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India - Day One
04 May 2011
Last month I travelled to India and (gasp) forgot to pack my travel journal. Usually I journal each evening of my trip because I have a terrible memory and would definitely forget all the little details that make a trip meaningful. I had my ipad on me and figured I would use the text feature....until I realized that I brought the wrong converter and so I couldn't charge it while there. Thinking I would rather have the ipad for the long flight back I turned it off while I was actually out of the country. Should have started journaling as soon as I got back to the States but of course I didn't. Will attempt to capture what I experienced via diarland. Day one is content I grabbed on the ipad before realizing I couldn't charge it.
India Day 1: April 21, 2011I wake at 3:00 AM to begin prepping for the day. Went to bed last night at midnight so I'm very tired. Jeff and I grab the 4 AM train and get to the airport with just enough time so that they're boarding as we arrive at the gate. In New York we exit LGA and decide to take public transit into the city. I wasn't expecting [to train it] so hadn't planned beforehand the route. I figured we would just take a taxi but since we did have the whole day to kill it didn't really matter. It takes a bit of figuring out on just how to buy a pass for the bus and then how and what to take to get into Manhattan but a little over two hours later we arrive at Heidi's office building. Around 11:30 we go to a burger place (Shake Shack?). It's a long wait and kind of expensive but it was nice to go classically American before we head out. I have a cheese burger, fries, and an orange/vanilla shake. Apparently I made a funny when post-lunch I sighed, "that shake brought me to the yard." Jeff couldn't stop laughing. From the point on yard was used as a verb, as in "that totally yarded me."
It was nice to see Heidi, even if briefly. Jeff and I both decide that we still love NYC. We'd love to live there, if just briefly ourselves. After lunch we're running slightly behind schedule as we get on a different train to get out to JFK. I am stressing about the time (as always), but we get there without problem. Enough time to grab a drink at the bar while we wait. It's nice that the flight is not packed. Many people have an entire row to themselves. Jeff and I have an empty seat beside us. I hope it's like this on the way back now that we have been spoiled. I packed Jeff's M&M cookies that he made me for my birthday. Why do I like cookies so much? I was afraid they would not serve us dinner on the flight (had heard many bad things about Air India) so I ate a large cookie and an apple...and roughly five minutes later they start dinner service. Oops. The meal was actually pretty good. Chicken curry with rice and potatoes. I watched the movie Tangled and thought it was cute. I'm feeling pretty tired right now but not sure if I should try to sleep yet. Technically it's 5:48 AM in India so I should already be asleep. But I also don't want to wake up in the middle of the "night" (U.S. time). Jeff appears to be sleeping; I hope he is. Seems like he always has troubles on planes. He got less sleep than me last night so I know he's tired. I think I might try to read and if that doesn't work then sleep it is.
The rest of the flight proceeds nicely. The rest of the movie choices suck so I go between sleeping and reading. There was some pretty heavy turbulence towards the end but I sort of slept through it. Enough to wake up and think "woah, this is really bad." You should definitely go back to sleep and pretend this isn't happening. I'm usually pretty good at blocking turbulence out or pretending it's a ride. I worry enough about...everything, so these things I try to just release them. Dying in the pursuit of travel is not a bad way to go in my mind.
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