Day One

Yesterday we spent the day site seeing in India. Each morning we eat breakfast at the hotel. My favorite is the eggs. First we visited Fort Madras, which was a fort built by the British when they established a colony in Madras, now called Chennai. It was like a little town. Inside we visited St. Mary's Church, and also a military church. This second church was attached to a garden which was absolutely beautiful. Baskar pointed out mango, papaya, and banana trees, and I saw some red lilies - so pretty! Then we went to a museum full of old weapons, pictures, portraits, coins, furniture and documents from that time. Very interesting.

Next we went to the BEACH! It's so warm here...like 80 and sunny, and a little humid. (It's winter here.) The water is so far from where the sand begins; it took us around 10 min. to walk to the water. It was amazing to stand in the Bay of Bengal which is part of the Indian Ocean. I never thought I'd stand in the Indian Ocean before the Pacific, but I did. The water was so cold but felt so great. We didn't swim because the tide would kill you, but it was refreshing just to stand in the shallow waves. People kept staring at us because we're white and speak American English. People kept taking pictures of us and a random man jumped in on our group shot. Another kid came up to me and shook my hand. Everyone loves us here, and the women and babies always smile at us :)

After the beach we ate lunch, and after lunch we went to the tomb of St. Thomas, the apostle of Jesus. It was a very beautiful and sacred place. At the church outside of the tomb and Indian wedding was taking place. It was exactly the same as an Amercian wedding except the women wore saris. The bride even processed to "Pachelbel's Cannon", and she looked very beautiful.

Afterward we returned to the hotel, napped, and then ate dinner at another hotel called the Marina Towers. It was a buffet and very nice. While I was putting food on my plate I met a man from Bombay and we began discussing the differences between North and South Indian food. He said the ingredients and ways of cooking differentiated the two. Afterward he introduced himself and his son to our group, and invited us to watch the tennis match they would play in the next day. He also invited us to have drinks with him and his friends, but we had to return to our hotel. People are so friendly here and so easy to talk with :)