Collegiate Times

"It's a totally different experience being here than in India where everyone's the same as you," Valipa said. "Here we get to meet so many people from different nations and parts of nations."

"I have no cousins here in the U.S.; I am the first from my family to be here," Gupta said. "It's only been two months and I'm really feeling good over here."

The people of Blacksburg have also been very welcoming and made these students' transitions very comfortable and friendly.

"People here are very warm and very nice - I say this specifically because when I came I had two fractures, I had to limp all around," Valipa said. "The first week they transported me from my home to

wherever I had to go at the college or my department for whatever formality or anything I needed to do."

"People here, when you walk around, they smile at you." Dorbala said. "Sometimes you're not in a very great mood and someone just smiles at you and you feel good all the sudden."

The only problems these new arrivals seemed to agree were at all painful or alienating were the weather and finding good and familiar food.

"We are not used to this very cold weather," Valipa said. "The place I stay, the temperature isusually around 90 degrees Fahrenheit."

Most Hindus are vegetarians because of their religious beliefs.

"One school of thought says that you are a form of god and so is every form of living and nonliving thing," Valipa said. "That's why they say that you're never supposed to hurt anything."

Since God is omnipresent, it is wrong to kill and consume any living thing, Valipa said.

"You wouldn't eat another human, would you?" Valipa said.

Food was something of an adjustment, given the nation's low instance of vegetarianism - about 3 percent according to a recent article in USA Today - as well as differing tastes.

"I think vegetarians do have a problem," Dorbala said. "It's not a terrible transition but it is an adjustment."

"With the food, yes I'm still getting used to the food here," Valipa said. "I cannot appreciate food if it's not very spicy."

"If you go to Subway or Sub Station there's only one number I can order," Dorbala said. "After a while I'm fed up, I'm just waiting to go home and have good food."

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