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Well, here I am in the Delhi Airport, paying a small fortune for some wireless access. I’m stuck in the airport for thirteen hours, though, so I consider this 500 well-spent rupees. Trouble is, I don’t really know how much a rupee is worth. A very nice Indian man next to me thinks it’s about 40 rupees to the dollar, so these four hours are going to cost me quite a bit.
Anyway, let me start at the beginning. I left Cleveland Friday afternoon. My flight was delayed three hours due to terrible weather in Chicago. Nearly every flight was pushed back because the planes just weren’t arriving from their original airports. As luck would have it, there was a Buddhist spirituality seminar that had just let out and my gate was flooded with French people who had attended it. When our flight was delayed for the first time, they invited me to get some coffee and we spent the next four hours chatting away in French. They ended up having to change their flights because they missed their connection in New York. I had to translate because the American Airline employees were angry about all the extra work and weren’t willing to deal with the butchered English with a heavy French accent. We (finally) piled into our teeny little commuter plane and flew to JFK.
Once at JFK, I tried desperately to find some fast food, but it was nowhere to be found in my terminal. I settled for a terrible grilled chicken wrap. Now that I think about it, the other half of the wrap is somewhere at the bottom of my backpack…I should probably fish that out sometime soon…
My flight to India was pretty uneventful. We flew seven hours to Belgium, had to get off the plane, go through security again, and wait about a half hour before reboarding. This time, I met a group of missionaries from California on their way to Delhi for two weeks. We were so thirsty, but the machines only accepted Euros and Proton cards (we still don’t know what those are…), so we had to pay 3 euros or $5 for a half litre of water. Talk about ridiculous!
Following our bottled water fiasco, we got back on the plane and set off for New Delhi. The flight there was only seven and a half hours, so all in all, it took a bit more than sixteen hours to make it to Asia (we were stuck on the runway leaving JFK for over an hour). I was served curry three times and breakfast once…not bad, really. I still don’t know what some of the food was…something looked curiously like a slab of fresh mozzarella but it was spongy and sweet and had green flecks that looked suspiciously like parsley floating around in a white sauce. Hmm…
I was able to catch up on my movies because Jet offers an incredible 150 hours of programming. After ’27 Dresses,’ ‘Dan in Real Life,’ and some Michelle Pfeiffer comedy, I took a chance with Rambo IV. I thought it couldn’t be too terrible. Wrong-o, my friends! Luckily, the programming was cut off so we could land in India, but I don’t think I missed all that much of an ending.
And that brings me to the present time. I’m currently sitting in the executive business lounge at the Indira Gandhi Airport. I have huge layover, but Jet put me and a Buddhist monk in the lounge. He’s sitting next to me on the couch wearing his maroon and goldenrod robes and hiking boots with a bright yellow backpack. I’m sharing my gum with him and he’s playing on his cell phone. Oh, globalization…
It looks like I can get unlimited juice and water before my flight, but I think I need to pay for food. I devoured Dad’s candy over a day ago, so it’s a good thing Mom sent me with five energy bars!
I don’t have any pictures to upload because I stupidly left my rechargeable batteries on the kitchen counter. In Ohio. I bought some batteries at the airport, but there’s nothing photogenic enough here to merit a picture.
Well, I’m off to watch some Bollywood movies with my new friend the monk and maybe splurge on a pastry.
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Katie
non-member comment
Aw! You are already having such a good time!!! You better have already taken pictures with some of these awesome characters!