Boy oh boy. Is this place ever backwards!!! First of all, we really should have stayed in Portland while the trip was going good. We had an entire row of airplane to ourselves. And we were together. Then we arrived in Amsterdam. We were looking for our gate which wasn't very hard to spot. An entire sitting area crammed with Indians young and old who started waiting in the boarding line 2 hours before the flight. That made me jittery. At the front of the line the ticket agent ripped our bags away from us (which had ALL of our clothes and medicine) and said we had to check them because they wouldn't fit. We boarded the plane nice and early. This time instead of having the row to ourselves we were crammed between two very kind Indians, however, they don't wear deodorant. enough said. 10 stinky hours later We Arrive at the Bombey airport. What the????? We got in line for immigration and had all of the paperwork that delta told is we needed. With a dramatic version of "memory" from Cats blasting from the speakers, We waited in another ridiculous line. I swear these people love lines!!! I could never survive here. We get to the front of the hot muggy immigration line and they told us I needed a visa to go to the hotel that I already paid $150 for. What the???? The other problem is that our bags are behind the immigration counter with ALL of our clothes and medication. I might have cried a little:( Josh left me to come check out the international travel counter to see if they could help us. At this point we realize that we're NOT ever getting to sleep in that hotel and we still have no answers as to where our bags are. We both went up to the international travel and they were so confusing. They kept telling us a different story then they said "no worries" that's never good. The problem is, they require a boarding ticket to pass through but we can't get a boarding ticket because we arent allowed back up to the check in area. I really don't trust them with my safety and security. They finally give us this "pass" to enter the terminal so we weren't stuck in the jail cell of an international holding room fo 12 hours. We hunker down and find out that to use the "free" wifi we needed a local number and they don't sell local SIM cards here. At this point we were very hopeless. I bought a calling card with the rupees I got in Portland which was a good move. I called the kids to check in and remember that I have a home somewhere in this wide world. The Indian people also don't have space courtesy. They'll totally come plunk right down next to you. So we got squeezed out of our terminal. Then we called tiff to make sure we could actually get a visa in Kathmandu. Cause if not, I was paying top dollar to go back home. RIGHT NOW. We decided we needed some food so we were wandering around the terminal. Then these guys came chasing us down from immigration. They said they needed Josh's passport to take a photocopy of it. So they go walking off with his passport and I'm Chasing closely behind asking a million questions about what hey were doing. Since they had to cancel his passport stamp when I couldn't get in, they needed a copy. I can't believe they found us. At this point were definately leaving our mark here in terminal 2.
We decided to order some pizza from the Indian Pizza Hut and we got comfy in the cafe area of the airport after about 4 hours here. We went looking for playing cards at a store and tried again to get the wifi working. We found a nice man and his teenage daughter from India that let us use their local cell phone to access the wifi. HALLALUJAH!!! Access to our world. All of a sudden our anxiety disappeared as we connected with our kids, checked email, and to verify my location on Facebook I got to identify a bunch of friends in my photos. I suddenly felt comfortable and had a new resolve to trust these crazy people that we would get to our final destination... With our bags. About 7am we heard our name being shouted from security. Some friends we had met pointed us out and the airport "authority" wanted to take our passports so he could get our boarding passes and LUGGAGE tickets. We had no choice, In America they have a console that you put your passport on and it scans and checks you in and prints passes. I don't know why they can't do that here but they have guys walking around shouting names of passengers. Usually I would be frightened by this but it meant progress and it meant that they have found our bags. So again we had to turn over our passports and credit card to an airport representative, so he could take our documents into the restricted area and get us checked in and charge my card $92 for being overweight. HA!!! I would have paid way more than that to guarantee clothes and underwear for the next week. $92 was a small price to pay for a little peace in this crazy place. I'm so excited to see Josh's mom and dad in 3 hours. It can't come soon enough.
Oh ya... Another thing, a lot of people have really gross coughs here and on the plane. The flight attendant sprayed the isles with disinfectant as we touched down for landing. Maybe they know something I don't but, it seems past the point of no return once we've been on a plane with each other for 10 hours.
This is in Portland before we had been beat up by the international travel system;) as we boarded a nearly empty plane.
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