Last Sunday of Advent

I'm deeply conflicted. We should be going to mass today but we're not. We've lost the nerve to venture out into today's freezing temperatures in the few little clothes we have. Our walk through Manhattan yesterday was just barely tolerable but today is much colder. We'd have to change buses and walk in the cold (28 degrees in Newark today) and we just can't bring ourselves to do it. This will need to be an item in our next confessional visits. I'd particularly like to go to mass as we begin a trip abroad (and are in the process of learning some lessons about acceptance and patience). There would be a choir at the cathedral mass. I really feel disappointed and yet, I'm not going. Feeling disappointed with myself.

Photos of Day One and Two

Aw, look at how happy these two are in their taxi ride to the Tulsa airport. 

A flight from Tulsa to Chicago, then a flight from Chicago to Newark. It was a long day.

We had traveled for 11 hours when it was time to find the gate where we would board the plane to India. Right across from the gate was a currency exchange. We changed a good deal of cash into rupees so we wouldn't have to think about doing that when we were bleary-eyed and exhausted at our destination. Brian wanted me to sit down with it and take a picture. If I look nervous, it's because I know how crazy it is to display a pile of cash in public (even in the far corner of the waiting area):

The picture above was taken about five minutes before we found out we wouldn't be able to get on the plane that night. This gal is about to get an ugly shock.

Brian was so pleased with the bills, he had to get a close-up:

Once we got into our hotel room, Brian snapped this picture to document my phone call to Mom telling her the whole we're-not-going-to-India-today story.

Here I am with the lovely woman who helped us find our way from the hotel to Manhattan:

It might sound pitiful to need help getting from a hotel to Manhattan but it was a bit complicated. United got us rooms at the Ramada at the airport. Consequently, we had to take the hotel shuttle to the airport in order to connect with the Newark bus system. This compassionate woman came into our hotel's restaurant for breakfast alone. She was the only person in there besides Brian and me and she was wearing an abaya. I thought she must be on her way abroad and got waylaid like we did. I made a point of waving hello when she came in and saying "bye" when we left the restaurant. When we went to the lobby to catch the shuttle, she was waiting there too and she asked where we were from, etc. Turns out she had been behind us when we checked in the night before and had heard our whole story. She's a Newark native and she offered to give us some advice and directions. Without her, I don't know how long it would have taken for us to figure out the shuttle, bus, and two trains it would take to get us where we were going in Manhattan. She wrote notes to remind us and gave us her cell number in case we needed any further help. Her name is Ave Maria.

At the PATH train station, while waiting for the train to take us from Newark to Manhattan, we found ourselves standing across the track from a poster for Sharukh Kahn's new movie that we hope to see in Delhi when it opens Dec. 23. 

 


The photo was taken with Brian's iPhone, so the image isn't clear enough to see the poster. Here is what it is:

We exited the PATH system (from Newark) at the World Trade Center. We had to come above ground there to change over to the Metro system. Lots of posters showed the plans for the new transport station that will make changing trains efficient again. It's still a big construction site. The way to the memorial was marked but Brian didn't want to go there.


Here are two photos Brian snapped of the new towers going up.

We achieved the goal of the trip into Manhattan: to find the Indian Consulate so we could get there without confusion on Monday when it opened. Brian snapped this picture of me in front of India's very, very closed door:

As the photo clearly shows, we were very cold during this little jaunt. Latter, as we walked through Manhattan, I ducked into a JC Penney's to buy some trouser socks so my feet wouldn't actually get frostbite in the almost-freezing streets. Sales people looked at how we were dressed and asked, "Aren't you cold?" It was vaguely satisfying to have them respond with surprise and enormous sympathy when we then told them about why we were roaming Manhattan dressed for New Delhi.

