We made it! Our first evening in India.

So, it's four in the morning and  I'm listening to the city come alive and wake up to start it's day.  We arrived here around midnight...baggage and all. Whew!  My day will be starting soon as Rising Star will be coming to pick us up at 10:00 am.  We will drive two hours until we reach the welcome gates and begin our service....sooo excited and anticipating a wonderful experience.

I'll share a few highs and lows of our trip so far. I'll get one of the lows over with.
I left my treasured kindle on one of the planes in the flap of the seat.  Enough said...grrr.

High.  I have experienced the kindness of the people from India already.  I notice how so many of the Indian men offered help with my luggage as I was getting carry ons in the overhead bins.  I know this isn't due to my good looks as I was looking a little rough especially towards the tail end of our journey.  25 hours of traveling is not pretty. 

A tiny low....we had a delay in Chicago that messed up the connecting flight in New Delhi.  I had arranged ahead to have a chauffeur pick us up from the Marriot.  I knew I would miss that.   Quincy and I also got split up and couldn't sit together when we got on the new flight.

  Luckily, here is the high, sitting next to me, I got to know a kind man named, Bali, who it turned out is a pediatric doctor for the hospital in Chennai.  He shared with me a lot of his thoughts about India, his experiences of traveling in the U. S. and other places.  It made the flight go by so fast. While visiting he offered to share his taxi with us since it would be going by the Marriot anyways.  I was so thankful for that as it lessened the anxiety of figuring out the taxi system here and the fear of the unknown. When we arrived to the hotel our car was approached by security guards.  They had to scan all of our luggage, my purse and had a separate stall, like in the airports, where they body scan you.  Bali, had explained that the heightened security has occurred since the bombing in Bombay. Without payment for the taxi he wished  us a wonderful stay in India.  Thank you, Bali. I hope to pay this favor forward to someone else.  

High.  We met a three of the Rising Star volunteers. One was seated next to Quincy...Hilary from Provo.  The other two are from Florida and friends with one of my older daughter's friends.  The world is so small.

High.  Quincy's jerky made it through customs and same with her fruit and nut mix.  Her Costco favorites.

High.  We got friendly, nice help in the Marriot for two worn out girls.  Also warm showers and clean teeth.

High.  We got to skype at 3am India time with Karli, Russ and Chloe.  I already miss my clan left behind.

High.  This view outside my plane window of the sunrise as we were flying towards Greenland.  The picture is good but it was breathtaking in person.
This is going to be a wonderful trip. Time for some shut eye.