Welcome to Bollywood!! We arrived in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) bright and early on Saturday morning, but our flat wasn’t exactly ready. We decided that it would be a good idea to try to grab a bite to eat just outside the airport so we walked out and found that there weren’t any restaurants. We had all of our luggage (all 165 kg of it plus our carry-ons) so we weren’t exactly mobile so we thought it would be a great idea to go back into the airport. Now, here in India, you can’t just walk into the airport like you can in the states. Here, your boarding pass gets checked by security just to walk into the check-in counter area. They’re very strict, but Elena decided that we should at least try. She is the “queens” of persuasion. (We’ve been calling her “queens” all week because she’s from Queens, NYC, and she’s sweet, poised, and polite most of the time, but when that girl gets on the dance floor she’s gets down and dances with so much flavor. 
That’s when the “Queens” really comes out!) We decided that it would be best if just Elena and Kristen go ask the security guard and get them to agree before they realized there were actually 6 of us and 2 carts filled with luggage. I don’t know how that girl does it, but somehow she sweet-talked the guards into letting us back into the airport to go to “Café Coffee Day” (the local “Starbucks”) to eat and relax. We ended up spending a good amount of time in the airport eating and roaming around the shops and finally finding a post office. I’d been looking for a post office since the day we arrived in Bangalore!
After a nice snack and visit to the post office, we were on our way. I couldn’t believe the tiny taxi’s that somehow took us and all of our luggage. We made our way across the city to our apartment complex, Serenity. The photos just don’t do justice to re-creating the feeling of driving across Mumbai. We really need to make a camera that captures odor! In a way, it felt a little like driving through LA... One minute you’re in Compton, the next you’re in Downtown (although imagine both being a whole lot dirtier and smellier). I really think it’s difficult in such wet weather. It was crazy to look up all of the buildings just seeing black (mold) and orange (rust) streaks running down from the roofs and windows. It was a fun and eye-opening ride.
When we got to our flat at the Serenity Complex, it hadn’t exactly been cleaned the way Giju had been promised… It certainly hadn’t been aired out and the bathroom was filled with cardboard trash. It didn’t have the most appealing feeling, but experiencing the “unprepared” room certainly made us really appreciate the room later that evening after they had fixed it up! Since our room wasn’t ready, we all traveled over to the directors’s, Pradipto (not sure how to spell!), apartment in the same complex. (Giju and Kristen are staying with him the whole week while the four of us plus five of the Bangalore dancers are staying in the other apartment. It’s amazing how comfortable I feel even in a two bedroom flat with 9 people!) The freakiest part of the flat are the elevators. They sing when the doors are open and the tune sounds straight out of a horror flick!
Back at the director’s place, Elena, Jon, Arieh, and I all got little naps while Giju and Kristen did their make-up test and Kristen got her weave re-sewn in. Unfortunately, my bronchitis (or whatever I have), kicked into overdrive. It was actually pretty embarrassing. After the director, and stylist, and hairdresser, and make-up artist, and production assistant, and Giju, and Kris had asked if I was OK, I broke down into tears feeling like I was being suck a burden on everyone. 
That just made everything worse and suddenly everyone was scrambling to look for a good doctor’s number. Luckily, I got composure and convinced everyone that I’d be fine. I actually brought some penicillin with me so I started taking that and am finally on the road to recovery! In the evening, the stylist came over to our apartment with the director and worked out the basics of our costumes. Our characters are very bohemian… I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!
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