Oct 2nd 2025: Welcome to Chennai (plus a little extra)

Trevin Grams
Oct 15, 2025
11 min read

Updated: Nov 3, 2025

(the little extra)

[Skip down the page if you don't care about the US stuff at all.]

I'm going to start this on Sept 29, because the couple days before I started traveling and the travel itself was a little wild. Or it least it felt that way to me on account of how jam packed busy it was. The 29th began with me walking to FSI for the second to last time. I was meeting with several of my coworkers to get some exciting training on a bit of equipment that we will be working with. The jist is that this stuff is special and there are rules about who can and can't touch it. If you want to touch (trouble shoot it) you have to have this exclusive training, otherwise no matter what the issue is you have to send it back to the manufacture.

It was nice to hang in the car with everyone, if I remember correctly we had "Ambo" Will, Ainsley, and Rick. Kota was supposed to join us but had apparently slept in and just took an uber to meet us at the training site later. Took a bit to get to the training facility, but it was a pretty nice spot. The training itself left a little to be desired. I didn't feel that it really covered what I would have liked to know, and I would have particularly liked a bit more of a hands on aspect. But who cares, at the end of the day I am now authorized to play with the big boy toys so I'm chilling.

I think that my biggest gripe with the training would be that because of a lot of questions and sidetracking it ended up lasting much longer than I had been lead to believe that it would. Basically the folks who had taken an earlier session a week before had all said that it wrapped up by like 1:30-2:00, which was important to me because I knew that I would need to ship some items off afterwards and that I needed to blast ass all the way across the city if I wanted to make it in time to see my favorite band one last time before leaving the country. As it stands we didn't leave the training until like 4:00, which made some of my life easier... It meant that the mailroom I was thinking about visiting before the show was already closed, so instead I just had Rick drop me off at my apartment and I hit the train. It was very nice of him to do that for me. And it gave me the chance to abandon all of my now excess baggage at the apartment before hopping on a train for about 2 hours. The journey was not easy and very confusing. The metro within D.C. is very easy to use and makes a lot of sense, but once you start going between cites the language breaks down a bit. I was having a spot of trouble getting where I needed to be and it probably doesn't help that I was hankering for either a Monster or a nap.

Eventually I did get to my destination, Baltimore. There just remained two final steps: get to my Air BNB, and get to the show. Very disappointingly it was already 6:00 at this point. For context, when I bought my tickets to see this band a few months back I had spent extra so that I could attend their exclusive pre-show - which started at 5:00. Further tedious and annoying things happened but I did manage to get to the show ready to party - and was able to catch the last 15 minutes of the pre-show. This is the second pre-show of TWRP that i have missed and I'm kinda peeved about it, hopefully the next time I have the chance to see them I'll actually be able to make it in time :p

The show itself was a ton of fun; the fellas had put together a really neat set themed around the outdoors and camping. This matched the theme of their album and tour name "The Longest Weekend". The opener "Los Angeles Power Disco" was literally very good, they put on one of the liveliest sets that I think I have seen. The lead singer was literally climbing into the audience. I was alone and bored there so I took advantage of random moments of down time to chat with some of the people around me. They were all good sports about it and it helped pass the time. Someone gifted me a bracelet, and someone else was planning to go to a local Shrek rave. Eventually the show had to end, and that's when I made my way back to my sleeping spot. At night the city was very empty and just a little sketchy; I think that I was in bed around 1:00ish? The 30th started early. I was worried about finishing all of the things that I needed to back at my apartment on top of even getting there seeing as I was like 2 hours away. So I woke up at 6 and started hiking my way to the local bus stop. My experience there is a perfect encapsulation of why I don't like busses, and think that trains are better in every way. Google Maps said that a bus would be leaving the stop at 6:50, I was just a block away at 6:47 when I saw the bus that I was trying to board blast by. "That's fine", I thought, "after all; the next one should only be here in ten minutes!". Consider: for me to walk to my destination It would take 20 minutes, by bus it is 5-6 minutes. But you have to be on the bus to make it in that time frame. Enter the sunk cost. If a bus arrived at the designated time it would both save time and walking for me to take public transportation. BUT, if the bus DOESNT arrive on time it will cost me time. My priority was getting home as fast as possible, which meant catching the earliest trains that I could.

