Here we go!

Hello there freinds, family, secret admirerers and more,

As always, I hope you're all doing well! Here in Mumbai, its time to dive in! (not literally, the monsoons don't start until at least Friday). I'll do my best to pack a quick summary of the past 2 weeks into a few minutes. The trip was absolutely incredible. We spent a few days in Mumbai, seeing synogogues and touring a few major sites of the city. The city is compltely crazy. Honking is literally encouraged on the back of most cars, there are cows, cars, people, bikes and more constantly weaving in and out of each other, and there are, of course, people everywhere. The majority of the trip, however, was in the small towns and villages of the Konkan coast. We explored a few places where the Bene Israel Jews have been living for centuries, and got a senseof where the community is coming from. We thenspent 3 amazing days at a resort with memebers of the Jewish Youth Pioneers. These guys and girls were from ages 15 to 25(ish), and were all SO much fun to hang out with. From rock climbing to pool parties, to tons of dance parties, to shabbat services, to just sitting around, everyone was really great to meet.



There are obviously a million more details I could give, but I'll save those for later. Two days ago the trip ended and most people went home. Nine of us stayed in India, and mosty people are in Mumbai for at least a few days before going north to Jaipur, Agra and Delhi. So we've been having a great time going up to Natasha's house (a JYP member) yesterday afternoon for tea, cooking lessons, and relaxing, and today we took a ferry to Elephanta Island, which is covered in monkeyse (but no elephants, if you're wondering), and has some really cool caves with carvings in the walls.



I'm writing this from an internet cafe down the street from my hotel. I took the worst possible route to get here, but in the process did some cool exploring of a really different neighborhood then I've been inbefore. I'll be living here for two months, so I should probablyknow my own backyard. It was denser and crazier than anywhere I've been. So crazy, people didn't even bother staring at me for being white. Woah. But I did find an excellent chocoatier and bakery, so the detour was 100% worth it.



I look forward to keeping in better contact now that I can venture out to internet cafes more frequently. I have a phone too, but after functioning yesterday, it seems to have stopped today...hmmmmm. Anyway, I hope you're all great and planning on emailing me with cool stories. Talk toyousoon!



P.S. hopefully I'llfigureout how to get pictures up here soon, if for no other reason than to keep Zach happy.