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.
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