I am tired of thinking about the bus. It was a disappointment and a waste of my time. I got to the train station and had more trouble figuring out how trains work here. I thought that I got on the correct train for the ticket that I had bought yesterday... But a little later when the ticket master came by, he made sure to let me know that it was totally wrong. Apparently going out of the station all trains are not created equal and I was on an Amtrak line instead of a DeMark line. Whoops. He told me that I would need to get off at the next station, but like I mentioned before my priority was getting back into D.C. as quick as I could, and waiting for a different train all over again would surely mean getting back into town much later. So I asked if I could just buy a ticket on my phone. He gave me the OK and I spent the next 15 minutes downloading a new app, making a new account, and deciding what is the proper ticket to buy for a train that has already left the station. Made my choices, and after the next stop I waited for him to come by again. When he did I was informed that I had purchased the wrong ticket. But luckily, since this was an Amtrak line, there were only 3 total stops that mattered to me. When I got on, when they would have the chance to make me leave, and when I got to my destination. The very next stop was Union Station, so I was able to get home. And at the end of the day Amtrak got their pound of flesh, just not exactly in the way it was intended.

Eventually I made it back home. Then began some fast and loose cleanup. Dumped all of the food remaining in the fridge, and all of the snacks still on the shelves. Washed all of the remaining dishes and threw them in the dishwasher for one more rinse (and more importantly for them to be out of the way since my dish rack was gone) then I had to take the bags upon bags of trash out. It wasn't all food luckily, I had a few other things that needed to get gone. After this i loaded up with the gear that I needed to ship, and took an Uber to FSI so I could use their free mailroom. Shipped it away then walked back to the home. Last time taking that journey by foot it was meditative, and very nice. Good weather for it too! When I got back to Balston I nabbed one final lunch from the bistro below my apartment and waited until it was time to leave. The timing was a bit awkward, cuz it wasn't enough time to comfortably take a nap and relax, but too much time to just leave. Such is life I suppose. Eventually it was time to go and I ditched my keys at the front desk and started the journey.

The first flight was very unpleasant. The only good thing was that I had a very nice book to read, I had just picked up a novel called "The strain" on my kindle. It's a very interesting take on a vampire plague breaking out in new york - I would 100% recommend it. The trouble with the flight was that I was in the second from the front row of my section, which meant that just in front of me were people with odd ipad things provided by the airline instead of the usual back of headrest displays. Someone in front of me was really enjoying the use of this mini iPad and had it at MAX brightness for the entire flight. So when the airplane dimmed the lights to give folks the chance to snooze, I couldnt close my eyes without seeing this glaring white light coming in through my eyelids. I think that I managed to catch all of 30 min of sleep. It didnt help that someone behind me was watching the funniest comedy known to man and was braying out laughter like a tickled donkey every few minutes. So when I landed in London, I was very sleepy and not in a particularly good mood. Went through a few extra things of security... Because I guess you need to do that everytime these days?

Eventually I ended up with a bit of free reign to roam around. My objective was to try out a business lounge, because my ticket let me have one. It took some time to find one, then more time to get in. That should have been my first sign that there was an issue. There was a really long line, and the space where this lounge was looked pretty dang small. I got in eventually, and this place was both packed and cramped. They had some "breakfast" items. Basically a continental breakfast and coffee - but there was no space. Like everyone was sharing benches and tables. I sat around and read my book, and caught up on messages. My classmates from training were popping off in chat because of some news coming down the pipe... Turns out the government had shut down and they were sending out furlough notices. I signed into my email and sure enough, I had one as well. That will make for an interesting first day at the office! I managed to find a corner and snuck a quick 40 minute nap before needing to go to the next spot for flights. I got there and posted up and waited. TLDR, the flight was delayed significantly, but they didnt update anything. People would just go on mic and say "hey flights been pushed back 2 hours or so... feel free to come back later" but with nothing on signs or online I wasn't able to really relax. The waiting was incredibly unpleasant. I was very happy to eventually get on the plane. I slept the whole way through. Nothing to note.

