Early check-in or Of course it’s gonna cost me $4,000 to change my flight or Oompa Loompa Surprise: Day -1

---

Early check-in or Of course it’s gonna cost me $4,000 to change my flight or Oompa Loompa Surprise

2:41:23 pm. Thursday. The day before we leave for our honeymoon in Goa, India. Jared is in Toronto on business, scheduled to land that evening at 8:25 pm. Christine is at Jaspreet and Itay's home, where we have been staying after we sold our condo but before we start on our roadtrip to move to Canada. Christine is studying for the law licensing exams she'll need to take. The two of us feel ready for the trip and are excited about our plans to have sushi that night after Jared lands as a kick-off to the honeymoon. All is good in the world. Ho-hum, we are so lucky.

2:42:07 pm. An early check-in email from Continental pops into Christine's inbox. She takes a peak at it. Then back to studying. Then back to the email. She thinks maybe they can check in early, that'd be nice. While looking at the email she notices that we have an 8-hour layover in Mumbai, landing at 9 pm and then not heading out to Goa until 5 am the next morning. "Hmmm...should we book a hotel? Just live it up in the city? Tripadvisor will know. I'll do a bit of research. Maybe I shouldn't, I should probably just study? Nah, a break is good. Just a bit." Christine thinks. And in the midst of researching, she sees an entry on Tripadvisor about Mumbai layovers and getting a visa to travel to India. And it only takes 3 seconds to hit her. Oh. Shit. Wait. Visa? Shit. And then she remembers getting the visa for her trip to Delhi three years back. And how it took at least a day. And Jared is in Canada. And he's Canadian. And how does this all work. And stop thinking just do something!

And so it all begins. The day before our trip turns from a day filled with pleasant anxiousness to a raw toxic pit in our stomachs. First, call Jared. Get him moving on his end. Second, call the Indian consulate and beg and plead and beg and throw around the word "honeymoon" as many times as you can.

The woman on the phone tells me, "Well, first of all, we can't help your husband. It takes at least 48 hours for us to process non-American visas. As for you, I'm not sure. You'll have to be here in person for us to determine that. And you have to be here and fill out the application by 4 pm." It's 3:10 pm. “I can make it.” And I’m out the door. I walk into the consulate at 3:50 pm, fill out the application and turn it in right after 4 pm (they wait for me). The woman assures me I can pick up my visa the next day at 11 am, which is great because our flight is at 2:20 pm and we’ll need to be there 2 hours before for the international check-in.

Whew.

So Jared calls the consulate next and just happens to talk to the same woman that Christine had just spoken with. She says, “I think that I was just talking to your wife, and well frankly there is nothing we can do for you” Translation: you’re hooped in the pooper…

Christine is on track to get her visa but things with Jared aren’t quite as lucky. He is turned away at the India consulate in Canada but told that he can get his visa tomorrow (so we end up being crazy lucky that he happened to be in Canada when all this went down). Then Continental tells him it’ll cost $4,000 to change his flight. We’re quickly figuring out that there’s no way he can get his visa and get back to Chicago in time. Even as of now he’s planning on staying the night in Toronto so that he can get his from there instead of the Chicago consulate, which can’t really help him. We each make (no joke) about 6 - 10 phone calls to Continental and Jared’s travel agent trying to figure out what to do.

But let’s just pause for a second. I want to qualify our flakiness. I mean, you'd think we'd have this down by now. We both have travelled internationally quite a bit. We both know some countries require visas (um, I’ve gotten one to India before)(Jared here - OOOOHHH BURN). I think there was even a point when we talked about this. But…we’ve never planned a trip like this while planning a wedding, selling our home, getting new jobs, moving to a new country, getting married, moving out of our home, buying a new car, the list goes on. So while we both felt pretty ridiculous, we also both laughed quite a bit as this was going on. (Laughed through clenched teeth and sad looking credit cards, that is.) Everything has gone perfectly up until now. And I guess I’d much rather have this be the hiccup in the road (albeit an expensive and incredibly stressful hiccup) than something with the wedding, the move, the jobs, immigration, etc. We’ll take this expensive and stressful hiccup. I say all of this now, a day later, boarding my flight to Mumbai, so there’s some perspective here, but it really is the truth.

To shorten this a bit, I’ll just let you know that by the end of the night, what we had decided on was this. Jared leaves a day after me. I fly as scheduled to Mumbai and then extend my Mumbai-Goa flight one day so that I’ll land in Mumbai Saturday night, have Sunday to travel, meet up with Jared Sunday night, and then fly out with Jared Monday morning to Goa. I’ve booked a hotel and a driver in Mumbai and know that I’ll enjoy seeing a city I’ve always been curious about. There’s definitely some silver lining at work here. Like, had this occurred to us even a day later, we probably would have cancelled the trip. No joke. The India Consulate in Chicago wouldn’t have been able to issue a visa until Monday and Jared would have been in Chicago, meaning no visa for him until Tuesday perhaps. All in all, we’re both feeling at this point like this honeymoon has been earned (not that honeymoons should be “earned”) and meeting up with Jared in Mumbai is pretty exciting. I’ve already got some plans…

Additional sidenote: One thing Jared doesn’t know is that Thursday, while he was in Toronto, I decided to use up the last of my spray-tan package that I had got for the wedding. I figured then I wouldn’t be so pasty white on the beaches in Goa. Just a little glow. Well, let’s just say that the Oompa Loompas got nothing on me. I washed my face three times Thursday night and twice Friday morning (after I took a shower). It’s probably best that he doesn’t see me for a few days while this dies down. Hopefully by the time I see him Sunday night I’ll have a nice caramel shine to me, instead of the impressive Mystic Tanesque look I’ve got going for me.

---

Comments

[Molly Wilhelm]

OOPS
Chrissy, I love you honey. You sure keep life interesting. Have a great trip. I know you will make the most of the change of plans and have a great time Mumbai. Love, Aunt Molly

[Victor]

good times
I think it's all Itay's fault... think about that for a second. Enjoy Goa! I'll be checking in.