Day 1: Bare Realities and Amazing People

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Today (the 16th) was the first day of the GESI program. I awoke around 10:30 am in the hotel my dad had dropped me off the day before. While I wasn't able to get my dad a nice gift for Father's Day, it was very nice to have a nice drive together to Chicago (which was spent listening to podcasts about India that we got to talk about)





So I spent my Sunday walking around the city. I figured I had seen most of the city in previous trips anyways and wouldn't stay out for long. But I began to hear a lot of music and walked to it. I ended up stumbling across the local Blues Jazz Festival!



Listening to some brilliant musicians was a great way to calm my nerves and get ready for my adventures. I continued to explore the city a little bit...



So after a while I returned to the hotel, settled down for the Game of Thrones season finale (OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOmy GAWD!) and then finally fell asleep. I packed up....



So the day began with myself heading to the chicago hostel where GESI was setting us up for the week. I walked in and was handed a name tag, some folders, and a very large stack of papers. We put our stuff away, and before I had much of a chance to talk to the other young people I saw around me it was time to walk to Northwestern's Campus. It was a good distance and took about 35-45 minutes. And it is hot in chicago right now (about 20 degress less than India's heat of 100 degrees, but still hot!). Along the way I managed to get into the zone of introducing myself to all of these people going on an adventure like myself. I met a few people going to India like me, and began to make some rounds around the group walking and met 4-5 people. What I immediately got a sense of in our brief conversations is that I was not nearly as unprepared as I thought. Most of these students were just like me, they hadn't travelled internationally before, they hadn't done the readings, and they still had many things to purchase or check on before we leave next week.



We arrived at the campus (which is a campus for Northwestern's Graduate programs) and we all piled into a lecture hall. We were greeted by our instructors and went over some details on the program. Then we proceeded to perform an ice breaker of BINGO. You all know this game, where you have to find someone that has a specific characteristic or experience that you can fill in. There were things like "Person can name all 6 GESI countries" "Person in a band" "Person that speaks 3 languages or more". It was fun and I met many more people. By around this time I realized just how many Northwestern Students there were in this program. In fact out of all 60 GESI students only 4 students weren't from Illinois, including myself. So far I have also found that my major of Neuroscience is a minority. Many students are political science or international studies. Psychology and development are also very popular. It seems as if many students here are high achievers and good at interacting with others.





So then it was time for a "scavenger hunt". Yep. We had to go to various parts of Chicago and find certain things. These included asking people what their favorite restaurants were, taking a picture in front of landmarks, and making a rap about your part of Chicago. In order to get from NW's campus to our part of Chicago this required taking the subway, my first subway ride. There isn't much to say about this except that I have learned I am terrified of standing right next to the subway tracks. I've seen House of Cards. I chose to stand in the middle of the platform like someone who doesn't want to get crushed.





So we finally made our way out to the "greektown" neighborhood. This area was filled with greek restaurants and lot's of art institutes. I was in a group of 4 including myself, Victoria, Gyra, and Diane. Victoria is my partner for India. She and I are the two interns for Jagras Jan Vikas Samiti. So we will basically spend the entire summer together. We bonded pretty quickly over how we felt terrible leaving our significant other's behind. But it will go by in a flash! Gyra and Diane are also going to India but in another NGO that is not JJVS. So while we will travel together and live relatively close, we won't work together on a day-to-day basis. The four of us took off down the streets and quickly bonded. It was nice to get to know people so quickly, especially the people I will likely travel around India with. But since we finished our hunt early we returned to the subway early and proceeded to chill and talk more.





At this point in the day I hadn't had breakfast, or lunch, and 6pm was approaching. So now it was time to head to the restaurant for dinner. I am not entirely sure how meals will work this week, but I have to write about this dinner. It was a thai restaurant, so immediately I was excited to get some pad thai! But we never got to order. What happened is everyone sat down and the servers brought us various plates filled with food. Each plate was meant for 5 people and we all shared. There were about 8 plates in total that ranged from spring rolls, to peanut chicken, to pad thai, to fried rice, to beef with brocolli and a few more. I was worried at first because I thought the first two plates were all we would get to eat, but then the plates just kept on coming! The last few times everyone laughed because we thought we couldn't possibly get anymore food!





After filling our bellies we took off to the subway once more to head home. Now we have returned to the hostel and are spending our time napping, hanging out, or some people like myself are doing the readings that we were supposed to do in the weeks prior to this. I have about 30 pages to read before the end of the night. So I will end this entry and update later in the week!

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