Hey,
It's amazing how time flies! Sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner. I've been keeping busy with stuff around Hyderabad, haven't had any recent travels to regale you with. In fact, I've finally been accepted into the Spain program for next semester, so I've been pushing through some paperwork on that =)
I guess here I'll just talk about some things that either questions weren't asked about or things that you may not have even thought to ask about that differ greatly from American culture. Quick side note: although it's technically correct to answer the question "Which country are you from?" with "The United States" or "USA" or something of the sort, a lot of people here only recognize our nationality as "American" or as "from America", which has definitely taken some getting used to.
The first thing I wanted to talk about is power outages. Power outages in the States are few and far between, and when you're in school I remember it was always super fun. Here, however, the sheer mass of people consuming power at any given moment leads to power outages daily. In my home, there's generally an outage in the morning and in the evening. The regularity of it comes from it not being a "power outage" per say but rather that the people at the power plant will cut power to certain areas at certain times to prevent a mass power outage for everyone. The plant will also do its best to not cut power to anyone during the really hot hours of the day (11-2 or 3) because in the summer, it gets so hot during those hours that people die of heat stroke. So whether I'm in school, at home, sleeping, eating, or whatever, sometimes the power will go out and people just put up with it here. Cell phones here now come loaded with a built-in flashlight for those situations exactly. Actually, as I'm writing this the power just went out on me, so I'll have to save this email and send it when the power comes back on.
Another thing is jobs. Now I could talk about jobs here forever, but I mostly wanted to talk about the surplus of jobs. Again, since the population is so huge, there have been many more jobs created to help employ people even though those jobs aren't necessary. For example, outside any building there will be at least one guard at all hours of the day. He (never she) sits and makes sure nobody makes any trouble and at night makes sure nobody robs the store or bank. When you go into a mall here, everybody walks through a metal detector and then is swiped with a wand by someone. Men get swiped by men guards and women go into a small, hidden stall, get patted down and have their purse checked. It's kind of like going through airport security every time you walk into a mall. Also, when you go to park at a mall in the underground parking lot, first your car is stopped and two guards will check under your car and check your trunk, then there's another person who directs you to where to park and helps you park in the tight space available. The gas stations here have pump attendants, like we used to have, who fill your tank according to how much you want to put in and will wash your windows, fill your tires, etc. When your car needs to go into the shop to get the oil changed or anything, someone from the shop will come and pick up your car from your house and bring it in for servicing. There's a night guard who watches over my neighborhood here and will also open gates for cars to come through. In some high-end restaurants, there's a bathroom attendant who will clean up the bathroom every time somebody uses it. Then there are waiters in stores that there should not be waiters, such as coffee shops, ice cream stores, McDonald's and other fast-food chains. It's strange, but you get a much better level of service here because of it.
The next thing is modes of transportation. Obviously, there are cars for those people who can afford them, but cars here are only cars, not trucks or SUVs or anything bulky, because there isn't enough room on the road for big cars. Many families, instead of cars, have motorcycles. They'll fit the dad driving, mom on back, small child standing in front of dad and baby in mom's arms all on one motorcycle. It's fascinating to watch the balance and coordination they have. Many young people or college students invest in a "scootie", or a moped as we call them. Still, two wheels but they don't go nearly as fast as motorcycles and don't take as much skill to drive them or balance on them. Moving on to three-wheelers, there are tons of rickshaws on the roads here. Here's a photo of one 
. This is the modern-day "auto rickshaw", but these originally started with man-power, then moved to bicycle-powered, only now they've become engine-powered. And yes, many "autowallahs" as we call them, or auto rickshaw drivers, pimp out their rickshaws like this. Also, going back to strange jobs that people have here, often times you'll find that a rickshaw driver will have a buddy who will ride around with him all day. This is also common on hired busses. Rickshaws are a lot of fun to ride in because they're open-aired and can only go about 30-40 mph on a flat surface. They're also referred to as a "3 in all", referencing how many people are allowed in them at a time, but in Hyderabad at least you'll often find 5, 6, maybe even 7 people packed into one of these. However, if you're going from one popular spot in the city to another, you can instead ride in a shared auto/seven-seater, because 3-in-alls can get a expensive after a while. Seven-seaters act as a compromise between individual autos (3-in-all) and public busses, because they pick up in popular places like busses and go on certain routes, but unlike busses you can stop them wherever you want en route, whereas in a bus you have to get off at a stop. And, just like individual autos, just because they say "7 in all" doesn't mean they only fit 7 people in there. They'll fit 3-4 in front, 8 adults and however many kids in the middle and up to 4 men in back.
