Warning! Long post ahead!

And I apologize for the lack of photos. The internet is mean to me whenever I try. :(

            Well! Here I am, arrived safe and sound to Woodstock. First off, I’d just like to say that it is so beautiful here, especially in the rain and mist. It’s fabulous, the people are lovely, and I am so thrilled to be here!

I will start off on Friday, when Lukas, Will, Mum, Dad and I went to the airport. After some teary goodbyes on my part, I set off to my flight to Heathrow. I t was delayed by half an hour, but fortunately that didn’t affect my connecting flight. Arriving in London, it was a lot less crowded than I’d have expected for the day after the Olympics started.

            On to Delhi! I sat next to a lovely young woman working in India as a researcher in economics. We talked for a little while, and then I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I checked out the moving map. It was so cool to see how close we were getting. I will admit I started getting a bit excited. After that, I watched Fast Girls, a movie about the British women’s relay team. It was ok, a lot like Bend It Like Beckham.

            The Indira Gandhi airport is really not that different from any other. The only noticeable difference is the ceilings are lower and the signs have Hindi as well as English. There, Megan and I got our bags and met up with some other students.

            The second you step outside, though, the difference is really noticeable. The heat smothers you and you feel sticky almost immediately. The taxis waiting outside look really beat up, and of course, there are people everywhere. When I got in the taxi (my bags on the roof) the first thing I did was look around for a seat belt. Nope. No seatbelt! Sketchiness…

We got to the Centaur hotel at about 1 am. I shared a room with Megan and Caroline, the students from Ontario and California. I was pretty well rested from the plane, and only managed to sleep about and hour. I chatted with Caroline for a while, we went down to the lobby at 4 and got a bus to the train station. Yet another big difference: people sleep EVERYWHERE. I saw people sleeping in the middle of the floor at the train station, even little children! I was completely mystified as to how they slept through the grating bingely-bong of the announcements every minute or so. I certainly couldn’t ignore it.

            We caught the train at 6:30 am. All the Korean students were exhausted, but the North American students were all wide awake (it was about 8 pm my time). The next six and a half hours were spent riding up to Derhadun (or Dehradoon). I was happy to discover a western toilet on the train, instead of the hole in the floor with handrails (which was another option).

Yet another difference from Canada: you can take the train and not see another human being for hours. Here, you can’t go four seconds without seeing someone, be it a farm worker, kids playing cricket, women washing clothes or a man walking along the tracks. I also saw a LOT of cows and dogs.

            When we got out in Dehradun it was raining buckets. We races through honking cars and motorbikes to our buses and began the trek up the mountain.

At first I was really quite amused by the tune of our bus horn. After about five minutes of almost constant honking, I was no longer amused. Why must they honk at everything?!?

            The road to Mussoorie is possibly the sketchiest road ever. It helped quite a lot that we were in a cloud and couldn’t see anything, but there was a sucking depth to the fog that was hard to ignore. Mostly I tried to stare straight ahead, focusing on not getting carsick.

            We arrived at Woodstock in pea-soup fog, and went straight up to the Midlands dorm, for the senior girls. It’s the farthest dorm from everything, so we had a bit of a walk, but it’s really quite lovely.

            I absolutely love the dorm. It’s really open, light and airy, and all the girls are really nice. I am in a room with four girls: Me, Ritsen from Bhutan, Devika from Bombay, and Kalkidan whom I have yet to meet. Apparently she’s having visa troubles, so she’ll be arriving later. Our room is huge; it fits six people comfortably, so we’ll have lots of space with just the four of us!

            I’ve met a lot of really cool people. Caroline, Lexine (who has the same birthday as me), Kate, Uma, Maggie, Tanuvee, Raya, Megan, Savannah, Setse, Annabelle, Tara, and a whole bunch of others whose names I can’t remember at present!

            The food is decent, not the best but it’s ok. It’s fun eating Indian food three meals a day, and the cafeteria is quite nice.

            Two days ago we had our orientation and placement tests. I can say right off that I LOVE LOVE LOVE the campus

The first thing we did when we got to the school (after the rather steep walk up) was assemble in Parker Hall, the main auditorium. Student services and the principal talked us to about Woodstock and the curriculum, and then we went on to math placement tests. I have been put in Algebra 2. After lunch and meeting with guidance, we had our language placement tests. I was put in AP Level 5 French. Hooray! I know one other girl in the class, so I’m not sure how many people are going to be in the class. It would be totally rocking if there were only two of us!

So in the end, my course load comes in thusly: AP Chemistry, Algebra 2, AP English language and composition, Music (voice, of course), AP French, Study Hall (spare) and AP Biology. This should be fun…

The schedule at Woodstock is really different from Ross CVI. I have 7 classes, 6 classes per day. They rotate so that you miss one class every day. It goes: A to F, then B to G, C to A, etc. This means that I am taking fewer courses than I would at Ross, but they span the full year, so I sit my exams in June. This means that I am without a doubt taking 12+ when I come home, as well as summer school, just so I can catch up with all the courses I need to take for sciences and French. Sigh…

Yesterday we had music auditions-Oh My Gosh there’s a monkey staring at me! Now there are two! Dang these things are everywhere!

Apparently you shouldn’t smile at them, and if you want them to go away, throw rocks IN FRONT of them. But it’s so hard not to smile!

Music autditions went very well. I am in the Senior choir and I will be taking private lessons. Sooooooo excited.

Today was the first day of school... and I am incapacitated with a stomach virus! No fair!!!

So Im on antibiotics three times a day for 10 days, then once a day for another ten days. I will also be taking probiotics once a day to compensate for all the good bugs I'll be killing off.

I'm in health ward until tomorrow at least. I'm hoping to be better for my birthday!