The world is a big place

Tuesday, May 7th

There's a zen-like attitude that I try to take while traveling - settle in, relax and try not to think about how long it's taking. Because it's taking a very long time. 

We left around noon on Sunday. Wendy and Adam dropped us off and then headed over to the May Day parade. Security was pleasantly quick and we even got a glimpse of the parade as we flew over Minneapolis. OHare is huge - we walked as briskly as we could amyong the throngs of people, visiting almost every concourse during our three hour layover. 

Flight two was on a giant 777, from Chicago to Hethrow. We lucked out and got seats with a little extra legroom, and Meg managed to nap. I don't sleep well on planes in the best of times, and with my tail bone injury, it's almost impossible. So I watched the sunrise over the North Pole and the clouds on the ocean below, which looked like the surface of the moon. In some ways time is passing very quickly - night lasted just 6 hours. 

I can't wait to see a map of Hethrow, to try to figure out where we were. A long walk, a bus, a trip through security, more walking and a tram were required to get us to our new gate - 1 1/2 hours in all. Flight three takes us to Dehli on British Airways. Some lucky souls get lie flat seats, but I'm feeling pretty pampered even in economy class, with extra leg room and a fabulous lunch. Good thing I'm not counting calories - the Indian butter chicken (kind of like Tiki Masala, but better) and caramel chocolate moose was amazing. The video system is better than American Airlines too, with dozens of movies, tv shows, games, and even audiobooks. 

It's a good thing we were relatively comfortable - it took more than 8 hours to cross the bulk of Europe, over the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, over the desert areas of Afganistan and northern Packistan, to Dehli, India. 

We hit our first major snag in India.  We stumbled blearily off the plane in India to the international transfers area at 11 pm local time, after more than 20 hours of travel. We were sent to line one, and then told to wait for "15 minutes". We were looking forward to getting horizontal, but it took a full two hours before they waved us along. Meg said she felt like the impatient American tourist, but I tried to consider it just another part of the adventure. And it had a huge silver lining. We made friends with a wonderful young woman named Saloni.  She's in grad school in the Bay Area, but headed home to spend the summer with her family. The three of us found a quiet and free corner where I got a couple hours of sleep. 

Despite my fatigue, I feel better and better as the trip progresses. Everything is well within my plans so far. We're really going to Nepal!

Coming next: we actually arrive in Kathmandu.