As we finally start on the updates from our India trip, we thought it would be best to go chronologically, to give you a sense of what happened on each day of our trip. We'll throw in some comments about cultural things we noticed along the way as well, of course.We left Chicago in a rush on Dec. 24. The day began at Theo's place in DeKalb with a lot of frantic packing and me sticking my hand down an iguana's throat to remove the receipt he tried to eat. (Theo expertly held Dorian's jaw open through the whole ordeal.) Needless to say, it was a bit stressful, although Dorian was properly remorseful afterward. We left the house much later than we had anticipated, but I drove quickly out to O'Hare through the snow, and the parking shuttle dropped us off at the international terminal in no time. Then we waited in line to check in. Actually, we would do little more than wait in line, or sit on a plane, for the 30 hours or so. We were on a huge Air India flight to Frankfurt, and we were in line just to board the plane for over an hour. It was Christmas Eve and there were people everywhere.
Soon after we had boarded our flight, we learned that we had been bumped up to business class, which was the best news we had heard all day. We actually had a pretty pleasant nine hour flight to Germany. Theo had a lot of leg room, and the food -- eggplant curry and rice -- wasn't so bad for airline food. We shared my iPod and enjoyed the movies available on the flight, classics like Young Frankenstein. Theo even had time to do a bit of blogging from his phone.
Theo was so excited to get to Germany, and we landed around 8AM local time on Christmas morning. After riding in a shuttle across the terminal, we only had time to find our gate and wait in line again. I knew we wouldn't have time to experience Germany, but I was hoping to at least sit down for a snack and a beer. But I'll make it back there some day.
Our second plane finally touched down in Ahmedabad at 11pm local time, or around 11:30 Christmas morning back in Chicago. Then there were more lines: the line into the immigration room, the line for the swine flu screening form, the line for the swine flu screening official, and finally the line to see an immigration agent. None of these were actual lines, though, just crowds huddled around each station that we had to push our way past. The immigration officer took a long time to examine our passports, but he seemed to think Theo was cool by the end of it. Then we had to climb over the largest mass of luggage carts I've ever seen to get to the baggage claim. Everyone seemed to have two or three carts, all crowded in front of the conveyor belt, which made it impossible to move. (This was actually a good initiation into Indian traffic, but I didn't realize it at the time.)
After Theo retrieved our bags, and my panic about possible lost luggage subsided, we walked out of the terminal to find a huge crowd of people waiting for us. Everyone was waiting for family members and seemed visibly disappointed that it was just two foreigners. I found the driver Ami sent quickly, and we took a fast, 20 minute ride through mostly empty streets to Ami's parents' neighborhood. We were staying in a house owned by Ami's family just down the road from their home. We were met at the door by two servants, who helped us with our bags. A few minutes later, Ami, her sister Anar, and a few of her friends came up to greet us, after they had finished that evening's wedding festivities. We must have looked (and smelled) terrible, but it was wonderful to see Ami and her sister again. It didn't take long for both of us to crash afterwards, though. We'd catch up in the morning.
