So put on your saris, it's time to celebrate Diwali.

Believe it or not there has been minimal jet lag on this international trip and that is a first. I slept from 5:00am until 10:00am on Saturday and then woke up and actually went running in the Hyatt fitness centre...and felt good. I was suspicious, but figured I would go with it. On Saturday at 2:00pm I met up with Jennifer from Bryn Mawr, Scott from Middlebury, Eugene from Lafayette, and Joel from Oberlin and we boarded two SUVs and took off for the Mahindra United World College 40 km outside of Pune.

For those of you unfamiliar with Indian geography (everyone), Pune is a city of 3.5 million people located about three hours southeast of Mumbai. We were able to drive this route because the two cities are connected by an interstate highway, the first six-lane expressway built in all of India. This is an important point because the entire concept of an "interstate" is novel in India, and we took some pleasure in reading the signs posted by the state government to prevent some common occurrences on Indian roadways:



Seriously, no one usually does any of this on Indian roads and they were still not doing an outstanding job following the "rules" on the interstate. There were people drifting all over the road, a few broken down cars in the right high speed lane, and a bunch of overturned trucks - one had just occurred and there was a fire truck on the scene:


The interstate was also a toll road - the only way to make it possible - and yet again this picture showcases all things India. First of all, there is no open road tolling, only manned booths. Secondly, every single toll booth had the following sign posted:


"Do not spit here."

Usually, signs printed like that, no matter where you are around the world, indicate that incidents had occurred...to the point that the toll booth operator had to indicate that spitting, in front of the toll booth, is inappropriate. Many of the cabs in Mumbai have stickers that say "Spitting leads to TB." Grrrrreat. Ah, Incredible !ndia.

So, after a three hour drive through the mountains we exited the first interstate in India and drove further up into the mountains west of Pune to the United World College (UWC) campus. It was nice and cool when we arrived in early evening - we were in a very rural area over 2,000 ft above sea level. We were spending the night on the UWC campus and then hosting an info session and visit on Sunday morning. Saturday night we made it in time for the Diwali dinner (October 17 was Diwali in India and if you're interested in learning more you can watch the episode of The Office about it). This was a great experience, I mean how often do you get to celebrate Diwali in India?! The students, over 200, attend the boarding school and they were all dressed in traditional Indian outfits for the meal (except one student in a suit, we figured he brought it all this way and wanted to wear it). We had a traditional Indian dinner with them and then took part in some of the other celebrations like Diwali dancing, these kids are from all over the world but they know all of the popular Bollywood songs and can dance to the moves just like the actors do in the movies - think High School Musical, but in the mountains of southern India. By 9:00pm we were beat so we headed back to our guest house for sleep. The UWC campus is extremely rural in nature, so our guest house was tucked away in the woods:


It was a version of roughing it, there were all kinds of things crawling around outside - and in - including walking sticks, land crabs, frogs, and spiders. Luckily nothing harmful...I guess a few years ago Scott (from Middlebury) had stayed there and in another guest house the occupant found a snake. I'll take some frogs and walking sticks, even a crab, over that! The place was pretty bare, but this is where we hung out and slept:



Oh, and here's a close up of the walking stick bug:


On Sunday morning we had Brunch with the students and then hosted an information session and interviews with the students. The turnout was awesome, there were some extremely interested students, so it was a great way to start the visits off in India. The visit wrapped up around mid-afternoon so we boarded our SUVs for the three-hour drive back to Mumbai. Tomorrow we'll have some time for site-seeing, so get ready for some quintessential tourist pictures from India's largest city.