Finally Here!

Hey Everyone, After over 36 hours of traveling we finally made it to our hotel! Being here is total sensory overload - the honking, the colors, it's a lot to take in. I had a pretty rough first day here. I felt awful and was super anxious, but found out those were side effects of my anti-malarials and I'm feeling a lot better now. Today we went to the college to get our assignments. I'll be in OB-GYN this week. Next week we're all going to do clinics aimed at the rural population so we're all really excited about that. We found out today that the CMC has over 2,700 beds in one hospital. To compare, the DMC has just over 2,000 in all it's hospitals combined, Royal Oak Beaumont has 1,070 and Port Huron Hospital has 186 beds. The director of the student externships also told us that many people come to the CMC to get an accurate diagnosis, and that elsewhere they might just get test after test, with no clear answers. So far, the thing that has been the most striking is the driving. I thought the cab drivers in Miami were crazy, but that was nothing compared to here. Everyone pretty much just does whatever they want and honks constantly. On our three hour drive here from Chennai, we were constantly passing, and not just cars. We were passing motorcycles, rickshaws, bicycles, cows, goats, you name it. The number of animals just walking the street is crazy. We've seen tons of goats, cows, dogs, chickens and turkeys just strolling around and we're not even in a rural area! Our hotel, the Darling Residency, is very nice. It has air (thank god!) and the service is great. I ordered room service last night and the waiter brought everything to me in bed, even put the straw in my Pepsi (the glass bottle kind) for me. There are four different restaurants here. Since I wasn't feeling well, so far I've only got to try grilled cheese and I had some orange juice this morning (so delicious - tasted just like being in Florida), but everyone else said the food has been great. Some other things I've noticed: a lot of cab/bus drivers don't wear shoes, they call speed bumps "speed breakers", Indian tv reminds me a lot of dramatic Spanish soap operas, the honking is constant, the outfits are beautiful and everyone is very polite. It's also very obvious to everyone that we're American. Joel is the only other person with blonde hair I've seen since we were in Amsterdam and we've gotten a ton of curious looks everywhere we go. Overall, it's been really interesting so far and I'm excited to go to the hospital tomorrow and see what it's like :)