Sunday, September 14, 2008

I Have Arrived

Whew! What a cyclone these past few days this have been. Cutting to the chase, I finally got packed and ready to go. Saturday morning began at 4:00 AM. John drove me to the airport and off I went for my new, crazy, scary adventure.
After 3 flights, I was actually in Acapulco. I met a young woman named Malvika on the flight to Mexico City who as it happens is a distant relative of Bikram's. She was so fantastic and really fun to talk to. She flew from India to Mexico to go to yoga training. We were laughing about the irony in that.
She was traveling with Rajashree, Bikram's wife, except that Rajashree was in first class and we weren't. Anyway, long story short, a 15 hour travel day to be precise, we arrived at the hotel via a Bikram airport shuttle. The hotel is extremely beautiful and elegant in that old European way.
I got to my room and basically fell into bed. I was definitely hungry after subsisting on nuts and chips and basic airline junk all day, but it really didn't matter. I figured I could eat in the morning.
The following morning (this morning) I went to the buffet and bungled my way through, trying to figure out how it works. I mananged to get some fruit, cottage cheese, banana bread, OJ and coffee. I really couldn't figure out how to get to the real food. It is definitely a different culture and my goal is to be able to figure out how to get my way through a buffet here before I leave. My hacker Spanish has helped some. I have impressed some of my new friends by speaking with the people, but that's only because my new friends speak absolutely zilch Spanish. At any rate, it's so fun speaking Spanish here because most of them have such poor English skills (outside of the hotel, of course) that they seem to appreciate it when you try to speak in their language.
My roommate is named Sheila Carroll and she's from Vancouver, B.C. She seems really great and hopefully we will be compatible space mates for the next 9 weeks.
We are having an orientation at 6:00 PM. Hopefully, there will be some good information forthcoming as to what they have in store for us.
I'm gonna take it one day at a time..............

1 comment:

Sandra said...

I love these stories!!!!!
Keep 'em coming.