blog numero uno

hello everyone,
sorry for the tardy post, but rest assure everyone is more than happy and healthy. We are currently in varanasi, the city lights, and kicking off our internships and hindi classes. Hindi is definitely a challenge, but we're getting the hang of it slowly... ie practicing on the roof top with the monks across the street. The internships include fire dancing (nina, bridey, ben and desmond, classical indian singing (chrys). kattaa aka indian dancing (chrys), sitar (hilary, nina, julia and bridey), tablar aka indian drum (ben), henna tattoe (bridey and graham), jewlery making (julia, karen, hilary, graham), minature painting (graham)and stone carving (andrew). I think that's everyone, but I may be missing someone and things are likey to switch up a bit. In addition to the hindi classes and interships, the majority of the group is taking indian cooking classes, which ensures a legit meal for the day. So that pretty much wraps up the day-time activites. A few of us got up to see the sunrise over the ganga river, which was definitely the most amazing sight of all of india so far, if not my life. It's amazing that people are already up before dawn going about their daily routines in such an awesome place. There are people meditating, praying, doing laundry, bathing, and swimming as well as goats, dogs and monkeys hanging out doing their thing. So I'm so psyched to be spening more than a week here and I think everyone else is too. Our accomandations are great, except for the mosquitos. Mostly everyone battled with the little buggers all night and woke up with welts and pizza faces, the boys defintely got hit the hardest(bridey and I were the only ones that got out bite- free). The problem has been solved with the instalation of mosquitoe nets and the purchase of various types of insect repellant-so rest assured we are now fully prepared to outsmart the little buggers. Ive run out of time and space, so Im going to have to sign off now. Quick recap: india is flippin awesome, everyone is lovin it and we all miss you guys at home. We're going to be more on top of the blog in the future, so stay tuned for our next adventure-packed post. namaste, Graham