Day 1: Catching The Flight.
Feb 19, 2011
Flightday which started abruptly at 6am - I was loudly awakened by my mother yelling at me to not forget the toilet paper because they use leaves in India! A night of no sleep (due to excitement - which is odd because we were about to embark on a 21 hour journey lol) ... as I dragged my tiresome body out of bed..I began to get ready so we could meet my sister (also traveling with me) and her boyfriend (our driver to the airport). Finishing putting on my clothes (which I laid out the night before for caution of missing the plane or over sleeping) my mom yelling at me to stop taking my sweet ass time.. I took one last check around the house for items, grabbed my bags and left for my sisters apartment.
Upon arriving to my to my sisters apartment my frantic mothers mood began to get worse by the minute. I was afraid she was gonna fall over due to how many circles she was running in lol. Entering my sisters apartment my mom quickly began to cook french toast for my sister's boyfriend and I. I got the job of lugging my heavy carry on bag up to the apartment so my mother could also help my sister shuffle around items. As usual they weren't prepared to leave yet... My sister just barely starting to straighten her hair. As my mother finished cooking Jorge (my sister's boyfriend) and I a lively french toast she quickly turned her frantic attention to my sister. A few minutes later all hell broke loose! Yelling - screaming - tears - frustration would be the next few hours prior to boarding the flight at 12pm. As my mom and sister began arguing with one another on what to pack and deciding whether or not the bags are too heavy. Jorge began to shoot me some odds looks of uncomfort lol. Beging a veteran of the ole mom & sister confrontation I was easily able to remain calm and zone it out. Jorge on the other hand was growing uneasy and I quickly remembered my mom knew of some good sandwiches which I told Jorge we should go pick up. Jorge quickly agreed to the idea of leaving my mom and sister to argue over the bags and we headed off to Safeway. While Out I joked to Jorge we are going to come back to my mom and sister on their knees shuffling and tossing things out of my sisters check in bag... low and behold to our surprise we walked right into that lol. realizing it was already 10:30am we quickly sealed up the HEAVY bags - grabbed the sandwhiches - toilet paper and off we went to the airport.
The drive to the airport was quiet as I think my mom and sister just may of exhausted their arguing session (I was terribly wrong). My mother being concerned told Jorge to slow down and bit and flared up another arguement session with my sister..it was this "delightful" noise I got to hear prior arriving to the airport.
11am arriving to the airport .. we grabbed all the bags and ran for the bag check in...while lifting the bags from his truck Jorge noticed that they seemed a bit (alot!) over 50lbs. We decided to double check the bags via the self check in bag machine...and thus the "item shuffle" began! Worried we'd be late for the flight my sister began pushing my mom because of that..My mom trying to send every last item was freaking out because the bags were over and Jorge trying to remain calm cooly smiled as my mom,sister, and me all ran back and fourth between a waiting bench and the check in line fixing our bags and re-weighing to make sure we were on the dot! Soon (not soon) enough we had an extra bag which we brought for this situation completely packed full of useless items we didn't need in India. Reaching the counter we lucked out as my mom made friends with the check in lady finding they both spoke telgalo. This worked in our advantage because my sisters bag was still a bit overweight as mine was perfect.
Once we were all packed up we ran toward security as we know that usually takes quite a while! Thankfully we didn't get searched or held up for anything .. (you never know when the wrong items like liquids might slip into your carry ons).
After a very stressful morning we finally boarded the flight for NEWARK ... a long 6 hour flight which will then reboard us for a 15 hour flight straight to INDIA. Then a 4 hour bus ride from Mumbai airport to Pune.
While flying to NEWARK my sister and I began to chat with the man next to us.... a Physcian named Delip Petal.. an experienced Indian visitor who shared with us tips on places to see in Pune and things to not do when we're in India...His list consisted of this:
Don't drink the water!
Don't have milk product!
Don't eat cold food (raw)!
Don't eat out.
Delip was a very interesting fellow and helped make the what would of been a very boring long flight to NEWARK go by very quickly.
