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The journey started with a taxi ride to Indira Gandhi Airport (the Reagan National of Indian airports). Predictably, the guy swerved, sped, and broke with nauseating frequency. At one point, I had to pee so bad, despite peeing twice within the hour already, that I asked him pull over so I could go on the side of the road. The trip should have been 45 minutes, but it took over an hour because of traffic. That, despite the fact that the driver went 95 (kilometers an hour) in a 40 zone.

The airport was a different world. I ordered two slices of pizza for a total of 180 rupees. Everyone spoke clear and fluent English. I saw that the prices for the duty free shops were in dollars, which embarrassed me.

On the plane, my seat was scheduled to be next to a small woman and her daughter. She asked me to move because she was with a child (who was like 8 years old, c'mon). I agreed. She said that a staff member would move me up to an open seat in the front. At first I thought it would be to the front of coach, one seat in front of us. But the three seats directly in front of us were soon filled. I allowed myself to get excited. Maybe 'the front' means first class! A 14 and half hour trip in first class!

Maybe I forgot who I was. I ended up sitting in the middle section of coach's first row (I hate the first row of coach), between two giant Indian men, who wrestled me for the arm rests the entire journey. They couldn't give me one arm rest, those assholes! The guy to my right was a real jerk. He wore a scratchy wool sport coat that draped over the arm rest. He constantly elbowed me in the bicep and never apologized. At one point, my hand was on the arm rest and plopped his elbow right on it. I had to squeeze my fingers from out between his arm and the arm rest. My revenge was not telling him that the little white sheet that they put on the head rests had found a new home velcroed to his wool jacket.

The plane ride went fast though. But I slept less than 2 hours. It would be a total of 36 hours from the point I woke up to when I could go to sleep for a while. I cleared customs quickly. The young agent had a heavy New Jersey accent and asked me some friendly questions about the trip with a smile on his face. The next flight home was easy. The toughest part of the journey home might have been the ride fromt he airport home with my mother at the wheel. it almost felt liek I was back in India, expect they continuously swerve for a reason.