India: Part 1 – The Airport

Oh my lord. I forgot how much long plane rides suck. Here I was thinking it was going to be nothing because of all the travel experience I had through a previous employer. If you don’t do it for awhile, you lose it. We had a layover in Frankfurt and after about 26 hours after we left, we land in Mumbai… at 12:30am. So in a jet lagged daze, we get off the plane.

I have to say I’ve been to foreign countries before, but none have felt so foreign. The strangest thing to me is that the people are insanely nice and pleasant, but won’t hesitate to cut you off to get a better spot in line. We found this out in the first line we had to go through… The H1N1 screening line. I was a bit freaked out by this. This honestly was the only health concern I was worried about. I was prepared for the others. We pass by a bunch of guards who are wearing the germ masks who also are armed. It makes me feel like I’m the Outbreak monkey. We get funneled into different H1N1 holding pens. As mentioned in a previous post, I’m a bit of a hypochondriac. Every time I hear someone cough, I know I’m that much closer to getting it. After about 15 minutes, seems like forever, we get to the front, and give them the paperwork that we filled out on the plane… “do you have swine flu? no? off you go then.”

So we go to get our bags. Talk about no personal space. Everyone squeezes in to try to get their bags. At this point, I forget about my personal bubble, and cram right in there. It’s about 2:00am, I’m tired, and I just want to sleep. It seems like no one can actually pick up their bags. It always seemed like whoever decided to stand in front of me, couldn’t actually lift their bag. So being the good Samaritan I am, I helped the people lift their bags. I did it for two reasons, one: it was the right thing to do.. two: if I didn’t they’d end up falling over on me creating a domino effect of falling airline passengers, after all, we are packed in there that tight. Finally after helping everyone with their bags, ours finally come, and we’re outta there.

Luckily Juhu beach, is about 15 minutes from the airport. So we head to the cab stand, pay for the pre paid cab, get our cab number, and wander out. We’re in India!

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