Apartment Frustrations

Right now we're in the process of trying to get ourselves an apartment, and wow, it is much harder to get an apartment as a foreignor than you might think. They have these things called brokers that find an apartment for you and you have to pay them a "finders fee" for finding you one and helping you set up all the formalities such as passport info, why you're here, pictures, etc. It makes me very much appreciate how easy it is for us to get an apartment in the US. We're waiting now for our broker to get back to us so that we can move to the next step. It seems that we're going to be spending another night in a hotel and MAYBE be able to move in tomorrow. We were given some advice right before we left for India that "you have to expect things not to work out like you expect" and that is just about the best way to explain the situation that we are in. We're learning to be flexible and content, even though we are not where we want to be.

On the brighter side of things, Bub and I met one of the people from Sahara house today and the meeting went very well. He told us a bit about the clinic, and showed us a flat that we could have rented, but it was almost going ot be twice as much as the flat we're hoping to rent so we declined. He was very positive about us working with Sahara and seems like he will be very helpful.

One thing about India in general that I've been observing and trying to just pound into my head is that you need to approach India with an open mind and you cannot judge things by the way they would be in the US. What might look like a dangerous part of town in India to us by US standards is actually very safe and considered normal in India. Things are just going to be a little dirtier and chaotic than I am used to and that's going to be okay. Sorry if this post is a bit long and hard to follow, these thoughts make much more sense in my head.

I think we're all a bit frustrated, but trying to keep positive. It's been a great overall experience so far, and is sure to only get better. Bye for now. (sorry for no pictues, we need to get batteries for our camera to post a few pictures we have)

Mike