*I'm not able to get any pictures to upload presently on the blog, so if you want to see them you'll have to check out my Facebook album.*
The Flight(s):
Had Pizza Hut for brunch, it was pretty good actually. Denver to Newark was fairly uneventful aside from the family of 5 with 3 kids 4 and under who were ALL assigned middle seats. Why do they even ask you if you are traveling with children if they are just going to send your toddler off to 5 rows in front of you? Silly. But nice people on the plane gave up their seats so that they were all next to a parent. My next question is about how someone with 3 children can afford to fly ANYWHERE.
Newark to Delhi:
Had the headache from hell by the time I got to Newark, but took some drugs and drank some water and felt a little bit better. Finally met my fellow volunteer Marianne, who I've been talking to for a few weeks now. She's a nurse and a mom so I felt that I was in good hands. We weren't sitting together but we've got 4 weeks to hang out together until I move along.
I was lucky enough to have a pretty darn fun 14ish hours. My seatmates were Mexicans from Texas, Angel/Felix the Cat and Crown Royal Mike. They were friendly, chatty, and entertaining. It made the flight so much better and helped kill some time since I can't really sleep on flights anyway.
Someone spilled Crown Royal down their leg, said something about zombies and "schlongs," chatted about languages, spoke several random bits of other languages, annoyed whichever one of them was sleeping at the time, and I didn't have to worry about being kind of snuggled up to get the 20 minutes of sleep I might have gotten.
I do NOT like the descent in to Delhi; dropping out of the sky and all. But at least I probably felt better than the silly hungover one next to me. As we were coming in I could see lights blinking on and off in houses for miles, and something on fire. Otherwise it's just little patches lit up and darkness.
The man at the customs counter didn't say a single solitary word to me. He beckoned me, took a couple minutes to finish what he was doing, THEN took my passport and did whatever he had to do than pointed in the direction I should go. He was wearing a very dashing golf-looking hat.
Marianne and I collected our luggage at the same time, had a potty break, I put on my International Volunteer shirt and then headed out to find our ride Salwar & Vicky, who were waiting with Terry who had arrived a little before us from Vietnam, I think. (Vicky is a man's name here, FYI.)
I nearly had a panic that I couldn't find my Ratish, but a girl finally came up to me and told me he was outside waiting for me. He gave me a boquet of my two favorite flowers, roses and a lily, but we only got a few minutes to chat. I didn't want to have my ride wait even longer than they already had but I'd waited a while to meet my ducky! It was very sweet and cute for him to bring me flowers. He's upping the greeting standards at the airport.
We got a little taste of the India traffic adventure on the way home but we were all a little fuzzy from long flights. I was just glad to be on the ground.
We got a quick orientation on the ins and outs of our flat and then found our jammies and went to bed, which was agreeably comfortable. I didn't sleep much but I slept pretty well at least. In the morning I tested the shower which boiled for a good few moments and then it just got chilly. We'll try to get the hang of that.
We had omeletes, toast, and chai for breakfast then went out for our sightseeing. I'll talk about that later.
Things that are interesting so far in India:
Lines in the road have no use what so ever. I don't know why they waste the money to paint them.
Dogs in India are like squirrels in Longmont. Everywhere. But not in quite as good of shape as Colorado squirrels. They fight and rough each other up, eat garbage, and I saw one in the street that had presumably been hit and killed earlier in the slew of traffic.
People here seem to trust each other a somewhat bizarre amount, whether it's reasonable or not. Aside from the veering around the road in to miniscule spaces and at a split second notice, they also pile on top of each other in autorickshaws and motorbikes. It's not often you see a family of four on what is not much more than a dirt bike. It's quite the achievement to witness.
That's all for the moment before I face plant in to my computer. More to come later.
The Flight(s):
Had Pizza Hut for brunch, it was pretty good actually. Denver to Newark was fairly uneventful aside from the family of 5 with 3 kids 4 and under who were ALL assigned middle seats. Why do they even ask you if you are traveling with children if they are just going to send your toddler off to 5 rows in front of you? Silly. But nice people on the plane gave up their seats so that they were all next to a parent. My next question is about how someone with 3 children can afford to fly ANYWHERE.
Newark to Delhi:
Had the headache from hell by the time I got to Newark, but took some drugs and drank some water and felt a little bit better. Finally met my fellow volunteer Marianne, who I've been talking to for a few weeks now. She's a nurse and a mom so I felt that I was in good hands. We weren't sitting together but we've got 4 weeks to hang out together until I move along.
I was lucky enough to have a pretty darn fun 14ish hours. My seatmates were Mexicans from Texas, Angel/Felix the Cat and Crown Royal Mike. They were friendly, chatty, and entertaining. It made the flight so much better and helped kill some time since I can't really sleep on flights anyway.
Someone spilled Crown Royal down their leg, said something about zombies and "schlongs," chatted about languages, spoke several random bits of other languages, annoyed whichever one of them was sleeping at the time, and I didn't have to worry about being kind of snuggled up to get the 20 minutes of sleep I might have gotten.
I do NOT like the descent in to Delhi; dropping out of the sky and all. But at least I probably felt better than the silly hungover one next to me. As we were coming in I could see lights blinking on and off in houses for miles, and something on fire. Otherwise it's just little patches lit up and darkness.
The man at the customs counter didn't say a single solitary word to me. He beckoned me, took a couple minutes to finish what he was doing, THEN took my passport and did whatever he had to do than pointed in the direction I should go. He was wearing a very dashing golf-looking hat.
Marianne and I collected our luggage at the same time, had a potty break, I put on my International Volunteer shirt and then headed out to find our ride Salwar & Vicky, who were waiting with Terry who had arrived a little before us from Vietnam, I think. (Vicky is a man's name here, FYI.)
I nearly had a panic that I couldn't find my Ratish, but a girl finally came up to me and told me he was outside waiting for me. He gave me a boquet of my two favorite flowers, roses and a lily, but we only got a few minutes to chat. I didn't want to have my ride wait even longer than they already had but I'd waited a while to meet my ducky! It was very sweet and cute for him to bring me flowers. He's upping the greeting standards at the airport.
We got a little taste of the India traffic adventure on the way home but we were all a little fuzzy from long flights. I was just glad to be on the ground.
We got a quick orientation on the ins and outs of our flat and then found our jammies and went to bed, which was agreeably comfortable. I didn't sleep much but I slept pretty well at least. In the morning I tested the shower which boiled for a good few moments and then it just got chilly. We'll try to get the hang of that.
We had omeletes, toast, and chai for breakfast then went out for our sightseeing. I'll talk about that later.
Things that are interesting so far in India:
Lines in the road have no use what so ever. I don't know why they waste the money to paint them.
Dogs in India are like squirrels in Longmont. Everywhere. But not in quite as good of shape as Colorado squirrels. They fight and rough each other up, eat garbage, and I saw one in the street that had presumably been hit and killed earlier in the slew of traffic.
People here seem to trust each other a somewhat bizarre amount, whether it's reasonable or not. Aside from the veering around the road in to miniscule spaces and at a split second notice, they also pile on top of each other in autorickshaws and motorbikes. It's not often you see a family of four on what is not much more than a dirt bike. It's quite the achievement to witness.
That's all for the moment before I face plant in to my computer. More to come later.
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