health and safety goes out the window, quite literally in the case of Ana hanging out of a rickshaw so we could all fit in. 

On following the Lonely Planet advice we went for a "traditional Indian meal" and wound up 13 stories high on the rooftop terrace of a Brahman filled buffet - not quite the 'real' Indian experience we were looking for, but nice enough :) 

PS. The imminent  'Delhi Belly' has yet to arrive (touch wood) and Chai is slowly becoming our fave beverage!