Category: Study Abroad India

I finally arrived in India after a series of delays and long flights. Although I was an entire day late to India,I had the luxury of getting to spend a day in Germany. I didn’t get to explore the city, but I did have some authentic German food, much of which I couldn’t read the title of, but it was good! They serve a lot of meat- frankfurters and meatballs, and breads. 

Today was my first official taste of getting to see Bangalore in the daylight. We met Prof. Philip, president of XIME, in the courtyard for some tea, and he gave us some background information on his education in India, as well as some statistics about Indian business schools. He then introduced us to Mr. Selvam George, chairperson of 5E Sepraise, who was our first speaker of the day. We headed up to the lecture room and George explained to us the nature of his company. Surpraise is a splice of the words service and praise. 5E Serpraise is a comprehensive human resources training initiative for organizations. The fives E’s are as follows- Educate corporate employees through training programs and employees through certificate programs, Enrich executives through gainful placements, Enjoy the subconscious learning and outsource for the fun activities of the organizations, Empathize-enable social service organization through professional management, and Energize- enabling people towards superordinate and self actualisation goals.

George also compared and contrasted Indian management methods to those of Japan and the United States. He also touched on the differences between traditional Indian management styles and contemporary styles. He said that today, most companies have adopted Western values plus mixed management methods from the leading nations, rather than Eastern values and Western (top) methods.

August 1, 2011.

Today Professor J. Philip, who is the president of XIME gave us a lecture about the educational system in India. He informed us that an MBA is a universal degree, but it is called a Post Graduate Degree in Management in India. The most fascinating things he told us were as follows: India, the USA, and China work intimately with each other (especially economically and managerial-wise), and they will be the top three entrepreneurs by the year 2035. Currently, India has approximately 25,951 colleges and 518 universities (in 1947 they had 574 colleges and 28 universities), but by the year 2035 they expect to have over 15000 combined colleges and universities. In 2011, India had 1.4 million students enrolled in these educational systems, 6.55 million of which were women. Engineering and management are the top two degrees earned. The government has currently set up an affirmative action program for those belonging to the lowest socioeconomic statuses, reserving 22.5% of government jobs and spots in colleges and universities. Last but not least, India has more graduates in mathematics and science than the rest of the world, making its growth rate skyrocket and making their citizens very competitive in the market.

LECTURES
Prof. J. Philip provided an introduction to the management education available in India. He noted that while 200,000 MBAs are earned each year in India, only 50,000 or so are good MBAs; thus, it can be assumed that not all schools provide quality education. The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are the most difficult schools to gain acceptance to, but afford the best education to students. Additionally, Prof. Philip remarked that all good business schools in India are fully-residential, take a lot of interest in total job placement after graduation, and strive to teach students to work ethically in the business environment.
Information on the current Indian economic scene was presented by Prof. C.P. Ravindranathan. The American perception of the Indian economy is that there is steady growth, an increasing middle class, and a lower cost of living. India is expected to experience an 8.5% growth increase for 2010-11, second only to China. A target of $200 billion in exports for 2010-11 may be achieved; $176.5 billion was the 2009-10 total. Some of the main concerns today include bringing down inflation, tightening the monetary policy, and strengthening the exchange rate of the Rupee. The Indian government issued a series of three stimulus measures to counter the effects of the global economic slowdown; this was done through tax reductions, increased government spending, and infrastructure development. The primary growth drivers for the next two years are expected to be domestic consumption, outsourcing, and capital expenditure.
A former employee of HCL, Prof. Atish Dasgupta based his HR lecture on his knowledge of HCL’s practices. Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL, transformed HR with his “Employees First, Customers Second,” approach; the premise of this philosophy is that the employees will take care of their customers if they are well-taken care of first and that the power set forth by the CEO needs to be distributed downward. Notable HR applications at HC