Once in NEWARK my sister Monika and I both we're feeling exhausted and very confused as we had never been to that airport before. thankfully we landed in the same terminal because we had barely 20 minutes to catch the most important flight! The 15 hours to India!
Rushing to find our gate we asked are way around getting various answers..but thankfully we finally spotted our gate (The one of 95% of the passengers being Indians).
Patiently we waited to board the flight as we listened to the heavy accented Indian flight announcer make unusual over the air announcements. ...Monika began reading her new tourist book on India where the first page reads a quote of "Indians are poor but India is not a poor country". I began chowing down some of my delicious sandwhich that had been sitting out for 6 -7 hr by then.
Boarding the flight we were greeted by what struck us as a homosexual flight attendant saying "namaste" ..an interesting start to our 15 hour flight it was..
Snugly fit into the seats my sister took window..I got stuck with middle..and the stranger who said maybe 3-4 words to us the entire time got isle. Throughout the flight we were given some "scrumptious" airline food.. and to make matters worse it came in the form of Indian airline food... not amazing..not terrible.. definitely not my favorite. Because I couldn't seem to find any comfortable position at all on the damn plane, along with the man snooring like crazy behind us.. I decided to stay awake the entire flight and watch movie + use my phone... unfortunately with that..60-70% of the flight the man sitting next to us in the isle was asleep and we couldn't get out...so there went my phone option...I ended up watching some of the worst movies ever..these included: the social network, due date, and some other terrible movie. As the movies passed I decided to start watching the provided airline shows... I finally learned why I hate American television and why i don't watch tv...upon the last few hours of the strenuous flight I finally decided to see if I could possibly grab at least a wink of sleep. I lifted my knee up and put a pillow in between...the idea actually worked for 15-20 mins! Unfortunately it was shot down because just as I started to drift into a good sleep on my knee the child next to our row started crying!! All in all the flight wasn't the best for me...not to mention it smelled terrible on there. but it seemed Monika atleast got to sleep and watch a nice Indian movie..
Feb 19, 2011
Flightday which started abruptly at 6am - I was loudly awakened by my mother yelling at me to not forget the toilet paper because they use leaves in India! A night of no sleep (due to excitement - which is odd because we were about to embark on a 21 hour journey lol) ... as I dragged my tiresome body out of bed..I began to get ready so we could meet my sister (also traveling with me) and her boyfriend (our driver to the airport). Finishing putting on my clothes (which I laid out the night before for caution of missing the plane or over sleeping) my mom yelling at me to stop taking my sweet ass time.. I took one last check around the house for items, grabbed my bags and left for my sisters apartment.
Upon arriving to my to my sisters apartment my frantic mothers mood began to get worse by the minute. I was afraid she was gonna fall over due to how many circles she was running in lol. Entering my sisters apartment my mom quickly began to cook french toast for my sister's boyfriend and I. I got the job of lugging my heavy carry on bag up to the apartment so my mother could also help my sister shuffle around items. As usual they weren't prepared to leave yet... My sister just barely starting to straighten her hair. As my mother finished cooking Jorge (my sister's boyfriend) and I a lively french toast she quickly turned her frantic attention to my sister. A few minutes later all hell broke loose! Yelling - screaming - tears - frustration would be the next few hours prior to boarding the flight at 12pm. As my mom and sister began arguing with one another on what to pack and deciding whether or not the bags are too heavy. Jorge began to shoot me some odds looks of uncomfort lol. Beging a veteran of the ole mom & sister confrontation I was easily able to remain calm and zone it out. Jorge on the other hand was growing uneasy and I quickly remembered my mom knew of some good sandwiches which I told Jorge we should go pick up. Jorge quickly agreed to the idea of leaving my mom and sister to argue over the bags and we headed off to Safeway. While Out I joked to Jorge we are going to come back to my mom and sister on their knees shuffling and tossing things out of my sisters check in bag... low and behold to our surprise we walked right into that lol. realizing it was already 10:30am we quickly sealed up the HEAVY bags - grabbed the sandwhiches - toilet paper and off we went to the airport.
