Boys rode with Brent’s parents. Girls rode with my mom to the airport.
Mistake number one, we accidentally checked Brocks bag to Dubai and not Bangalore. Silly Delta girls assign all our luggage to the wrong names.
We made it to our gate with enough time to find our last American meal. Grace and Brock had Arby’s (Grace had a Reuban), I bought a South West salad from McDonalds, and Brent got Chinese. Rebecca and Carlie split something healthyish.
Luxury...aaaaah from Danielle Williams on Vimeo.
We got onto a Delta plane, and jealously walked past the sleeping pods in first class, to the very back of the coach section of the plane. Brock kindly switched with a man so that a husband and wife could sit with each other, Rebecca, Carlie and Grace sat in the middle, and Brent and I sat on the end. I had the window seat. J
We all talked excitedly for an hour or so, and then took a little nap. Woke up for Dinner. I watched the Book of Eli with Denzel Washington, and then proceeding to dream about people dying everywhere. (comforting, I know… but if you’ve seen the movie then you know why). I slept for a good long time, which is a God-Send for these 14 hour flights. 14 hour flights without sleep feel like a never-ending purgatory. Which is maybe how Grace felt on this flight.
I woke up again for a granola bar and to watch the new Disney Princess movie, “The Princess and the Frog”, and took another little nap, and then opened my window to see the very landscape of Iraq. High in the sky, and completely separated from all the violence on the ground, it felt surreal to be seeing it with my own eyes. We continued our flight over Saudi Arabia, and the Red Sea. The moving map on our personal screen always pointed an arrow towards Mecca, for the Muslims on the plane.
Now for the moment of testing. We descended slowly into Dubai, one of the most successful and “westernized” cities in the Middle East. We arrived a little late with 2 problems to solve and a time crunch. (1) Re-check Brock’s luggage to Bangalore, because those silly Delta ladies wouldn’t fix the problem in Atlanta. (2) Get boarding passes for our next flight. Brent and I tried our best to figure out how to do this, trying to talk over the Muslim call to worship that rang out through the airport. Eventually we made our way to one wonderful man who solved all our problems for us. We probably spent over a half hour standing in front of him (or more). With every minute passing I could feel the tension growing in me. I really did not want to spent the night in the Dubai airport, but God is faithful to us. I could feel his voice telling me that we would make this plane, so I relayed the message to Brent and said, “We will make this plane. I just know it.” The nice man helping us was soooo slow, but also so helpful. He made a few phone calls, and (1) redirected Brock’s bag to Bangalore for us, (2) Reassigned our luggage to the correct name, and (3) Gave us our boarding passes. Then we ran, and made it to our plane with just a few minutes to spare.
A Blurred June 14-15-16th
The six of us loaded onto our Kingfisher plane.
We were definitely the only white people. There were mostly men on the plane, hardly any women at all. This flight was our first experience of the smells and tastes of India. It was a 4 hour plane ride. On my personal TV I watched some old 70s Bollywood show. I recognized the main star from the movie slumdog millionaire. When the little boy jumps in poop to go see this guy, and get his autograph. Friends was also on.
No comments:
Post a Comment