Mumbai Day Three: Ahmedabad by Day

Woke at 3:00am. Oh yeah. In the lobby at 4. The drive to the airport was actually quite nice. There was absolutely no traffic. Without all the bustle and noise it seemd like a whole new city. Plus, I was seeing it all illuminated by cleansing artificial light, rather than sunlight filtered through a lot of floating dirt. It almost seemed...Western. Then we got on the plane. It looked like it had been bought at a pawn shop. If you are ever in India, never stray from Jet Air. You will pay for it if you do.

Sunrise at Ahmedabad airport

First thing we did is stop to check out the hotel where the afternoon's fair would be and have breakfast. Not bad. Then it was another game of find the school. This took well over an hour of zig-zagging through town. Ahmedabad is much more open than Mumbai, but there is still tons of traffic, it just moves a lot faster. At any given time, vehicular motion and vehicular manslaughter are only about 5 centimeters apart. Throw into the mix a lot of people on scooters and bikes, cows wandering in the road, mules and camels pulling carts, lots of stray dogs, and a few monkeys here and there scratching themselves. So, at least the ride was interesting. The school was not. Best management school in India. 134,000 people compete for 250 spots each year. They are not going to any other school after this. I will cut off an apendage if I get an app from one of these kids. They looked at me like I was ... I don't know what, a third nipple?

The fair was good, however. I met some very interested students, got two applications for our M. Arch program, and met about 5 people who had already applied, two who showed me their amazing portfolios. One day I'll be bragging that I recruited these kids, seriously.

After the fair it was back to the airport. Wouldn't you know our flight was delayed 4 hours. Since the flight is only 45 minutes long, we figured this meant it would never come to pass. After much haggling, gnashing of teeth, and pulling of hair, we bought tickets on Indian Air. I almost pulled their clerk through that little hole in the glass booth. It would have been worth the jail time. We had to pay a "Yankee tax" if you know what I mean. We still had time to kill in the airport.


Our intrepid travelling reps stuffing face in the airport. From left Baiju (no idea if I'm spelling that right) from the educational mag, S______ from Toronto, K____ from Ontario, and M____ from B___ State University.

Got back to the hotel in Mumbai at 11pm. I promptly fell on my bed and passed out. Woke up at 3am and started doing some e-mail and making these entries.

THE END

This looks like I felt at the end of the day