The drive to the airport was quiet as I think my mom and sister just may of exhausted their arguing session (I was terribly wrong). My mother being concerned told Jorge to slow down and bit and flared up another arguement session with my sister..it was this "delightful" noise I got to hear prior arriving to the airport.
11am arriving to the airport .. we grabbed all the bags and ran for the bag check in...while lifting the bags from his truck Jorge noticed that they seemed a bit (alot!) over 50lbs. We decided to double check the bags via the self check in bag machine...and thus the "item shuffle" began! Worried we'd be late for the flight my sister began pushing my mom because of that..My mom trying to send every last item was freaking out because the bags were over and Jorge trying to remain calm cooly smiled as my mom,sister, and me all ran back and fourth between a waiting bench and the check in line fixing our bags and re-weighing to make sure we were on the dot! Soon (not soon) enough we had an extra bag which we brought for this situation completely packed full of useless items we didn't need in India. Reaching the counter we lucked out as my mom made friends with the check in lady finding they both spoke telgalo. This worked in our advantage because my sisters bag was still a bit overweight as mine was perfect.
Once we were all packed up we ran toward security as we know that usually takes quite a while! Thankfully we didn't get searched or held up for anything .. (you never know when the wrong items like liquids might slip into your carry ons).
After a very stressful morning we finally boarded the flight for NEWARK ... a long 6 hour flight which will then reboard us for a 15 hour flight straight to INDIA. Then a 4 hour bus ride from Mumbai airport to Pune.
While flying to NEWARK my sister and I began to chat with the man next to us.... a Physcian named Delip Petal.. an experienced Indian visitor who shared with us tips on places to see in Pune and things to not do when we're in India...His list consisted of this:
Don't drink the water!
Don't have milk product!
Don't eat cold food (raw)!
Don't eat out.
Delip was a very interesting fellow and helped make the what would of been a very boring long flight to NEWARK go by very quickly.
Once in NEWARK my sister Monika and I both we're feeling exhausted and very confused as we had never been to that airport before. thankfully we landed in the same terminal because we had barely 20 minutes to catch the most important flight! The 15 hours to India!
Rushing to find our gate we asked are way around getting various answers..but thankfully we finally spotted our gate (The one of 95% of the passengers being Indians).
Patiently we waited to board the flight as we listened to the heavy accented Indian flight announcer make unusual over the air announcements. ...Monika began reading her new tourist book on India where the first page reads a quote of "Indians are poor but India is not a poor country". I began chowing down some of my delicious sandwhich that had been sitting out for 6 -7 hr by then.
Boarding the flight we were greeted by what struck us as a homosexual flight attendant saying "namaste" ..an interesting start to our 15 hour flight it was..
Snugly fit into the seats my sister took window..I got stuck with middle..and the stranger who said maybe 3-4 words to us the entire time got isle. Throughout the flight we were given some "scrumptious" airline food.. and to make matters worse it came in the form of Indian airline food... not amazing..not terrible.. definitely not my favorite. Because I couldn't seem to find any comfortable position at all on the damn plane, along with the man snooring like crazy behind us.. I decided to stay awake the entire flight and watch movie + use my phone... unfortunately with that..60-70% of the flight the man sitting next to us in the isle was asleep and we couldn't get out...so there went my phone option...I ended up watching some of the worst movies ever..these included: the social network, due date, and some other terrible movie. As the movies passed I decided to start watching the provided airline shows... I finally learned why I hate American television and why i don't watch tv...upon the last few hours of the strenuous flight I finally decided to see if I could possibly grab at least a wink of sleep. I lifted my knee up and put a pillow in between...the idea actually worked for 15-20 mins! Unfortunately it was shot down because just as I started to drift into a good sleep on my knee the child next to our row started crying!! All in all the flight wasn't the best for me...not to mention it smelled terrible on there. but it seemed Monika atleast got to sleep and watch a nice Indian movie..
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