6.13.05
Hello family and friends!

The Ehlers clan (and Joyce) has arrived safely in India. We arrived last Wednesday morning after a REALLY long flight and spent the last 5 days getting settled in our apartment. We’ve been grocery shopping almost every day, and have made several trips to buy other odds and ends, pots and pans, cell phones, etc. We are still trying to figure out all of the little nuances, like the light switches in our apartment. For starters, they go down instead of up to turn on, and then they are in crazy places all over the apartment. It’s been hard adjusting to the non-schedule that we must keep here, but we are getting there. Beware-your punctual Julianna and Joyce will be late, late, late upon returning to NE.

Our driver is great, his name is Shah and he speaks English yeah! We also hired a maid, her name is Rama, she DOESN”T speak English, so we are getting really good at miming. You won’t want to play charades with the Ehlers in a year! We are still looking to hire a nanny/cook, but we are not in a hurry thanks to mom (for both the nanny and cook partJ) Here’s another kicker, our driver and maid speak different languages, so we can’t even use Shah to translate for us! Shah speaks Hindi, English, and Arabic and Rama only speaks Telugu.

Ok, the weather isn’t that bad (or maybe I’m just getting used to it?), it’s beautifully windy in the morning and by mid afternoon we close the house up and turn the a/c on. Thank goodness for a/c and the pool.

The apartment is beautiful; we have already been swimming several times. Claire loves the water! I will send pictures of her in her watermelon swimsuit, she’s quite adorable if I do say so myself. For those of you who listened to my fears of Claire in the airplane, I thought I would share that she did really well. She slept 6-7 hours of each 9 hour flight. She has been such a trooper. She has slept through the night for the last 2 nights in a row.

Here is our contact information:
Home- 91-040-55-88-0674
Julianna Cell- 91-988-532-0358
Clay Cell- 91-988-532-0359
Joyce Cell- 91-988-532-0361
Clay Work (temporary)- 610-971-6918 (Pennsylvania #, US long distance from NE)
Julianna Work- 610-971-3354 (Pennsylvania #, US long distance from NE)

We should have internet access at home by tomorrow night.

We are 10.5 hours ahead of Nebraska.
We miss you all, hope everything