Today's Journey

Today we went to my daddy's work office. It took a long time to get there because we had to walk. Also we kind of got lost. It is really pretty in the area that he works in. It has lots of plants and waterfalls. We went to a cafe. My mommy and daddy got some tea. Then we went to my daddy's office. We stayed there for a little while. We went to explore. I'm a little ichy because there were alot of bugs. I have a blister because we walked so far. I saw some kids playing cricket otside. There is not much to do at our house. We mostly play cards or go to the work out place. I have to go eat dinner. Bye!

Happy Birthday to Papa

The kids made a video for Papa's birthday. Click below (and happy birthday Dad).

A Blog From Mark

Our new apartment is nice but we still are trying to figure out how everything like our appliances work. We have three bed rooms, one for Thomas and me, one for grace, and one for my mom and dad. We have to take a cab most places but its not to far. It still takes a long time though becasue it's crowded. Thomas, Grace, and I are 5KM. away from our school, but my dad is very close to the university. It's only a few minute drive. We are not sure about the milk here. My mom has been boiling it now. Our apartment has a nice swimming pool, but one four year old drowd last week. So we were a little disappointed because it's closed off. Yesterday we saw two cats fighting when we were taking a walk, we think they had rabies. Thats the update for now, I'll get back to you!

Power Outage

This morning we woke up at five in the morning, and flipped the light switch to try to get some light. The light never came on. It was our first power outage of our stay in India. Both of our parents were asleep, so we went into the kitchen for some water. It was hard to see, but we made it to the refrigerator and opened the door. It had shut down as well. We were afraid that all of our food would spoil if this would last too long. As the time turned closer to six, we became hungry and got some food out of the cupboard to eat. We took it into the boy's bedroom and ate, where as the time went on we got even more worried. Once everyone was awake, the lights came on again and the power was back. I was so glad that we could see again.

Shopping Day

Today we are still trying to get settled and catch up on our sleep. Later tonight we are going to try to get out to the mall and shop for more of the things that we are going to need. Earlier this morning, we were shown a very nice work out facility in the basement of our apartment complex. The people who work here are also alot of help, even though they know very little english. The woman who comes to clean the house is very nice and does whatever she can to help in a short amount of time. After having a short lunch, we left the apartment to go and find SIM cards for my parents cell phones. When we arrived at the cell phone store, we realized that we needed a picture to be able to buy them, and walked further down the street to a photo store and got pictures taken, which took about ten or fifteen minutes to develop. After going there the driver took us to a very nice Indian shop where we looked at carpets. The people who worked there showed us all of the different types of carpets that you could buy and described what each one did. We left with only small silk blanket for my sister. To finish the evening off, we stopped at a grocery store a couple blocks down from our apartment to get some food and water. It was the end of a very tiring day.

Using email to post a blog

Our second day is going well enough. We all slept at least a few hours last night. We were pleased to learn that the staff here will clean the floors every day and do all the laundry for only $40/mo.

This post is quite brief; most of all, I want to test the email blogging feature. I set up an email account that automatically formats a message from me into a blog. This feature should be particularly useful when we are traveling and have limited web access. Enjoy the included pictures. One is from the waiting area at Heathrow airport, which was quite unimpressive. The other picture is a view from our apartment's balcony.

Day 1 from Amy

As you know, we made it safely and without illness. Our apartment is about 45 minutes outside of the city. It is less noisy and polluted but kind of a distance from stuff. It is plenty big but was not cleaned before we arrived. I hope that tomorrow a woman named Jamila will clean it for us. She washed some bedding for us so that we could go to sleep tonight. The kids and I had fun searching for our sheets tonight in the dark of our new laundry room (i.e., the roof)!

Day 1

We arrived safely and in good health early this morning in Bangalore. The pictures here capture the prevailing condition of the family. For the wiseguys out there, the person in the top right of the first picture is not me.


A group of people from JNCASR greeted us at the airport. They have been tremendously kind in preparing for our visit. Our apartment is in good order, and we are learning how to operate unfamiliar appliances and other household items. For example, we burned two rounds of toast before figuring out how to operate the toaster properly. Amy, Grace, and Mark went shopping with the wife of a JNCASR faculty member, and they bought essential items such as bedding, towels, soap, water, and rice. Thomas and I visited JNCASR to tour the labs and meet with several faculty members.

We ordered dinner consisting of roti, naan, dal, aloo gobi, and chandini hyderbadi from a local restaurant. The food was outstanding (the dal was the consensus family favorite), but we ordered far too much (even though we spent only 10 USD).

We'll be back tomorrow with more. I'll also add other family bloggers to the group.