FRIDAY 8/6: Our plan for Goa was pretty much just to relax a bit before starting classes with Dr. Vijay in Bangalore. This morning, we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel restaurant, then tried to find an internet cafe. We walked to several places (all the while avoiding TONS of cow patties) that had “internet” signs, but they all said their internet was down. The beaches were much cleaner than in Mumbai, but the water was way too rough to get in. We spent some time taking goofy pictures of Steve acting girly, Valerie made friends with a dog that followed us around for awhile, and Sara’s camera got wet in the sea and stopped working. There were several tent-like beach huts in one area, but it didn’t really seem like anyone lived there. After walking along the beach in the direction of the hotel, we found what we thought was a path that would lead to the main road, but we ended up in someone’s backyard, where a huge herd of cattle were resting. Deciding that it was probably not the greatest idea to be trespassing, we walked back down the beach to the path we originally walked along. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but it was HOTTTTTTTTTT and we were thirsty! On the way back to the hotel, we found an internet cafe that actually had working internet!!!! I spent about an hour there sending emails and chatting online and it only cost me about 55 rupees (~$1.25). A block or so down from the internet cafe was a grocery store; I bought ice tea, mentos, a box of chocky krocky cereal, and some sort of Cadbury cookies…that stuff only lasted a few minutes 🙂 By the time I made it back to the hotel, I was DRENCHED in sweat (and looked really gross!). Sara, Steve, and I jumped in the pool and swam for an hour or two. Later on, we had dinner at the hotel and made friends with our waiter. All of us tried the local Goan alcohol, cashew feni….it’s meant to be sipped, but Steve took it as a shot….After dinner, we relaxed in our rooms (we watched India’s Got Talent and Whose Line Is It Anyway?) and did some laundry, then had a few drinks at the hotel before going out to a karaoke bar Steve found. We were the ONLY people at the bar…and there was no karaoke….but the owner was very friendly and gave each of us some flowers and hot peppers (which probably should’ve been nibbled on, but Steve ate the whole thing in one bite and instantly regretted his second bad decision of the day). Back at the hotel, I went to bed while the others stayed up and talked for awhile….at some point in time, the security guards came and shut both of our doors (our rooms were across the hall from each other), thus locking Steve out of the room we shared. Instead of knocking on the door to get in, Steve tried bad decision number 3 of the night, and climbed out a hallway window, onto a ledge, and around to our balcony, only to find that I had closed and locked the balcony doors.

SATURDAY 8/7: I think I was the only one who didn’t have too rough of a morning 🙂 At breakfast, there were A TON of people (we were pretty much the only people at the hotel the previous morning). We packed our bags and left them in storage at the hotel, then went back to the internet cafe and grocery store from the day before to get some snacks for our 16-hour train ride to Bangalore. There wasn’t enough time to do any sightseeing (we had wanted to rent scooters to ride to an old fort), so we went back to the hotel and sat around the lobby (and had our pictures taken by all of the businessmen from breakfast) until it was time to get a cab to take us to the train station. I’m really glad we left early for the train station…it was a pretty long ride and once we got there we didn’t really know what to do…..We didn’t have to check in or anything….but I knew we were on the right platform…we just didn’t know where to go from there! Once the train arrived, we had 4 minutes to ask someone where we were supposed to be and get there! Luckily, we were standing near our sleeper car and didn’t have to rush too much…As mentioned before, we were going to be on this train for 16 hours straight…..long story short, the 3-tier air-conditioned sleeper car was NOT what we imagined….I had been on several trains in Italy where there were several little compartments within each car that had doors that locked so you could sleep and have some privacy….but not in India….essentially, there were 96ish people crammed into each car (no comparments)…imagine a bunch of little cubicles with 3 planks of wood (each about 2 feet wide and 5.5 feet long) attached to the wall with about 2 feet of head room in between each plank….and the same arrangement right beside you (with a 10 inch aisle space in between bunks)….throw in a bunch of screaming babies, greasy feeling blankets, squat toilets, and food for sale that you can’t buy and you’ve got one hell of a journey! After the first few hours I was ready to jump off the train and walk to the nearest airport, but then I took some dramamine and passed out for 12 hours 🙂 When I woke up, we were almost to Bangalore to begin our adventure with Dr. Vijay!!!!

