Arrival

Ah, the sweet smell of sweat and pollution! Yes, ladies and gentlemen I have officially arrived in India, with all my luggage PTL. There was some question because the luggage belt stopped for a good 5 minutes and I didn't have any of my suitcases. Apparently, some of the containers were taken to the wrong place.

My journey began at 2:10 Monday afternoon, when I left OKC for Dallas. Then from Dallas I flew to London, where I went through  security all over again, walked about 5 miles (slight exaggeration) across the airport, and made it to my gate as the plane was boarding. Btw, for those interested, each of my long flights was about 8 1/2 hours. On the Dallas/London flight, I was seated by a man who apparently had opted not to bathe before entering a tiny space filled with recycled air. He had however, put on cologne in an unsuccessful attempt to hide his BO. It didn't help. On the London/Delhi flight I was seated next to two friendly Spanish women who did not speak any English. They repeatedly crawled over me to talk to their other friends, all the while insisting that I not move. So, I pushed myself as far back into the seat as possible and turned my head to the side in order to avoid someone's rear brushing my face. I know they were trying to be polite, but after a while I really just wanted to get up and let them out.

I'm really starting to like the OKC airport. Twenty-ish gates in 2 hallways and everything is close by. Dallas isn't that bad. At Heathrow, I left the plane and boarded a bus that drove me way far away to the arrival area. Several minutes and a ridiculous amount of escalators later I made it to security, went through that whole process,  walked a long long way across terminal A, used yet more escalators, boarded a train to terminal D and went to the far end of that. It took me about an hour to get off the plane and to my next gate.

Baggage claim in Dehli is really far away from the arrival area too.

I got the the guest house at about 3:30 Wednesday morning. The first thing I did was take a shower. I have yet to figure out how to operate the water heater, but the water isn't exactly cold. After standing around in heat and humidity it felt great. The truly important thing was that I got to feel clean again!

I woke up at nine and went shopping for clothes. It is not as crowded as I expected, but I'm told that a lot of people have left the city because they heard the Commonwealth Games would make traffic beyond ridiculous. I bought one shirt, but that's it. Orientation starts tomorrow. Hoping to go to bed early tonight!