The Land Where Thursdays are Fridays and Fridays are Thursdays

Editor's note: I wrote this some 20 hours ago, but haven't had a chance to post it yet. A lot has happened in the 20 hours since...stay tuned. 

It is 12:04am in New Dehli, India on Friday morning and it is 1:35pm in Ohio on Thursday afternoon currently as I am writing this blog entry. We have currently been traveling for 24 hours 40 minutes and some odd seconds. I am writing to you from a row of plastic chairs in the concourse for outgoing flights in the New Dehli Airport, surrounded by a wall of suitcases, humid and muggy air….where until 5:50am….we are stuck. We can’t go to the first floor, we can’t go outside….we can’t even go to the Visitor’s lounge….but in case you are wondering, we can go to the bathroom.

Let me start from the beginning.

Tim Thomas was our chauffer for the trip to Cleveland Hopkins. “Thanks Tim! Go ahead and take the next two weeks off. Ok? It’s alright with me!” –Dave “Oh p.s.  - without pay.”

Between Dave, Gregg, Lisa and I and some 650 lbs. of luggage, we were definitely maxed out in Dave’s Chevy Suburban. Since the weather in Cleveland was a mess and the word on the street was that Newark wasn’t much better – we decided to try to get on the earlier flight to Newark. We arrived at Hopkins at about 1:00pm and traded seats on our 4:55pm flight for the 2:51pm flight. Got the bags checked, got through security and it was on to the next order of business….lunch.

Sometimes you simply shouldn’t count your chickens before they hatch. Case in point; I mentioned on my blog in an earlier post that Lisa and I had decided to enjoy Chipotle as our last meal. Wouldn’t you know it….wouldn’t it just be the impossible odds that somehow, someway….both the Chipotle in Lakewood AND Rocky River were closed with power issues. I get it – a blizzard just came through, but I can’t figure out why every company surrounding both Chipotles were up and running. I am sorry, I have digressed, you didn’t come here to read about my burrito woes. I will tell you that I did end up enjoying a great lunch from Currito Burrito in the Cleveland terminal.

From there it was on to Newark. I spent most of the flight to Newark trying to imagine what a solid 14 ½ hours in the air would feel like during our trip to New Dehli. We would soon find out.

Once we arrived in Newark, we exchanged some dollars for rupees, enjoyed a nice dinner and began preparing ourselves for the big one. What else do you do to prepare? Send text messages, update your Facebook, and try to use the commode one last time before the unknown commodes of greater India.

Finally they called for the boarding process to begin for our flight. What a circus! It was like there was a vacuum sucking every single person to the small little stand where the kind Continental person was checking our boarding passes. No one spoke, they just congregated closer and closer. It was a sight! Finally a more official Continental employee asked everyone to take 10 steps back and things were able to move much smoother. I have never been on an international flight so this was a whole new experience for me.

There are some great perks to flying International; complimentary pillow and blanket, a personal TV screen with a wide selection of movies, TV shows, video games, music, a detailed flight pattern that shows altitude, flight speed, air temperature, map of where you are and much more. You are also provided with 2 full meals and a snack bag, drinks throughout the flight and a very peaceful environment. The downside is that you have to sit there for 14 ½ hours. Flying late in the evening is interesting. There all kinds of debates about sleeping and staying up, but for me I just watched two movies and then couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I awoke around 6:00am and was up for another 4 hours or so before we landed in New Dehli. It was a very quiet and relaxing flight. You don’t even feel like you are flying. I was interested in how staffing a flight like this works. Between Dave and I and some quality investigative reporting, here is what we found out. They crew on our flight, 4 pilots and approximately 12 flight attendants will stay the night in New Dehli (we arrived about 8:30pm India time) and then tomorrow they will work the same flight back to Newark and then they are off for some time. The pilots and the flight attendants rotate; 2 pilots on at a time and 6 flight attendants. In the case of the flight attendants, they rest for 4 hours at a time in a sleeping area that is located above the main cabin featuring 6 small beds.

Completely random: Kelly is reading me a booklet about the state of Chhattisgarh and about the weekly bazaar and she noted that eating LIVE red ants is considered a delicacy. Oh yeah…..this should be real interesting.

One last thing about the flight that I was struck by was as we landed, and began to brake, applause broke out throughout the cabin. I guess people are excited to be home and others are glad to be on the ground and others are just flat out happy. It was pretty cool.

So the fun really began navigating the maze that is New Dehli International Airport. The airport has two floors; 0 and 2. On floor zero you will find customs, baggage claim and arrivals. Oh and my first Pepsi machine sighting! On floor two you will find outgoing flights, a few shops and coffee stands, a visitors lounge that we can’t access and restrooms. There could be more, but that is all I can be sure of so far. Here’s where things got tricky. We arrived in New Dehli at 8:30pm and the plan was to go to a hotel for the night and then return to the airport around 3:00am to check-in for our 5:00am flight to Raipur. So in the interest of not lugging 650 lbs. of stuff around we inquired about checking it now and then returning later in the early morning for our flight. The kind folks at Air India said “No problem. Go to the 2^nd Floor and check in.” So there apparently is only one elevator in the entire airport leading from floor 0 to floor 2 and vice-versa. So we hope on the elevator and go up to Floor 2 where we are met by a member of the Indian Army checking our passports. We go to the check-in line for Air India and they say “Sorry you can’t check your luggage until 3:00am.” So we call our driver Mr. Duggal and he says ok well I will pick you up at door 4 on the arrivals level. Beautiful. We attempt to go back down to floor zero and the Indian army guard says “no way.” So then we call Mr. Duggal and ask him to pick us up by door 4 on the departure level, he is all set with his placard that reads “Mrs. Kelly Brill” he tells us. So we attempt to leave the airport terminal and we are told by other heavily armed Indian army personnel “not going to happen.” So after about 45 minutes of the five of us ping-ponging around the airport with our own carts loaded with luggage, a few phone calls to Anil Henry in Mungeli and our driver, Mr. Duggal – we decide our best bet is to simply ride it out on the comforts of the plastic chairs, marble floors and bright lights of the New Dehli International Airport.

So here we are……until 5:50am and flight #869 and the journey to Raipur! More to come soon! Oh and before I forget….get this: they don’t sell cold pop! I bought a can of Pepsi and Mt. Dew (note the sleek black cans) and the guy handed them to me and they were room temperature (Katie. P would love it!). So I asked the guy for a cold one? Nope. A refund? Nope. Warm pop! Who cares…..I am in FREAKING INDIA! This is going to be AMAZING!

Until we reach Mungeli…..have a great weekend!

-Nate