Tuesday 8/3: Our time in Kathmandu was AWESOME!!!!!!!!! The temples we visited, our mountain flight, the bungy adventure, seeing random animals in the street, eating food (lots of food!), and lounging around the hotel are all great memories 🙂 Leaving Hotel Ganesh Himal was really sad! The staff was so friendly and always helpful. One of the front desk girls gave each of us a scarf and wished us luck before heading for the airport 😀 The Kathmandu airport had the most security checks of any airport I’ve ever been through…we literally went through at least a dozen bags searches/metal detectors before boarding the plane for Mumbai. The 2.5 hour flight went smoothly and quickly (especially for Sara, who managed to snag a first class seat…not fair!). We got a pre-paid taxi at the airport…an OLD (like really really really OLD and RICKETY) taxi…pretty sure it was a 50-year old black and yellow Ford Ambassador that rumbled and bounced along the street….we looked super classy pulling into the JW Marriott (a VERY nice 5-star hotel)! After some “issues”, it was decided that Steve and I would stay at the JW for our two nights and Mumbai and Sara and Valerie were going to find a hotel downtown. Steve spent the night relaxing in the sauna and I pretty much just fell asleep watching Indian tv 🙂 We also had some very expensive sandwiches at the hotel….

Wednesday, 8/4: Steve and I woke up feeling refreshed (those beds were SO COMFY!!!) and headed out to find a cab. Our cab driver totally ripped us off and charged us double what it should have cost to get from our hotel to the Gateway of India. En route to downtown, we saw the 20-some story Tata house!!! We found Sara and Valerie’s hotel, but they had already left to do some sight-seeing, so Steve and I enjoyed lunch at McDonald’s (Maharaja Mac!) then walked to the Gateway of India/Taj Mahal Hotel. The inside of the Taj is GORGEOUS!!!! We spent a few minutes sitting in the lobby, then walked around the shopping area inside. A jewelry store owner saw us looking in his store windows and came over to talk to us (well, mostly Steve…grr)…he said that people never come in his store to look anymore because they’re afraid of getting conned into buying something and he just wants to talk to people! So we spent a good 30 minutes in their learning about India and how to avoid getting ripped off by cab drivers 🙂 After that, we found a ferry to take us to the Elephanta Island!!!! It wasn’t raining or anything, but the water was pretty choppy…we managed to keep our Mickey D’s down though 🙂 Steve and I spent a few hours exploring the caves, taking pictures of monkeys/puppies/caterpillars, and buying junk from vendors. It was a very relaxing afternoon and will definitely be remembered 🙂 The ride back was much much worse….I won’t go into detail, but I was SO happy to get off of that ferry!!!! Shortly after returning, we ran into Sara and Valerie on the street and showed each other our pictures and videos from the day. They had met a travel agent of some sort who was going to take them around the city and show them the not-so-touristy areas (aka the slums). Steve and I were starving and in dire need of a restroom, so we parted ways and agreed to meet up in the morning. We went into several stores trying to find a restroom, but didn’t have any luck (we did find a LeBron jersey in an Adidas store…nobody knew who he was though), so we resorted back to McDonald’s….that was by far the nastiest bathroom I have ever been in!!! We were too tired/lazy to search for food, so we just ate dinner at McDonald’s (eating fast food twice in one day was an awful idea) and then found a Western Union where we called home for the first time in 10 days 🙂 The cab ride back to the hotel was much better than the ride in (and it cost us less than half the price we paid in the morning!). Our driver was really really nice and told us how he learned English from driving tourists around for the last 30 or so years. Back at the JW, we found a complimentary lemon tart that had been left in our room (we thought it was pretty awesome and took a lot of pictures of it…yes, we’re weird). We spent the night watching more Indian tv (there was one show where a guy and girl were just staring into each others eyes, not saying anything and the background kept changing….that went on for at least 30 minutes!).

Thursday, 8/5: Again, we woke up feeling great and decided to swim in the hotel’s awesome pools and walk on the beach. I was kind of surprised by how dirty the beach was…people just throw their garbage wherever they feel like, so I had plastic bags and wrappers of all sorts floating around my feet. The water was way too rough (and gross-looking) for us to get in, but I’m happy to say I’ve been to the Arabian Sea! Not wanting to spend a fortune on lunch at the hotel, we walked a block or two down the street and found a SUBWAY!!!!!! It was so good! I thought it was interesting that they have two separate sandwich lines, one for vegetarian and the other for non-vegetarian. While we were eating, a group of cross-dressed tribal men walked up to the restaurant door and were motioning for me to come outside. Steve, nice guy that he is, thought the door was too heavy for the “women” to open, so he pulled it open for them and the Subway workers came running over to close it. I don’t know what those people were up to, but it was a very strange thing to see! I saw them walking into the slums on our way back to the hotel. Steve and I were chased by some beggar children when we walked down a street to the public beach…all of them do this motion where they point all of their fingers together and tap their lips, like they want us to give them money for food. It’s really sad to see so many children on the street, but at the same time, you almost become insensitive to them because there are so many. Before leaving the hotel, we talked to the concierge for a while and he gave us the names of places to check out in Goa. The flight we originally booked was supposed to leave at 1pm, but it then was pushed back to 2:40pm, and eventually 4:30pm. Valerie’s flight left Mumbai at 1pm, so she waited in the Goa airport for 4 or 5 hours before Sara, Steve, and I got there. We flew Kingfisher Airlines for only 45 minutes, but were still served an entire hot meal! You would never get that in the States! The van ride to the hotel in Goa (Victor Exotica) was pretty long, but gave us a chance to see the city (and the fact that Kingfisher pretty much owns Goa). We didn’t get to Victor Exotica until 7:30 or 8pm…we ate dinner there and pretty much just went to bed.

