Little Princess

We all excitedly observed the streets of Delhi. The traffic was unbelievable for 12:30 in the middle of the night. Cars and trucks were bumper to bumper. As we made our way to the hotel, I couldn't help but remember my first few nights in Italy and wonder if India was going to be as unpredictable.

I had no problems gathering my luggage in Rome a little over two months prior. I traded some American cash for Euros and sat at the cafe where Jill told me to meet her. As a major in Public Policy, I was coming to Rome to fulfill my Public Policy internship. One of my best friends, Jenna, has an older sister, Jill, who lives in Rome and studies at the Angellicum, a Vatican University. Jill also was a public policy major at Duke back in the day, and she graciously invited me to come live with her in Rome and help her with projects she was working on for the Vatican.

Unfortunately her apartment was not ready, and when I arrived she told me I would live in hotels for a few weeks until we both could move into the apartment. Jill was staying with friends. After we put my bags in the first place I would stay in, we got pizza from one of her favorite places and ate it in front of the steps of St. Peters. I took a nap and jumped on a public bus to meet Jill, my first solo public transportation experience on my very first day. It was the beginning of a tremendously fun, but highly unpredictable Italian summer. I ended up living in a bed and breakfast, two different hotels, and a convent before finally ending up in Jill's apartment almost a month into my trip.

After a short bus ride, the India group full of teachers and education minors from Duke arrived at the hotel. We were a bit confused as girls in, let's just say, "small clothes" were flocking to the lobby of the hotel. We spent a good deal of time during the school year preparing ourselves on what to bring and wear in this supposedly "highly conservative" country, and we were walking into what appeared to be an India MTV spring break. But once we walked into the lobby, we were stunned. There was a giant club on one side where all the sparkly clad young people were headed. The lobby was filled with bright colored couches with matching beads hanging from the ceiling. It was what you would expect in a 12 year old Indian princess' room. Emily, a girl that had just graduated from Duke that spring, and I went up to our room and pretty much crashed in our beds after finally figuring out which adaptors work in India.