First Impressions

I arrive in Mumbai on Sunday morning around noon, even though I left at 9pm on Friday night! Prabhav, one of the coordinators from work, is waiting at the airport with a driver. Stepping out past the crowd hanging around the airport exit and into the humid air brought a rush of emotions. It was hard to believe I had made it this far. A whole new world awaited. Now if only this kid trying to carry my suitcase for me would take no for an answer and let me get on my way!


The drive from the airport to the apartment where I will be staying is about an hour and a half. I luckily sit in front and continuously snap photos of everything. I get some smiles and laughs by the driver and Prabhav, but every normal part of their lives is this crazy new experience for me. I feel like an alien that has landed on Earth for the first time.

We stop at the Marriott hotel for lunch. WOW from the dirty city streets we walk into paradise! An amazingly huge lobby with curvey wooden walls. As we cross the lobby to a staircase leading down to the restaurant we can see a beautiful river-pool surrounded by palm trees through the 2 story glass windows. The crowd here is definitely high society. There are many younger people wearing trendy Western fashions and women in the most bright and beautiful flowing clothing I have ever seen. The food was just as amazing.

Afterwards Prabhav drops Wilmer and I off at the apartment where we check out our pad for the next 3 weeks. It has white marble floor everywhere we some great views out the windows. It has a washing machine and dryer that we discover takes 3 hours to wash and 3 to dry! The bathrooms all have this funky side room with a door in the shower. I guess it is for plumbing or something, very odd. There are tons of switches everywhere. Every outlet has a switch with it. There is a switch to turn on the water heater even, which luckily we figured out was off in time for the morning!

Later on that evening we headed to Hypercity, which is basically like a Super Walmart. It was crazy to see a place like this in India, but the area we are in is an outer suburb of Mumbai so many of the buildings are brand new. There also is an amazing 3 story mall, but we decide not to go there today. Instead we head back to the apartment and I pass out on the couch watching Indian Mtv!