I have been back home for about a few weeks now, and I have to say it is a little strange to be back. I feel like after landing at the Raleigh airport, I haven’t had the chance to look back, swept away instantly by the happenings of everyday life back home. However, I’m excited to see how my experience abroad impacts my life going forward.

Back when I said I was going to India for 5 months, many people asked, ‘Why don’t you just study in Europe? India is the kind of place you want to spend two weeks, not five months.’ If I had visited for two weeks, I think I would have come home totally overwhelmed, having seen many things but understood very little. Even now, after spending five months in the wonderful country, I still find myself questioning what I truly understand from my experience, but I’m glad I spent a semester there so that I could integrate and meet many people.

When we first arrived in Hyderabad, our advisors asked us to write down five goals that we hoped to achieve during the semester. Some of mine were practical, like learning a few phrases in Hindi, and learning a few Indian recipes, but others were more theoretical. One of them was to live like a typical Indian in India by the end of the semester. I think that I really achieved that, and by the end of my stay, was able to blend in relatively well – despite the blonde hair. Living with Nivedita and Prerna, surrounded by friendly neighbors who took us in like family, was the best choice I could have made to begin living a more ‘normal’ lifestyle in Hyderabad. Spending time with them will remain some of my favorite memories for a lifetime

I want to thank my host family, my neighbors, and my friends in India who helped me acclimate to life in India. I also want to thank everyone who followed my blog, read about my experiences, and gave me tips or comments. I am so glad I decided to keep a blog about my trip, because sitting down to write it gave me some of the best time to reflect on my experiences abroad

Thanks for reading!

Namaskar.

The sun setting over Hyderabad from our apartment

This entry was posted on Friday, January 3rd, 2014 at 10:55 am and is filed under Fall 2013, Rhiannon in India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.