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Hi Everyone,
Greetings from not-so-sunny Mumbai! It's nice and around 80F (all day), and uncharacteristically for the monsoon season, it actually hasn't rained much in the last two days (touchwood). Not the case for the rest of the country, however. I awoke (on Thurs morning India time) to find that all trains to Ahmedabad (the city which I'm going to on Monday) had been cancelled. This was due to severe flooding in the industrial town of Surat, which is en route to Ahmedabad. Flood waters had been between 8-15 feet in the city in some cases. Surat is also en route to Delhi, which means the very important rail service from Mumbai to Delhi had also been suspended. That is very bad news for business, and in India, business is on everybody's mind these days.
The flight from Chicago to New Jersey was uneventful. Not so in New Jersey though. They boarded everybody on time, and then after boarding realized a radio needed to be fixed. After half an hour, they abandoned hopes of fixing it, and decided to move everybody to another aircraft. After another hour or so, we finally boarded. We then waited on the tarmac for an hour and half, due to, yup, catering delays. Then we couldn't back out of the gate coz somebody else was blocking it. Mind you, having not slept at all the night before, I was at best severely groggy during this whole wait, so I can't complain much. I do remember freaking out when I realized the flight left 3 hours late (guess how long my layover in Amsterdam was - yup, 3 hours ;-)) I guess we must have made some time on the way to Amsterdam, coz I had 50 minutes to board (or so I though - apparently it was only 40 because they'd pushed the flight up 10 mins). Anyway, after a sprint to the gate, they let me board. The agent checking my passport/ticket etc was like, take a deep breath, you made it.
At which point I asked him about if my bags would make it.
His story went like this "oh yah, it shoud. no problems. <looks at watch> oh yah, it should have. Well, it depends on how long Continental can get it to the KLM crew. When did you say your flight landed? Oh, about 10 mins ago. Well, yah, hmm, maybe it should make it. Well, why don't I say it won't make it and that way if it does it'll be a reversal of fortune for the better, yah? <insert hopeful smile here>. You know, gots to be careful about what we say these days."
The security guys had a blast figuring out what my no-battery manually charging flashlight was. Boarded a surprisingly empty flight about 15 minutes before it was scheduled to leave. Suprisingly, two other people boarded after me.
I guess that's all from the cybercafe in Mumbai for now - rest on the trip will come soon. Keep in touch.
P.S. Funny thing about the bags. Only one of them made it. Funnier still, Northwest knew that before I even landed. They came in the flight last night, and were delivered to my house (earlier than promised) today. The Northwest guys knew the status of the bag all along, and even delivered the bag all sealed in plastic etc. Nice job to make up for lost baggage.
