Arriving at campus

After the first week in Delhi we were flying to Calcutta. We arrived in the late afternoon, with rain and thunder. When we (me and 3 other student from CBS) arrived one of the guys had made sure that the school had booked a taxi for us that were waiting to pick us up. The interesting part came when we had to pack 4 Danes and all of their belongings for 3½ months into this kind of a car.

Not really the biggest car with the biggest trunk.... So we had all of our hand luggage on our laps inside the car. After some driving something strange happens - the driver turns around and says something in Bengali, of course no one understands what he is saying. After a bit more of driving the same thing happens, again some times passes and his phone rings. One of the guys I was travelling with got a bit of the context out of the phone call, he tunes to the rest of us and says" the driver do not know where we are going". So here we are in a taxi, in a city that has 4 times as many people as the whole of our coutry and our driver have no idea where we are going. And just to make it worse we have no chance of communicating with him because he only speaks Bengali and between the 4 of us we only manage, English, Urdo and a few other European languages... Of course we get really worried, but then some time passes again and the drivers phone rings. It seems he is getting some information and after 20 or 30 min more of driving we arrive at Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. A bit releif to all of us.

A life changing experience - the beginning

This all started a cold winter day in beginning of 2008 while I were doing my master in supply chain management at Copenhagen Business School. I were talking to one of the girls in my class about exchange programs she had joined the CEMS program and were telling me about where she wanted to go for her exchange. I had heard that a certain GPA was needed to go abroad for exchange, but then she told me that it would be possible to go without a high GPA. If I could accept not going to U.S or Australia.
This imiditaly got my mind startet on what paperwork needed to be done, so that I could apply for a exchange place. Because I decided to apply late I was not able to get my application in the first round, but in the second round there were still a very long list with universities. So I began to look at the list and as I were going through it I suddently decided that I dident want to go to another European city, so I put my focus on the Asian universities. Among the universities with exchange agreements with Copenhagen Business School (CBS) were a few schools in India. I decided to put 3 Indian schools on my list, in what order I do not remember. The following days I made all the papers that ere needed and submitted my application to the international office at CBS in beginning of March. Not long after i recived a letter that I had gotten a exchange place at Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta, India.

After a spring and summer full of preperations with approval of courses, vaccinations, vias forms to be filled, buying a ticket and what els have to be done before leaving your home countrie for 4½ months. The summer went very fast and all of a sudden it was the 19 of august and the night before I was leaving home. I had a feeling of excitement and fear at the same time. I have always traveled with my family, but this would be the first time I would spend more than 3 weeks away from my family and friends at home.

We were 3 from CBS that traveled together all of us were going to IIMC after a week in New Delhi we were to meet up with a 4 Dane and then take the trip from New Delhi to Calcutta together. (but that is another post)
We were flying with Finn Air to Helsinki and then to New Delhi, it was a morning flight so we meet up in the airport around 7 in the morning. Talked a bit and checked in. Upon landing in Helsinki we found out that our flight was delayed so we had to wait a few hours more before we could continue our journey to New Delhi. Upon arriving in New Delhi one of my fellow students had booked us a hotel in Karol Bagh and asked the hotel to send someone to pick us up from the airport.
It was very nice to be picked up since landing in a new country can be a bit overwhelming and we had traveled a lot of hours by then.
The next few days we spend getting use to New Delhi heat, this was a bit of a challenge, but we knew that we would not have AC in our rooms in IIMC so we slowly got use to sleeping with only the fan on. The first days was hard because Denmark do not get that hot in summers.

Starting out

For a few months now I have been considering starting a blog about the holidays I go on, everyday things in life and whatever comes to mind. The blog will be a mixture of past events and present experiences.
For now I have not decided if this blog is going to be a public or private, it may change as I go along.