Overall, Mumbai was a great city to see–I just wish we had had more time there (and a hotel closer to all of the action)!

(This took me a couple days to write since we’ve been so busy! but I started this on Monday 8/9)

Today is my 2nd official night of being in Bangalore! After arriving yesterday around 7 in the morning from Goa on a night train, I must say that these past two days have been exciting, busy, and fun!

Let me start from the beginning…Myself, Molly Cuenot, Steve Menyes, and Valerie Young were so excited for this trip that we decided to leave a couple weeks early to explore Kathmandu, Nepal and Mumbai and Goa. This was our Kathmandu experienceeee!! 🙂

GETTING THERE:
Our journey began on Saturday July 24th when we departed Cleveland International en route to Kathmandu. The original flight itinerary consisted of two layovers, one being in Chicago (1 hour) and the other in Delhi (10 hours!!). Unfortunate weather conditions (RAIN!) delayed our Cleveland flight so we ended up missing our flight from Chicago to Delhi. It was hectic trying to find other flights that would not set our schedule back a few days, but we finally ended up making it to Kathmandu after about 26 hours of travel with two more layovers in London and Doha! We arrived on Monday July 26th.

KATHMANDU:
We stayed for 10 days, and it was an AWESOME experience. The whole city is surrounded by huge mountains, not the typical scenery you’d see by looking outside of your window in Ohio! We stayed at Hotel Ganesh Himal, which I highly recommend! It was about $75 for the whole stay, the food from the restaurant in the hotel was great, it’s a prime location, there’s an outside sitting area/garden, a rooftop terrace that overlooks the city, and the employees were extremely kind and very helpful! The first couple of days were rough from adjusting to a different sleep schedule, but after it was fine! It was actually impossible to sleep-in. Once the sun rose at around 5 a.m.; the noises commenced! No, it’s not what you think you’d hear in a huge city like horns, cars, the garbage truck, people shouting, music, trains… Instead there were various types of birds (roosters, crows, & maybe monkeys? we couldn’t tell), dogs barking, people chanting in Nepalese, motorbikes roaring by.. and with the natural sunlight coming in our windows we didn’t need an alarm clock, we were ready to go!…. This is basically a summed up itinerary of everything we did!

Monday 7/26– Arrived/day of rest! I needed to catch up on some much needed rest after the long and crazy journey of getting there!

Tuesday 7/27– Took an early morning 30 minute walk to the Swayambhunath Stupa aka Monkey Temple. It’s known for being a Buddhist pilgrimage destination. It was a big climb!! Supposedly365 steps!  True to it’s nickname, there were  tons of little monkeys wondering around! That night we walked around the city and then had dinner at Kathmandu’s first and only revolving restaurant that overlooked the city. It was rather “jerky” and felt more like you were being rotated around on a clock. I’m pretty sure we all left feeling kind of woozy, but nonetheless it was a good timee!

