Amazingly, I’ve been in Bangalore for 7 weeks now. Time is flying by, and we’re already half way through the teaching term at college.

It’s tempting to keep counting days and weeks, in a Robinson Crusoe kind of way, but it’s more interesting to reflect on the on-going, qualitative, psyschological changes that I’ve noticed.

After about a month, I was on my way to work and suddenly realised that things felt “normal”. There’s something I once read about it taking 21 days to form a new habit, and here I finally was with a routine. Although we often reject routine because we can feel oppressed by it, you can certainly appreciate its value when you’re in a totally new place and new culture. Initially I’d had to think about every single decision I was making throughout the day, and it’s exhausting – What time to get up in the morning? How to get to work? How long would it take? Where will I eat? What should I eat? Finally getting a bit of regular structure back into my life certainly made me feel less lost.

Also around the 4-week mark I had my first run-in with the local microbes — I had Delhi Belly for 48 hours, and took a day off work sick. Taking it easy for a day and drinking plenty of water along with the usual medication had me up and about again. Friends have told me I did well to last 4 weeks, but then again I’d been really cautious with what I’d been eating. I think the salad in a restaurant in Ahmedabad airport was to blame.

Then came a frenzied period of house-hunting. A chaotic 10 days or so of semi-intelligible phone calls with a variety of Real Estate Agents, and whizzing around town on the back of their scooter or motorbike to view various properties to rent. Most of them were pretty grim until I hiked up the budget significantly. An interesting experience though, and a good way to see where and how people live. And riding around the city on a 2-wheeler was fun, even if my bald head did get badly sunburned when I forgot to take my hat with me.

Anyway, fingers crossed, I now have an apartment lined up. I still need to work out how on earth I’m going to transfer the deposit (10 months rent!) from the UK to an account here, since I only have a toy bank account at present. But all being well, I should be able to move in within a week or two. I’m really looking forward to that… particularly having a bit of outdoor space in which to enjoy the weather, which has been great pretty much non-stop since I arrived.

So up to now, so far so good. I feel like I’m “getting the hang” of India to an extent, I’m getting to know my way around Bangalore, and everything is a bit more familiar and understandable.

I’m even getting used to dealing with the really in-your-face beggars, although I still find it deeply shocking and disturbing to see small children with matted, dusty hair literally running through rush-hour traffic to pan-handle the rickshaw passengers while they wait at traffic lights.

There’s certainly a down-side to this new familiarity. The first few weeks were full of wonder and excitement… so many new and unexpected sights and sounds, which made every day thrilling. It felt a bit like being on holiday. Now I don’t really look twice when I see goats or cows wandering through city traffic, or a family of four all riding on the same scooter.

Of course I’m not a holiday-maker, I’m here to work, for 2 years at least. So there’s also the slowly-dawning realisation that I am now an expat. And I’m not going home.

At least, not for 1 year, 10 months and 14 days.

OK… I’m about a week and a half in now, and I think the initial shock and fatigue have mostly worn off.

All the things I’d been expecting to find seem to be true, and then some… the noisy and chaotic traffic, the warmth of the people, the in-your-face poverty, the amazing food, the colours and the smells and the intensity. Actually the traffic is way worse than I’d expected — but more on this later.

Bit of a cliché perhaps, but it does seem like it’s all about contrasts and extremes.

I’ve also been settling in to my new teaching job, fortunately arriving just as the students started their term break, so there’s been time to get to know staff and procedures, as well as sorting out my residency permit, bank account and so on.

Top of my To-Do list now is finding accommodation.

Onwards and upwards.