is this home?

well... we're here. it's been a long journey, 30 hours or so on air india, some big delays, bad weather, but we made it nonetheless. it was great to be greeted at the other end by some woodstockers, and we found some colleagues right away so we could stick together.
we spent a day or two in delhi, it all sort of feels like a blur, the 10.5 hour time change takes a toll on your system. but it was long enough to be overwhelmed by the amount of people, the humidity, the pollution, the poverty. we took a taxi downtown on the craziest roads and traffic i've seen. seeing motorcycles piled with families, buses with people hanging on the top, holy cows lazyily wandering wherever they please, rickshaws... interesting, but it made us long for the mountains. all of us new staff caught a train up to dehra dun, the end of line and then took a bus the remaining 30 km up to woodstock... now this wasn't your typical 30km... it took around an hour and a half, hugging the cliffs as we climbed approximately 4000 ft up to school at 7000ft. we were warned to take some motion sickness pills before as many travellers can't make it up without some quick pit stops or leans out the window.

here's a monkey outside chris' art room... this kind is pretty aggressive, especially to women. but it's going to take some getting used to as they're everywhere. and each morning they wake us up running around on our roof, just remember no smiling, no food outside...
this is a view of one of the high school buildings shrouded in the monsoon mist... chris' room is on the top floor, supposedly with an amazing view. i guess we'll see in a month or two once the monsoons let up, as for now we'll just imagine.

this is the quad, where the middle and elementary school and cafeteria is... we've been here having orientation meetings for the last few days.. it's around a 15 minute hike, straight up switchbacks from our apartment. they say that after around 6 weeks we'll be used to the elevation.. as for now, we'll keep sucking wind.

here's a quick picture of one of our views on our way up to the quad while the mist lightened up... but all is well, we're busy, still fairly healthy, overwhelmed with info and new faces. it's hard to believe that we're here, so much is new and so much to write... but we're looking forward to when this begins to feel like home.