Wednesday 7/28– We ventured out into the city and walked through Durbar Square, which is an outside  ‘complex’ that consists of old temples, statues, shrines, ect…. Immediately upon our arrival we were bombarded by locals that wanted to give us a tour or vendors that wanted to sell us handmade crafts like jewlery, or “singing bowls” (which I ended up purchasing later).  It was naturally unavoidable to not be approached by these people and it was expected being that we were in a tourist area and are…. well, tourists! But the people were extremely nice (yet persistent!)…

The only temple we went in was the Kumari temple. In Nepal, Kumari is a little girl that the Nepali Buddhists and some Hindus worship because they believe that she is a living goddess. The little girl must be pre-pubescent and must encompass certain physical attributes and pass a series of tests to be the Kumari. We saw her for maybe about 2 minutes from a small window about three stories high that overlooked the courtyard of the temple. She was probably about 5 years old and had very thick/dark eyeliner on and was dressed in a little gown. They are  extremely strict about not taking photographs and I was approached by a Nepalese police man because he thought i had taken a picture (maybe by the way I was holding my camera?) I don’t know! but I showed him my pictures and everything was okayy!

Later that night we found Thamel (the area where all the tourists go), with tons of shops, restaurants, bars, and bars with showers (confused by that at first, but were later told that they were strip clubs.. good thing we did not go in!!) We ended up at this little Mexican place for dinner, which had decently good knock off Mexican food. Later that night we went to the Namaste Cafe, which had live music that consisted of a drunken version of The Eagles-Hotel California. Nightlife usually died down around 11ish, and we were tired anyways so we headed back to the hotel, where I had an encounter with a cow that almost headbutted me! Note to self: DO NOT get to close to the cows! you might end up with a concussion!

Thursday 7/29: UP bright and early at 4:30 a.m. for our  Mt. Everest Flight! The goal in mind when coming to Nepal was to actually be on Mt. Everest or at least “climb” up it like 10 feet…. but considering that a short trek would be about 7-9 days and would require the proper equipment and funds… it was just unrealistic for this trip. So we did the other option, which was flyingg by it! We got on a passenger plane that fit about 15-20 people. It was rainy that morning and still cloudy, but the himalayan mountain range was still quite visible!! It would have been nice for it to have been a clear day, but having the mountains peak out from the clouds really gave me some perspective as to how giant they actually are!! The flight lasted about maybe an hourr.

Friday7/30: Around 10 a.m. we took a temple tour of the city and saw some pretty great ones! The first was a lying Buddha that was in the middle of this little carved out pool. The 2nd was the Boudhanath stupta. It is noted to be one of the most important place of pilgrimage for a Buddhist. It was massive with shops and restaurants surrounding it. The 3rd/last notable one to mention was the Pashupathinath Temple located by the Bagmati River, which is a pilgrimage site for Hindis. Although we weren’t permitted in the temple, we got to observe something rather interesting, which some might view as disturbing. A Hindi funeral was in process while we were there. Along the river were about 8 “beds” where the bodies are layed and cremated…At first, I felt very invasive and rude for watching, but was told it was okay for us to be there and take pictures. There were tons of people around watching so after taking a few photo’s I left.

Saturday 7/31: BUNGY JUMP!!!! Today was the day that we ventured to The Last Resort which lies on the Tibetan border to jump off of a bridge with nothing but a cord attached to our ankles. Getting there was about a 3 hour bus ride outside of Kathmandu, but the scenery was beautiful as we drove up, through, and around mountains to reach the resort. The jump took place 160 meters (525 feet) above the Bhote Kosi River, one of Nepals widest rivers. It was definately of of the craziest things I have ever done, and doing it was not easy! I almost chickened out! Just walking across the bridge was an extremely frightening task in itself as it swayed back and forth like it was going to topple with each footstep….But I managed to make it across while holding a tight grip on the railings! The only thing I could think of before I jumped while standing on the tiny platform was “DON’T LOOK DOWN! why am I doing thiss!!?” All I did was  look forward towards the mountains before I was instructed “3, 2,1.. jump!” And there you have it, I did just that.  It was definately a rush and what I can only describe as an “out of body” experience because after being tossed around I had no concept of which way was up/down/left/right haha…..I’m not sure if I would be able to do it again, but it was sooo worth it! On the way back to the hotel, Molly and I rode on top of the bus with some Nepalese and Canadian people we had met, which was also scary because of all the bumps in the road you had to hold on tight!

The remaining couple of days in Kathmandu, we took fairly easy being that we did not have enough time to do anything else outside of the city, and that we had pretty much done everything we had wanted to within the city. Although I’m sure there was probably tons more to do that we were just unaware of! We left on Tuesday 8/3 in the morning for Goa. For the next trip, given more time, I have added a few more things I would have liked to do:

1) Some adventure trekking to Mt. Everest ( or some kind of mountain trekking)

2) Trip to Chitwan National Park

3) Visit Lumbini (It’s said to be the birthplace of Buddha)

4) Do more activities at The Last Resort ( possibly bungy jump again! or canyon swing, canyoning, high ropes…..)

