With less than two weeks to the travel date, and no passports, we bought our tickets to India.... fortunately, the passports came later and before our trip. On Wednesday November 17 we picked up the kids from school to make the 6:30pm flight out of St Louis. It takes a long time to fly around the world. About 24 hours total flights+layovers. StL to Dalles to Dubai to Delhi. Total flight time : almost exactly 18hours. When we get into Delhi it will be 2:30am on Friday.
The kids will miss eight days of school. But both are doing really well and the teachers are just as excited that they are making the trip. Most flights these days are cramped and crowded - especially for someone over 6ft. Everyone has to bring massive "carry-alls" onboard and the typical rush to get onto the plane is to get a spot to put your bags overhead. I try to help the kids out by packing coloring books and crayons for Julia and DS and the new Whimpy Kid book for Josh. The international flights have small TV screens on the seat back and a media player loaded with dozens of music CDs, films, TV shows and video games. So, I don't think the kids were ever bored.
Leaving StL the line at the Dunkin Donuts was long and I couldn't wait to get away from the fast food life of America. But what would I be flying into ? What would the food in Delhi be like ? What would the city smell like ? Will there be load and loads of people everywhere ? Will there be trees ? Noisy ? We live in a very quiet and peaceful town. No traffic noise, just the sound of birds. Will there be dogs, cats, birds ?
The flight from DC to Dubai takes off at 10:30pm. Julia is fast asleep. The flight to Dubai takes 13hours and we got in around 9pm (10amCST). I suspected that the airport would be clean and modern - but it's really sterile; loaded with every high-tier shop. Only the Muslim dressed women made it feel like an international airport. Otherwise with the McDonalds and Starbucks and Duty-free shops you would never know that you were in a foreign country. I wonder if a person could go around the world without a clue as to which country that landed in. Everyone speaks perfect English. But, we are not in Delhi yet. We still have a 3hour flight and Joshua is the worried that we will miss the flight.
As I sit in the Dubai airport I wonder what Delhi will be like at 2:30am. Will we be able to exchange money ? The official rate is 44rupees/$1. In Dulles it was 36/1. Here in Dubai it's 40.32/1. I hope we can exchange in Delhi at 2:30am, I'm tempted to get some Rs now.
Julia is starting to get crabby and the traveling to starting to wear on us.
