New Delhi Day 1

We made it! We are safely in our hotel room in New Delhi. We haven't ventured out yet. We got up just in time to catch the tail end of breakfast, and we'll do some shopping later, but we just need to recover for a bit first.

Travel, the flights in particular, was my biggest fear about this whole process. I was so anxious about it that I requested an anxiety medication from my doctor for the flight. . . and then I forgot it. It is THE only thing that we forgot (I think). I didn't need it at all.

We got to the Boston airport nice and early and it was deserted! One bonus of flying on Thanksgiving, I guess. We breezed through and relaxed while waiting for the flight which was completely smooth and uneventful.

We had a 3 hour layover in Amsterdam which was much more crowded than Boston. By the time we got on the flight we were so tired that my Mom and I slept through takeoff. We landed in New Delhi, and everything was exactly as Adrienne described, so we had no problem whatsoever. We got through immigration, got or luggage, and got a prepaid Taxi. That's where the adventure began.

We left the airport at 1:19am - I looked at the clock. We thought it was a short little drive to the hotel. There was a bunch of traffic (I'm sure this is typical) so we didn't worry at first. Then our driver pulled up to this little alley way with bricks laying all over the place and told us all to come with him to "tourism" (he didn't speak english well). We were quite nervous about htis, so MOm and I went while Dan stayed with the luggage. This guy asked us where we were staying, asked to see our reservation, and asked why we were in India. We didn't tell him about the adoption, just that we were tourists. He gave the driver directions, and we thought we were all set.

After 20 more minutes the driver pulled up to a YWCA and asked someone else for directions. HE kept on saying, "all set, all set." He still wasn't. He pulled up to this area with all these people around tents and fires and asked THEM for directions! We were irritated, and a little nervous. He finally found the place at 3:30am! Then he refused to take a tip in rupees, demanding dollars. I said I didn't have any but please take the rupees, and he demanded dollars again, and then stormed away. This was the only point in the whole trip over here that I was remotely frustrated. I was offering a tip at all to be polite - had we been home I wouldn't have offered anything for that ride.

So, the hotel is lovely, people are polite. Breakfast was good. That's it for now, we'll post more tonight after we actually venture out.

OH - for Maddie and Myles - we saw some birds here that looked just like scarlet macaws! We miss you so much already!