Overall, visiting Kathmandu was a great experiencee! I definately recommend that Dr. Vijay add this to the itinerary for next summer!!! just a suggestion!!

Part 1:  Mumbai and Goa coming sooooon!!!!

Part2: Bangalore at XIME also coming soooon!!!

Hello everyone, I am having our first information session on January 27 at 4:00 pm in CBA 258 (Murphy room). If you are interested in going to India this summer, attend the information session to get more information. The dates are from August 6 to August 22. Prof. Vijay

I had a great time in Bengaluru (Bangalore) and enjoyed my stay for little over three weeks.  Even though I enjoyed the cool weather and delicious food, I hated the traffic in Bengaluru.  The roads are clogged with all kinds of vehicles and move very slowly.  Bengaluru which was known as “the garden city of India,” has become a “hump” city.  You will see humps (speed breakers) on roads everywhere.  The purpose of these humps is to slow down the traffic.  I noticed a lot of changes in Bengaluru since my last visit in 2008.  More and more people are using mobile phones and for many, life revolves around their mobile phones.  Some of them have more than one phone.  Communication and connectivity at all times seems to be the key to success in this flat land.  I wonder just how flat is this flat land?  Bengaluru, also known as the “silicon valley of India,” is now a home to more than 1,000 IT companies and over 250,000 IT professionals live here.  Bengaluru which was also known as the “pub” city is slowly transforming into “lounge” city with many upscale lounges.  Lots of things have changed in Bengaluru but I still enjoy visiting Bengaluru.

This morning we said an early goodbye to the Redlands kids and some of the XIME staff before leaving for Mumbai. Our flight was great! The Kingfisher girls are gorgeous! ☺

We did and saw so much in Mumbai, but I wish we could’ve stayed longer and explore some of the entertainment business if that was possible! Highlights of the day were walking/driving along the Arabian Sea, visiting the Gateway of India, drinks in the Taj Mahal Hotel, and shopping for a shawl for my mom!

My favorite stop was to a townhouse that used to belong to Ghandi’s friend and former law school colleague. Whenever Gandhi came to Mumbai on any kind of business, he would stay at this house on the second floor, which has been kept as a museum, library, and monument dedicated to him. You can still walk out on the old tiled balcony where he used to address crowds in the street and see where he labored on his own homespun clothing. It was a rush to be literally in the footsteps of such a great man. I’ll never forget it!

Before leaving, we had one final meal and I bought some cigarettes on the street to sneak home for my brother. In the airport, I used my first-class ticket to raid the president’s lounge of all non-perishable snacks to give to our group for the flight home. We shared some drinks and boarded to plane. It all seemed kind of surreal. Fifteen hours later I was home, but I wasn’t ready to go. There are countries you can spend a week in and see it all. What makes India so special is that, even though I’ve had the time of my life over the past few weeks, it would take almost a lifetime to experience everything India has to offer. I’ve promised myself I will be back one day to continue this adventure, whether its for work, school, or just to travel. For now, though, I have class in the morning… Goodnight!

After breakfast we visited the Infosys leadership training center which was crazy! It was like its own little city! They had everything you could ever want like restaurants, gyms, movie theatres, tennis courts, shops, and a giant library. It is awesome how hard they work to make the employees feel at home, and they must give them really great job training here as well. During one of the lectures we had at the company, the man told us that at the end of the employees training they have to pass a test, and if they do not pass this test then they do not get hired! I thought this was interesting because they still put a lot of work into making sure all of their employees are qualified at the highest level. This company is definitely the best I have seen on the trip.

After Infosys, we got back on the bus and on the way home we stopped at some crazy place, I’m not even sure what it was. There was a giant dam and we walked over a river on a bridge to see a light/water show that was pretty crazy. We were very rushed by Rama during this and it was hard to keep our group together because we had so many people. On our way out it started raining and we all got soaked! On the way home we made a pit stop at McDonalds and I got a hot fudge sundae, and shared another chicken maharaja mac with Pete that was delicious. It was such a long night and me and Juanita had to pack all of our bags when we got home.