First day in Chennai

I landed. On the way down outta the sky things felt really real for another time. Kinda wild seeing the city that will be home for the next two years from above. Things stayed interesting pretty much straight away. After getting off a flight like this you need to go through security/customs. There is just a straight line from getting off the plane to that area, with a few spots along the way to rest your legs or use the bathroom. I took a breather midway down the straightaway to collect my thoughts and prepare my paperwork. I was re-tying my shoes when I heard someone say "Mr. Grams?" which really took me by surprise. Two folks where beyond the customs line... WELL beyond the line and chatting with me. These were some of the locally employed staff from the consulate. I knew that someone would meet me at the airport but I didn't think that they would be meeting me this deep in! They helped me get through customs, and thanks to my slick new diplomatic passport I didnt have to get any of my luggage scanned 😎. We waited for what felt like an hour for my luggage to come down the line then it was on to brighter things.

While we were sitting around waiting I found out a few interesting things. It turns out that not only was today [Oct 2nd] a holiday, but so was yesterday [Oct 1st]! I was very thankful that these folks still came to get me even on their day off, it was very kind of them. It seems that October is a great month in Chennai as far as holidays go, I believe there are four total days that we get off. Pretty spectacular news! Eventually we were able to get out of the airport and to the car. There I met one of the four social sponsors I ended up with. Usually you only get one (a US direct hire or USDH) but in my case, the pair I was originally set with had to cancel because they were going to be out of town. But with everything going on I basically have ended up with four sponsors. But this fella was named John; he is an EFM (eligible family member) to Edith who works in the consular section. I picked his brain a bit as we drove to my place, he seems like folk.

Got to my apartment and MAN it is big we are talking 4 bedrooms, each with an en suite bathroom and a beautiful granite floor throughout. John showed me the place and clued me into how some of the machines work and where I can find various bits and baubles. For reference, at this point it was probably about 8:00 am local time and thanks to my entire flight of sleeping I was feeling pretty awake. Once he finished showing me the place I unpacked and then set about trying to get things organized for my day tomorrow. Deciding what to wear and all that. Oh! I also took a very nice shower, the showers here are really nice. Big and spacious! Though the hot water could last a little longer. After my shower I tried to set up the router I brought with me, but ran into some roadblocks and gave up. I did decide to do some other important work though. I needed to figure out what was going on with my job, ya know... Shutdown, furloughed, all of that. So I caught up on my emails and messages and saw pretty clearly that I had been furloughed non excepted, meaning that I am not allowed to do any sort of work. I was drafting up a message to my supervisor trying to figure out what that would mean for me going into the office tomorrow when he asked if I wanted a lift to the consulate. I was like, "perfect! I guess I get to go to work after all" and took him up on it. The reason I was unsure about my status is that a lot of my classmates were tossing around the idea that we had all been furloughed because the systems had not been updated yet to show us as working at post instead of being students. Obviously a student doesn't need to go to work in a shutdown, but the second person in a two man department might be a little more needed. I was figuring that there was a bit of paperwork or something at the office that we would need to fill out and then I would be hopping into my new rhythm.

I ended up taking a nap, and then mucked about with my laptop until like 11 or so then crashed. Slept feeling very excited about day one of work!

[Side note, I am disappointed to report that the folks hosting this site (WIX) do NOT let me embed files hosted on other platforms like I had been promised. Very sorry dear readers, had things gone as I had hoped below here would be images and videos... I'm too deep in now to change up the site, so you'll just have to live with this current display. Please click on each link to see some files to break up this wall of text.]

[Side-Side Note: Future me here, I have figured out how to embed like I wanted to and have fixed the links now! If you want to see what it would have looked like before hand just scroll all the way down. I think we will all be able to agree that the new method is much better.]