I was tempted to think that I was not supposed to go on this trip. My youngest sister was supposed to take me to the airport at 5:30 yesterday. By 6:15, she was still AWOL and neither she nor her hubby answered their phones. So I called my dad.
The Bay Area was on a storm watch – strong winds, pouring rain, and flooded roads. My dad let me drive, but in spite of my rain-driving training from nine years in Seattle, I still wished for my car’s 4-wheel drive.
SFO to MSP
My bad luck turned into good luck when the flight turned out to be not full, so I got all three seats to myself.
I wasn’t too worried about the plane taking off through the storm. This was nothing, compared to my flight from MSP*** to SFO. And when it was time to take off, you could see a patch of blue sky almost right above us – we were probably at the center of the storm.
Once we got higher than the storm clouds, it was an incredible view. Cumulus clouds below us and around us. A layer of flat and wispy clouds above us. It was like we were in the middle of a cotton candy machine. Some clouds even looked like nebulae.
I alternated between reading “The World is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman
, which is the required text for the seminar, and napping. Since I only had two hours of sleep before my flight, I admittedly got more napping done than reading.At MSP, I had one hour between flights, so I quickly grabbed lunch (it was about 2:30 pm Central) and wolfed it down at my gate. An Asian girl sat two seats from me and shyly smiled when she saw me with my lunch. She had her lunch too. By the time I finished and got up to discard my trash, it was my turn to board.
MSP to AMS
This leg was seven and a half hours long, so I settled in with my book and my Bose. I had two seats all to myself (it was a two-seater row). If I faced the aisle and stretched out my legs, my heels would get to the outer armrest. With two airline pillows behind me and my neck pillow, it was a good enough imitation of sitting in bed.
Soon after we took off and got to cruising speed, they started serving beverages. And about an hour after that, they started serving dinner. Yup, dinner. And I just had lunch! I ate about half of it anyway (who knows when they would feed us again) and again toggled between reading and napping after they turned off the cabin lights.
At one point, I had just put a mint in my mouth when I sneezed and the mint went down the wrong tube when I inhaled before the sneeze. Boy, that hurt! And it hurt for a long time because the mint was still lodged in my esophagus and, when Altoids says they’re curiously strong, they really mean curiously and painfully strong.
New Year’s came and went without fanfare. I don’t even know exactly when it came. It was midnight somewhere in the world pretty much throughout the flight. And since we were heading east at hundreds of miles per hour, the ten second countdown to midnight would have been over in a couple of seconds, if that. That would be the opposite of what time would be like in that zone around a black hole's event horizon, wouldn't it?
A little over an hour before we got to Amsterdam, I started seeing some lights on land. We might have been somewhere over the UK. In the US, lights tend to be in grids and straight lines and seem flat. These lights are more varied in intensity, creating an illusion of multiple depths. And they’re not in straight lines; they’re in wavy lines that sometimes split off, kinda in an organic way. Unlike the lights in the Bay Area which seem like a huge gold beaded purse, these lights look more like golden lichen or moss.
Somehow, people seemed to know that we’re close to our destination because they started stirring and waking up. As reading lights got turned on, the plane resembled a dormitory ward. And the crew seemed to take the cue – they turned on the cabin lights and started serving breakfast.
Schiphol International Airport
Well, this is the first time I've ever been to a European city. In fact, this is the first time I've ever flown over Europe at all. Thankfully, the airport looks like any other airport in the US and there were ground crew helping passengers find their connecting flights.
After checking in to get my boarding pass (they didn’t give me one in SFO for this leg), I found a currency changing booth and got some rupees. But it was so expensive so I only got $100 worth. I figured I’d get better rates in India. I later had to go back to get dollars changed into euros.
I found my gate, but I had more than four hours, so I decided to roam the airport and just see what’s there. I found a few of my classmates who had just arrived. They went to the second floor to see what’s there, I continued with my roaming. The airport had a massage center (but it was closed) and a free museum of Dutch art. The museum was a small room above a shop that sold museum souvenirs, so it didn’t take me long to look at the exhibit.
