Traveling Abroad
The day you meet an Indian is the day you come face to face with a culture that is very different than your own. When I met my future husband, Sunil, and his family waaaay back in 2005 (I was in 8th grade, people!) I had this feeling that this family would one day change my life. Well... life changed.
Most of you know the rest of the story. How a great relationship turned into a great dating relationship, which has turned into a great marriage relationship (it's always not easy, but seriously... I love this guy!) and the rest is history. Marrying an Indian (ok OK... he's HALF Indian) means you marry an Indian family. No, not the feather (casino!) kind of Indian... the dot (convenient store/IT guy!) kind of Indian. Indian families come with a complimentary side of curry(yum!), rice(DOUBLE YUM) and quirky awesome traditions.
Enter... India.
Seeing as I've never left the country and Sunil has never been to India, one of our secret dreams has been to go to India together. To roam the country side, get lost in the language, and just travel a foreign country together. On our trip to Maine this past year, it became apparent to us that instead of just dreaming about India... we should start making PLANS (cause we're not getting any younger), so we started praying hard core about it. And as God would have it... Three days later, my in-laws casually mentioned that they would love to go back to India soon. BAM. We took it as a sign and started making plans.
It took quite a bit of work to nail down all of the details, but the long story short is... passports came through, visa's were approved and tickets were bought.
People. WE ARE GOING TO INDIA!!
Now, not only are we going to India together, we're going with Sunil's parents and two little brothers. Seeing as my father-in-law is a native (with the coolest accent EVER), we'll basically have the best built-in tour guide of all times! And seeing as God has provided awesome, flexible jobs for both of us, we're going to be overseas for almost an entire month! I'm just a little excited. :)
A few answers to some common questions:
- How long will you be gone? :: Almost a full month!! With travel time and everything it's about 3.5 weeks. :)
- Where in India are you going? :: Everywhere! Cochin, Chennai, Jaipur and Delhi... to name a few. My in-laws know people in quite a few different places, so we'll get to see quite a bit of the country. I'm SO EXCITED!
- What will you wear? :: Indian clothes! Again, my in-laws have been to India a few times, so they have lots of clothes for us kids to wear. I plan on blending in with the natives as much as I can! (Minus the super short hair. Oh! And the white skin. Oh... AND THE LANGUAGE. Shall I continue?)
- Are you taking your camera? :: I'll be honest - this was not as easy to answer as you'd think. I'm very very careful with my equipment, and the thought of my camera or precious lenses getting lost or stolen makes me want to crawl under my bed for weeks. I went back and forth, but decided to get international equipment insurance and just go for it. So yes... I'll be taking minimal equipment. Expect to see photos when we get back!
Now, we leave in just a few short weeks... so tell me: have you ever left the country? Been to Asia? Met an Indian? I'm SO new to this whole traveling internationally thing so I will take ALL of the advice I can get. :)
Happy we're-going-to-India Friday!! :)