Note: Wrote this on the trip in November 2007, never bothered to post it. Originally written to be an email to my friends, but makes perfect sense as a blog post instead.
My arrival in India was eventful and annoying. Since I was lazy about packing on Tuesday night, I didn’t actually get to start packing until about midnight, so I didn’t get a chance to fall asleep. That seemed fine to me, since I could sleep on the flight to DC (first leg of my journey).
After boarding the plane around 7am for a 7:30am departure, I promptly fell asleep. The next time I woke up was 9am, and the captain was announcing a hydraulic problem on the plane that was being worked on (we were still on the ground in Seattle), and update in 15-20m. 20m later (another short siesta for me) the captain announced that the problem could not be fixed, we had to deplane (what a great word, btw) and make other arrangements. Fast forward another two hours, and I have a boarding pass for a flight from Seattle to San Francisco that then leaves from SFO to get me to Frankfurt Germany two hours before my connection to India. Yay, this is good because I met up with my mom in Germany and we flew together to India. I could help carry her luggage etc this way.
Bad news, my flight to SFO was a middle seat. I was seated between two military folks, both heading to the middle east. That made things fun as I was reading “The New Yorker” (hardcore antiwar) and the Gandhi biography. The plane turned out to be mostly empty so my neighbors spread out and I got the aisle seat I like with plenty of legroom. I slept the majority of the flight, catching up from the night before.
Land in SFO, get some lunch, get on my international flight to Frankfurt (have to love how in SFO for United you have to take a shuttle to the International terminal, go up and down all these ghetto looking stairs and such – very classy). Get on my plane to Frankfurt. Get my aisle seat. On this flight I watch “Cinderella Man” (really is Ron Howard’s best work), almost cried twice (somehow I am on a VERY heightened state of emotions here), and finished the Gandhi biography (almost cried several times while reading this).
Meet up with my mom in Frankfurt, go to get my boarding pass for my Lufthansa flight (United couldn’t issue me a boarding pass from Seattle – go figure). Find out my ticket is now considered on STANDBY, and I need to go to the Destination Gate before I can be issued a boarding pass. Weirded out, I walk to the destination gate, and when I get there I am told that the flight is overbooked and I won’t get a seat. I try to keep my calm and explain that I have already been traveling for 20 hours, so it makes limited sense to consider me a standby passenger since my itinerary is already in motion, etc etc. In my explaining the woman checks again, and suddenly I have a seat. Not the reserved seat I had before, but an aisle seat nonetheless. My thinking is that when my flight in Seattle was cancelled, my entire itinerary was cancelled, and the new itinerary had me on standby for everything since it was made last minute. Don’t know how I suddenly got a seat, but I wasn’t complaining.
After switching seats with this kid traveling that got the seat next to my mom, I got my aisle seat and the flight was reasonably smooth. Lots of sleeping, reading, music, reading, sleeping – rinse, lather, repeat. Ten plus hours later (around 32-34 total hours of travel later) my mom and I wait for ALL luggage to be delivered in the International Baggage Terminal in Bangalore. My mom gets her suitcases, though they take forever. Customs and Immigration was breezy, but my luggage didn’t show up. Great. Two hours wasted in the airport waiting for my luggage. Filled out the missing luggage paperwork, borrowed cell phones from folks there to call my cousins that were picking us up – and got them to know what the situation was. So, my hunch is that my luggage probably never left Seattle. Finally met up with my cousins and drove home, getting home at 3:30am. We had a flight at 6am, so took a shower and repacked slightly, and then left. I am still wearing the same clothes I started my travels on, over 30 hours ago.
Our flight from Bangalore to Delhi was delayed by two hours, more time to kill in the airport. After finally flying, our flight from Delhi to Lucknow was delayed by three hours. So, we made the flight, but more waiting in the airport. Finally got to Lucknow, and found my uncle, we got into the big rented car, and drove the two hours to Kanpur. Goodness, didn’t finally get to Kanpur until 8pm. Now, I had no clothing, whatsoever, so immediately after saying hello to everyone, went with my cousin to the mall nearby and bought a few pairs of underwear and sleeping clothes, so I could get through the night.
That was my arrival to India. In a nutshell.