Cold though I was, the sari gave us some immediate connections. A sales woman at Penney's (Thanks, Sumita!) took us up and got us checked out without waiting in line because her parents are from India and she recognized the sari. I was treated to a quick checkout in a busy holiday store the second Saturday before Christmas and a delightful conversation with an interesting young woman all because of what I was wearing. A few women of Indian descent complimented my sari at various times in the street and Metro--a welcome bit of friendliness in a big city. And one of the security guards at the airport (through which we are obliged to pass whenever leaving or returning to our hotel in Newark) said "Namaskar" to me as I passed. I returned the greeting and we smiled at each other. All in all, it may have been well worth the near freezing to wear this say-hello-if-you're-Indian-American outfit. Also, remember, it was my being in a sari and her being in an abaya that got Ave Maria and me talking in the first place. Interesting how clothing can work.

On our walk from the consulate, we passed an Indian restaurant and couldn't resist the chance to get out of the cold for a little bit. The restaurant was on the second floor and so we had to buzz for admission to the stairway that entered from the street, walk up a steep flight of stairs, and go through a narrow, twisting hallway to get in. Once the door was opened, the smell was so beautiful and intense, it felt as if the meal had already begun. If this is a foretaste of India, I'm thrilled! Brian was so delighted with the food, it merited a photo:

It cost no more than the India Palace in Tulsa, and (I love you, India Palace, but this must be said) it was much better food. Beging on the second story, our table at the window overlooked Lexington Avenue. It was great entertainment to watch the traffic and people go by:

My personal favorites were the many little dogs in expensive haircuts and little winter jackets. (Even the dogs on the Eastside were better dressed for the weather than we were.)

The amazing Apple store near Times Square was doing as robust a Christmas business as its size could accommodate. We needed to go there to get a cord to recharge the laptop. (I had, against the advice I give my students when packing, put the cord in the checked bag even though I was bringing the laptop as carry-on. I knew better and violated my own rule: never separate a device and its cords.)

When the crowds made us squirm, we reminded ourselves that this is nothing compared to the crowds we will have to navigate in Delhi and Mumbai.

Brian explains the anti-climatic start to our trip to India

So, I hope I didn't alarm anyone with yesterday's cryptic update. I was working with an iPhone and a head full of frustration. I couldn't talk about it--but things are a bit better now. Here's how our Indian trip started...

There was a problem with our visa. More on that much, much later. Any of a long list of people whose business it is to notify travelers of such things failed to do so: Expedia.com, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, and the individuals who checked in our luggage in Tulsa. We got all the way to New Jersey, killed the time before boarding the plane to Delhi, and went to check in. We were so excited, so happy... Then we were notified that no, in fact, we were NOT going to Delhi. Bridget was shattered; I was furious. But nothing we said or did could change the fact that until we fixed our visa problem, we couldn't go. Sadly, this happened Friday night at about 8 p.m., so not only was there no one to talk to for help, but we had to wait the whole weekend for someone. We can apparently fix this at the Indian Consulate in New York City on Monday, and we have our flight rescheduled for Monday night on this assumption. While we were in Manhattan today, the first thing we did was figure out where the Consulate is, so we can find it easily later.

Oh, and get this: our *luggage* went on ahead to Delhi. Delhi being, you know, a long ways away, the earliest it could possibly get back to us would have been Sunday night--24 hours before we'd just fly it back over to Delhi again. We're stuck in New York without luggage. It's about 30 degrees colder than we were prepared for, Bridget with only a sari and shawl, and me with jeans and a short-sleeved polo shirt.

But there are, of course, many worse places in the world to be stuck for a couple of days than near New York City. We saw many, many New York landmarks: the World Trade Center site, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Madison Avenue, Park Avenue, Central Park, one of the Trump hotels (hah!), and the Manhattan Apple Store (it has a Louvre-pyramid-style entrance, and seriously, *thousands* of people packed in there looking at iProducts). And we had a *fantastic* dinner at the Agra Indian restaurant on Lexington Avenue. Shrimp vindaloo and fish curry gave me the best curry sweat ever! Tomorrow we're going to mass at a big cathredal in Newark.

Monday we'll (please God!) get the visa issue straightened out and get back in the air. We'll still have a full 2.5 weeks in India, and meanwhile, things aren't too bad.