The Arduous Journey

I don't know if this trip was actually longer than the trip to China, or I am just older, or if traveling with 3 children is harder, or if I am just older. Man, this has been hard.

We arrived at the Cincinnati airport a couple of hours ahead of time and began the check in progress. It was rather unsettling to have the first words spoken to us by airport personnel to be, "These three passports are invalid." What? You've got to be kidding me! Turns out that we had not had the kids sign their passports yet, so they were not valid yet. Kailey and Justin had to sign theirs, but Elijah was fine not having his signed. After my heart started beating again, we were able to successfully check our luggage all the way through to Bangalore. We passed through security with barely a hitch, then got to go sit in the gate for an hour and a half.

The flight to Dulles was blissfully short in a plane only 3 seats wide. I think the Wright flyer was larger than that plane. We had been a little concerned about how Elijah would handle these flights, but, much to the delight of the business travelers around us, he just giggled during take off. Hysterically. With glee. It was great fun.

We landed in Washington DC and deplaned to find my parents waiting for us at the gate. We hurried over to the next gate on our itinerary just in time to board the next plane. This United flight was pretty good. We had individual screens in our seat backs and our choice of movies and tv shows to watch. Very nice. This leg of the trip to Frankfurt was 7.5 hours long. The kids did a great job. Kailey and Justin entertained themselves without a problem. Elijah watched Tangled, ate dinner, then slept for 4 hours (with a little pharmacological assistance.)

We landed in Frankfurt and deplaned only to have to walk across the tarmac to load a very crowded bus to get to a gate. We then wandered in the Frankfurt airport for five hours, looking for food and for our next gate. We ate some very expensive Burger King nuggets, rode the shuttle train a couple of times, and dozed at the gate.

Getting through security was interesting in Frankfurt. We got to keep our shoes on, but ended up in the back office with a stern looking security officer who wiped our portable DVD players down, checking for explosive residue. I guess we should have pulled those out of the suitcase to send through the scanners.

The flight from Frankfurt to Bangalore was a grueling 8 hours and 50 minutes. The seats were hard and uncomfortable. There were only 4 tvs for the cabin. The food was Indian/Asian, spicy and unfamiliar. The movie they showed was "Burlesque." How is that even remotely family friendly? I actually watched it. They did not edit out the language either, and nothing could be done to help the visuals. I was thankful Justin, in particular, slept through a good chunk of it, then engrossed himself with his Gameboy. They also showed two Bollywood movies with English subtitles; cheesy, but acceptable. At one point, I had hoped we were nearly there and was dismayed to learn we still had 4 hours left. I nearly cried. It was a little disconcerting to figure out we were flying over Iran but made it through without even a warning shot. ;)

The children were amazing the entire trip. No complaints. No arguments. No meltdowns. No problems. Just wonderfully behaved, self entertaining children. Wow. We are so impressed.

Upon arrival in Bangalore, we worked our way through security (did we really need to pass through security to get out of the airport after having gone through it twice to get that far?), baggage claim, and customs. We have to keep filling out forms and signing slips of paper and handing over our passports to be allowed into the country. Good thing none of us has even a drop of Pakistani blood in us. We would never have gotten through.

We did not have our requested cars from the hotel waiting for us, so we secured two taxis for the 40 minute trip to the Jayamahal Palace. After arriving, we had to work out paying the cabbie (in Rupee, which we had not exchanged yet), get rooms with enough beds in them, and get settled. It was 3 am India time before Greg and I crawled into bed. And the good news is, we slept solidly for four whole hours before neither of us could sleep any longer and ended up getting up for the day. Man. I am tired.

I may be getting old, but that was a heck of a long trip.