June 10th...continued...

After leaving the London, Heathrow Airport, at 5:40pm on Sunday, June 10th, we set off for New Delhi, on an 8 hour plane ride. Not only was it the longest plane ride of my life, but the biggest plane as well. A double decker. We, of course were in the cheap seats for all of those 8 very long hours. As we got settled in, so did the two little girls behind us (Dallan and I), with their feet on our backs, constantly, except for the few hours they slept, which was when I was able to sleep. I know exactly when they woke up, because I woke up, too! As soon as I was about to say something very politely, I got out of my seat only to realize this family of 4 had to share 3 seats because the vent was dripping in the middle of one of their seats. I said nothing and was grateful all I had was a few feet in my back and not water dripping down on my lap.

About 6:20am on Monday, June 11th we touched down in beautiful (I'm just guessing because I couldn't see very far in the distance) India.  After a little confusion, we found our taxi driver, who looked at us with our family of 6 and luggage of 14 large pieces and walked over to hire another taxi driver to help carry all of us and our goods to South Delhi, where we are staying for the next 3 nights.

Traveling from the airport to the bed and breakfast was... interesting. Conor's observation: "I don't see a car around without a dent in it".  True, very true. Davis' observation, "There's a lot of honking going on around here".  Again, true, it is almost a form of communication, such as "watch out!!" or "I'm here", or "get out of my way!" or even, "you better move because I'm bigger than you". After arriving at our bed and breakfast, Ryan had this observation, "That was more thrilling than any ride at Disney World"...and so our journey begins.

The streets that we drove through in India were full of trash, a lot of dirt, roads that would end into dirt and then become roads again, and 4 rows of traffic in a 3, sometimes 2 lane highway. The traffic was anything from the public transit buses squished full of people, taxi cabs of all sizes, including the 3-wheeled auto rickshaw, mopeds (of course the women rode side-saddle), bike ricksaws, bikes and people just walking through traffic to get across the street. The favorite view today was a bike pulling 2 cages of chickens that were stacked two chickens high. Wish I got a picture, but for some reason I am thinking it wasn't a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Arriving at our bed and breakfast safely, we were taken in by the family who runs it, and instantly given rose water (it's pink with a very fragrant smell and taste to match and leaves a little bit of an after taste) and glasses of water. They proceeded to feed us breakfast of omelets, toast, fruit, corn flakes, some little spinach/chickpea deep fried concoction and a slew of jams, that of course included mango. The kids did good at eating. Even though it was an omelet, it was still a little different, and Brayden is already referring to the toast as "comfort food".

We decided since the time we left Orlando to the time arriving in Delhi we got about 4 hours of sleep we were going to take a nap, so at about 10:30am we came into our room and we all crashed...until 5:30! Of course the boys weren't a bit tired before, but somehow they managed to sleep for that long.

Mosque at Lodi Gardens

Typical sidewalk

One of many street vendors

Another Mosque at Lodi Gardens, built in the 1400's

We hired another cab driver to take us to see some sights, and ended up at Lodi Garden and the City Mall. The gardens were the greenest thing in Delhi I had seen so far. Kind of like a Central Park, but not as pretty and the mall was full of stores like GNC, Benetton, Esprit and very trendy shops, which we found interesting because we saw not one person under the age of 16 wearing anything but traditional clothing. Our first day was a success, everyone is asleep except me, I needed to empty my brain before it filled up again tomorrow.

I leave you with my favorite quote of the day we saw on a billboard: "Death is not the worst consequence of an accident...it could be much worse, drive safely"...it was coupled with a  picture of a guy with a broken arm.  Ok, now let me explain. I realize that to my foreign, Christianity views it is hilarious to me  because I  do not have the same Hindu views, and I'm absolutely positive they do not find it funny, but I couldn't stop laughing.

Indian Breakfast Foods

I will now go to sleep...in my bed...with my gecko friend that my husband shooed out an hour ago. Good night, friends.