First impression of India: I love McDonalds. I think I could eat a B
igMac everyday of my life and never get tired of them. Don’t judge me. I haven’t had McDonalds in five months so as soon as we found out where we were going to be in India (two months ago), I googled whether or not our city had a MickeyDs. Much to my surprise, there were multiple throughout our city; praise the Lord. You bet that was my first stop as soon as we got to this country. Can you imagine my disappointment and slight disgust when I confidently and excitedly marched up to the McDonalds counter and saw that everything on the menu was made of chicken. I quickly lowered my expectations of this month.
So here we are, back in Asia, in the middle of their summer. Let me tell you, India has come just in time. I forgot how much I enjoy Asia. Wouldn’t have classified India as Asian? Me either. But it’s pretty Asian; it’s also slightly Middle Eastern and a little bit African.
We are currently in Bangalore, or Bengaluru as it has been recently renamed. It’s a quaint little city of a mere 8 million people. Woof.
Now, if you know me, which most of you probably don’t, I have generally always hated the city, but since being on the World Race I have learned to love it. Now that I no longer get a panic attack due to being overwhelmed by the shear intensity of it all and have learned how to get around in the chaos, I rather enjoy being in the dead center of civilization. Especially after being in Podunk, Africa, I like being in a place where I have at least 25 different food options in 5 blocks.
On top of just having fun being back in the city, our contacts this month are ridiculously fun. Thelma and Jo-Jo are a couple of women on staff here at YWAM and they are fitting right in with our sarcastic way of life on our team. The other day they took us to the city center to help us buy kurtas (cultural attire that we have to wear to church) and, because my head is apparently much bigger than most Indians and therefore wouldn’t fit through the standard tiny head holes of most kurtas, they patiently, and maybe even a little excitedly, walked around with us for hours to try to find us the best deal on these long shirt-like dresses.
Reality check/anecdote: On our second day here, 
one of the YWAM-ers here at the base kindly said good morning to me and, in passing, as small talk, asked how I slept the night before. Whereas most people, no matter the reality, would have just said something along the lines of “fine,” I went into describing the difficulty I had trying to sleep with my malaria scare (I don’t have malaria, just a little food poisoning). It wasn’t until this poor woman gave me a look that said, “I don’t have time to hear about your life story,” that I realized how much the World Race has distorted the way I interact with people. Good thing the World Race has stripped me of all of my shame too.
Despite the rough first impression of this place, I have a feeling this is going to be a good month.
