The honeymoon suite!

Living Room & hallway with wash area

    

Kitchen & bedroom (with Tom in lungi)
    

And yes we know it looks like Wonderbread. 

Around campus

At lunch in the "atrium" the main building on campus.

      

On my way to yoga class in the student village, there are 4 of these student villages in total surrounding the Atrium.

    

Room with a view

Taken from our apartment balcony; our friendly neighbor Microsoft, and workers finishing the grounds surrounding our newly erected student housing facility. 

    

      

Construction site outside our apartment

Beautiful beginnings

Laddus, lungis, bhindi, and rawa are just the beginning. It's strange and wonderful to be 34 and feel like every time I step outside I'll see, hear, or smell something entirely new. This is living, and being here in this foreign land is both exhilarating and exhausting; but life does not get much better (or more interesting!) and for this I'm grateful to my very own Phileas Fogg.

As I'm not much of a writer I'll let the photos and videos speak for me.

India - Day 1!

Here we had just arrived in India and were walking around the school campus when we ran into our first ever Holi party!  Holi is a wonderful festival of colors and life celebrated yearly by offering friends and strangers alike hugs and touches of beautiful colored powders in every shade of the rainbow!

At home with the Reddy family!

Visiting the wonderful Reddy family in Hyderabad (would you believe my parents met them on vacation and have remained friends with them?).  We stayed with the family for four days and had a blast.  

Here dressed up with Shalini in her engagement dress, making jasmine garlands (worn in the hair) with Auntie  and enjoying Auntie Jodythi's amazing feast.

Around Hyderabad

Off to Kerala!

The southwestern part of India is known for it's beautiful backwaters, houseboats, and coconuts! Here we are walking the very local beach near our resort.

Ashtamudi Backwaters, Kerala

Fisherman off to check their nets (hung from these structures every evening).

Beautiful bananas!

Walking down the street, thirty seconds later that hose got a little too friendly!

Tea country!

Although Munnar was a harrowing 8 hr drive inland and up ghats (switchbacks) from Kerala, it was well worth the trip. We had a wonderful time reading, walking, and having chai and biscuits in this cool, beautiful, and quiet popular honeymoon destination.

An unexpected surprise!

Kodaikanal, a wonderful lakeside town in the hills near Munnar, is a popular honeymoon and weekend getaway destination.

Enjoying a nice masala chai break after a bike ride around the lake. Our twice daily practice here (the bike ride just an excuse for this amazing chai)!

An ultimate frisbee championship in the middle of India, Tom finds nirvana.

Here, about to storm the crowd!

Here, we are at the Sunday market getting fried snacks and jackfruit.

Cow traffic.

Bonjour Pondicherry!

One of our favorite places in India to date, this French Union territory is a little piece of heaven on the eastern coast of the state of Tamil Nadu. Pondicherry (now re-named back to it's original Indian name, Puducherry) is home to the famous Sri Aurobindo Ashram and not from Auroville, a well known commune.

We stayed on the sea in a lovely guesthouse associated with the ashram (view from the balcony below) and had a wonderful and utterly peaceful stay filled with yoga, ayurvedic massage that we will never to forget (although we try!), great food, and amazing shopping for all types of local handmade crafts.

Gandhi and me, two peas in a pod.

The beautiful French Quarter.

Lakshmi the friendly elephant outside a famous temple. She'll ring a bell if you give her food; one smart cookie.

Need anything, anything at all? You'll find it at this market.  

I assure you.

Getting into some hardcore negotiations.

Chennai to visit our new-old friends!

I can't tell you how happy and fortunate we are to have found Arvind and Preethi, and they have been one of the best parts of our arrival here in India. Now our neighbors on campus, they have become so close to us in such a short time.

In Chennai we were lucky enough to be guests at Arvind's family home and we what a time we had eating our way through the city.

An afternoon of games (balloon shooting) and sweets at the beach.

Arvind getting us some of the sweet stuff!

The Indian School of Business!

Finally, what we came all this way for! Here's a little bit of life on campus.

During orientation week in his section C (for Christa of course) t-shirt.

Talent night filled with beautiful songs like this one.

The sunsets are indescribably magnificent.

A visit from Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs! Tom was chosen along with 2 other students to host him at an ISB welcoming ceremony as Lloyd was on campus to discuss GS's 10,000 Women initiative. Here with Lloyd and with our friends Arvind and Preethi.

On the town with friends at the famous Paradise restaurant in Hyderabad, enjoying the local specialty, biryani.

Tom at home wearing his lungi, and me making roti with friends!