Trip to India: First Impressions

I woke up in the apartment of my grandfather (I call him Appachan) feeling quite tired, but clean, at least. After getting ready and relaxing a bit, I was immediately introduced to one of my relatives, Judgiaunty. Apparently she had been staying there overnight, so I went over to the other bedroom to meet her. It was a bit awkward, because her American English was not very good, so she found it a bit difficult to understand me, but we got some talking done. 

A little while later, I got my first true taste of India. Before lunch, we went to Thom's Cafe, an Indian equivalent of a corner store in the US, to get some random thing. I was stunned at how disorganized the roads were. Cars going every which way, not staying in their lanes, avoiding each other by mere inches. People use their horns like bicycle bells to alert others as to where they are going, rather than using the lanes for that purpose. I saw a couple cows lying down on the roadside, eating out of piles of trash, and some dogs passed out on their sides on the sidewalk. 

Thom's had an extremely strong, acrid smell (maybe bug spray, now that I think about it) which was a bit overwhelming. 

The checkout line was very different. First, a person with a handheld device would tally your purchases onto a receipt. Then you would bring the receipt to the payment desk. Finally, on the way out, a security guard would stamp your receipt to show that you have not stolen anything.

For lunch, I met up with my first cousins Aadi and Anoushka, along with a cadre of relatives I had never met (soon to become a common pattern in my stay in India). The food was very manageable; not nearly as difficult of a transition as I was told it would be. Later in the day, I was dragged to a photo frame store and a photo printing store, because we wanted to give a framed photo of our family to Doctorauntie (another relative of mine) as a present. By about 6:00 PM I was dead on my feet, and I went to sleep almost instantly after I got home.