A lot of the paintings were floral still lifes. And one of the displays talked about ceramic tower vases, about three or four feet high, decorated in the blue-on-white Dutch style, and with multiple places to put short-stemmed flowers. The placard said that you had to take out each level from the center pole in order to clean them, so tower vases, like “this superb pair,” tended to break. There was only one.
I found a place with PCs on desks and some people were sitting in front of them. It turns out that I had to pay at a Communications Center which turned out to be closed. I went back later about an hour and a half before boarding and got all-day Wi-Fi access for 10 euros. However, there was no connection near my gate. I sat halfway between the Communications Center and my gate, but the signal was so weak and the network was so slow, I didn’t get much done besides briefly checking email.
When it was almost boarding time, I headed back to my gate and most of my classmates were already there, as well as a few hundred other passengers. It was a full flight. I was assigned an aisle seat but the older gentleman preferred the aisle seat so we traded. I was glad. Sara, one of my classmates, sat between us. I thought I would be able to continue reading, but I was so sleepy, I just napped when I wasn’t watching a movie (on my own individual screen!) or playing BlackJack.
Delhi
It was still dark when we arrived in Delhi. The throng in the plane spilled out to the immigrations area and then to the baggage claim. For some reason, our group’s luggages were among the last out of the plane, so it took us a very long time.
Contrary to what we’ve been told, not everybody speaks English. I was searching for carts and when I approached someone with a nametag, he spoke to me in Hindi. And when I spoke to him in English, I had to supplement my speech with hand gestures. One, who seemed to be the leader of a gang of baggage handlers, motioned for me to meet them at a certain spot and he assigned one of his men to help me with my luggage. When I finally got my luggage, it was a different baggage handler who came to help me and this one spoke English. He asked if I had a cart; I said I didn’t. He got me one and I figured I could take over from there, since I was waiting for my classmates. I offered ten rupees for getting me the cart and loading it for me. They refused it. I was surprised.
When most of us got our luggage, we started heading out to find the driver, while a few stayed behind to wait for the rest of the bags. We found the two tour guides with a Carlson placard and waited for the others. I asked the tour guides where I could find a SIM card for my phone. One of them walked with me to a nearby AirTel booth. I needed a photocopy of my passport and a picture just to buy a SIM card, but the kid in the booth said he could take my picture and photocopy my passport for me. Thankfully, he thought of trying the SIM in my phone first before selling it to me and it didn’t work, so the tour guide said we’ll look for one tomorrow instead. The rest of the group had arrived.
We headed to a big white commuter van and each got a lei of red and gold flowers as we boarded. Hmm, U of MN colors.
Delhi, from what I could see under the street lights, reminds me of parts of Manila – the small shops, the garbage on the street, the deteriorating cement buildings, the flora. So, it didn’t feel foreign at all. My summer trip to the Philippines had kinda prepared me for it. Even the early morning traffic reminded me of that trip from the airport in Manila too, except there are no jeepneys here.
It took me a while to realize we were driving on the left side of the street. I just thought we were on a one-way street until I saw other streets with center islands. That’s when it felt foreign, especially when we were turning from one street to another and the van goes on the wrong side of the street.
Qutub Residency
The hotel has a ground floor, then a first floor where the dining room is, then a second floor where the lobby is. It’s a nice little hotel with some elegant touches, like marble inlays on stairs, floors and furniture, but it’s getting old.
A group of porters carried our luggage up as our tour guides checked us in. It turned out that Christina, my roommate, had arrived early and she was already in the room. Upon noticing the garland around my neck, she commented, “Oh, you got lei’d too.” It took me a couple of seconds to get it. :-) A little unpacking, a shower, and bed by 4:00 am.
A long day, starting at 5:00 am on Dec 31 in San Francisco and ending at 4:00 am on Jan 2 in Delhi. Two whole days compressed in 34.5 hours.
Happy new year.
*** In MSP, we had to stop and de-ice the place before take-off. De-icing was like getting a car wash outdoors from a truck with a crane and a large hose, except they don't rinse the plane.
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