It is hard to believe this day is finally here! Going to a place so far away and so culturally different will present us with many challenges we are excited to experience; taking us outside of our own comfort zone and the many things we take for granted in the USA. Hopefully all of the preparations we have made are the right ones. We are so lucky to have had Shrikant and Charanya to help guide us.
We decided to travel light; taking only a roll-a-board suitcase and small backpack each. We figure the enhanced mobility this will give us will be an advantage in a country with 1.17 billion people (6,833,000 in Hyderabad). Leaving the snow in Bloomington behind, we flew east to Washington DC for our connection to Frankfurt, Germany. We had snow in DC and again when we arrived in Frankfurt at 7:30am Feb. 3. Luckily, we were on time with every flight (must have been that kiss for luck!). We spent 5 hours in Frankfurt between flights, and of course, had to have a bloody mary and check out the frankfurter menu. :o).
Golly, I sure LOVE sausages. (see photo) It was fun sitting in the café listening to people speak languages from all over the world and trying to figure out what the announcements over the PA system were trying to tell us in German. We know we will need to get used to not being able to understand most of what will be spoken around us for the next two months. We took Shrikant’s advice to ‘just follow all of the Indian’s’ to help us find our departure gate. Once in line, we were quick to realize that we were now entering a minority status for the rest of our trip. A humbling thought. We spent the next 8 hours in the air flying over Croatia, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Sea and into India and Hyderabad.
In all we spent about 18 hours in the air and a total of 24 hours to get here. Being delighted to get off of the airplane with our feet firmly on the ground is an understatement. It is now 1am Feb. 4 and the airport is full of people arriving from all over the world. We passed quickly through immigration and customs and proceeded to the arrivals exit to find Shrikant and Charanya. It was hilarious how we now had to pick out our Indian friends in a sea of other Indians. Not an easy task, especially when you are being surrounded by porters and taxi drivers trying to get your attention for some business. It took us less than 10 minutes to find our friends. Shrikant had a driver from the Eye Institute take us on our way. Whew! We made it!
