My final adieu to the States and adventures with haircutting

It's now the eve of my departure and excitement is running through my body like bulls in Pamplona. Saturday my dad and I drove from Ann Arbor back to Scranton and we've been preparing for my departure ever since. My tentative plan is to catch the 7:20 a.m. Martz bus from Scranton to the Port Authority in New York City were I'll catch the New Jersey Transit bus (thanks for the tip Aissatou!) to Newark Airport in Newark, New Jersey. My flight (Continental on a Boeing 777) departs at 8:25 p.m. tomorrow night and arrives in Delhi 14.5 hours and 7,305 miles (11,756 km) later. I then have a 10.5 hour layover before my flight from Delhi to Bangalore. Once I'm in Bangalore I should be picked up by a driver who will take me to Peace Child, the organization I'm volunteering with for a month. Because of the time change and the travel distance I will be leaving Tuesday night but not arriving until Thursday morning. The adventure begins!

I also decided to to do away with the majority of my hair since I'm not sure how frequently I'll be able to shower or how clean hotels and hostels will be there. I bought a buzzer for $9 at Wal-Mart and enlisted the help of my neighbor Cade to do the dirty work. We decided originally to take it down to a "1" with the clippers (which is pretty darn short for those of you who don't know) but once it was there I decided to "go big or go home" and take it down with no gaurd on the clippers. I've included some before shots, after shots and action pics below.

Relatively normal me, pre-shaving.

Sporting a solid look.

Action shot! Thanks again Cade.

Half-way there.

I wanted to leave it half-done but my sister wouldn't let me :-(

Pretty solid hack-job at this point.

The finished product is above ^

I decided to include these pictures not only because of the haircut but also to have a record of how pale I was before leaving. Two lessons came from this experience. One is that the sun probably hasn't touched my scalp, ever. The other is that from the side with no hair I have a very Mars Attacks-like head.

For now it's off to bed- if I don't get up early enough tomorrow there's a pretty good chance I won't get to update until at least Friday, probably later. So long for now see you in Bangalore!