Transportation brings me to the topic of traffic. Disclaimer: traffic is different in every city in India. Delhi is notorious for being the craziest traffic in the country, but I can't confirm or deny that since I haven't been there yet. Honestly, the craziest traffic I've encountered so far is in Hyderabad and the tamest traffic I've found is in Mumbai/Bombay (still readily referred to by both names). So, I'll tell you a bit about both then why I think they're like that. First, Hyderabad. First rule of driving in Hyderabad is that even though lane lines are drawn, nobody acknowledges them. On a three-lane road you can find as many as 5 vehicles next to each other in a line. People switch lanes without signaling and go at whatever speed they'd like. There are no traffic cops on the roads, like in the States, so people don't get speeding tickets, failure to signal tickets, or any tickets for that matter except for the one's I'll explain later. People generally drive on the left side of the road but often times you'll see someone going the wrong way. As a rule of thumb, the farthest left lane is used for people going the wrong way, people parking, people walking or biking, vendors and cows (but cows will use any lane they like). Cows, since they're sacred, can basically go anywhere and do anything they want, so if they stand in the middle of the road, people will go around them or wait for them to move. The roads here were also built without turns in mind, so the median won't break at every possible turn, and instead people will drive past their turn and will U-turn at the next break in the median. Basically, the traffic here is chaos and people pay attention only to where they need to go and what they want to do. Mumbai is very different. There are no rickshaws there, only taxis for hire. A three-lane road remains a three-lane road. A taxi will not take more than 4 people in its cab, unlike the rickshaws packing 6 people into a 3-in-all. More importantly, everybody on a motorcycle wears a helmet, but in Hyderabad I'd say only about 15% of people on motorcycles do. To me it seemed that Mumbai was more or less the same as the States in terms of traffic, just with a lot more traffic. So why is all this? One reason is the variety of vehicles. In Hyderabad, we've got vehicles of all shapes and sizes, why should a motorcycle take up an entire lane by itself? It shouldn't, it should share with a rickshaw or more motorcycles or scooties. Two-wheelers can weave in and out of traffic, whereas taxis in Mumbai are just as stuck as all the other cars. Then there's the matter of traffic police. Bombay has a much bigger police force and can dedicate more cops to traffic matters. Hyderabad isn't a tourist hotspot so can't afford a big police force, so the traffic cops we have spend time directing traffic instead of handing out tickets. The only tickets that get handed out are at police checkpoints. Cops will pull over motorcyclists who aren't wearing helmets and check their information. They'll get tickets for not wearing helmets and not having their driver's license on them, but only a few can get pulled over from the millions of people, so it doesn't really persuade everyone to wear their helmets. 
There's a picture of some of the traffic from above, but this is an area of the city where there aren't a lot of cars. Oh yeah, and people use their horns a lot, but not out of anger, they use them to let people know they're coming or when they're passing someone, but it can get pretty loud at times.
Well, I'll get back to you again in a week or two. I only have two and a half weeks of class left, then finals until the 23 of November, so I'll be able to stay in touch until then! Take care everyone, and bundle up, it must be cold over there with all the snow!
Have a great Halloween! I hope you know, when I had Mr. Gaylor as a teacher, my Halloween costume was to be Mr. Gaylor himself! It was one of my better costumes =)
~Kinsey
Well, I'm going to the Rahman "Jai Ho" concert tonight where 50,000 people are expected to turn up. It should be a really good concert, I'm looking forward to it. I'll try and get back to you soon =)
<3
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