Blog 1: “…and they both chuckled a bit amongst themselves.”

Welcome to the blog chronicling my exploits in Chennai, India. I was hesitant about doing this because any other time I have tried to utilize the Internet as a forum to express myself and only myself, AOL deletes my 5 years of hard work or I just get bored with it and stop doing it. Let’s hope that does not happen this time. In fact, the only reason I am doing this is because I was poked and prodded into doing it. By poked and prodded, I mean Mark said “You should blog about your trip.” So here I am…

I guess it only makes sense to start at the beginning, which was January 24, 2010. I was all packed and ready to head up to the Detroit airport with Krista and my mom. Since my mom had never had Moe’s Southwest Grill and because I have an intense love affair with Moe’s Southwest Grill, we decided to stop at one in a Detroit suburb. It only makes sense that I have Moe’s before I leave the country for approximately 38 days. After a half-hearted “Welcome to Moe’s” greeting, two Funk Meisters (one with steak, the other with chicken), and a basket of free chips and salsa, we were on our way to the airport.

We pulled into the Big Blue Deck next to the brand spanking new North Terminal and park the car. It is funny how “brand spanking new” can change depending on the context. The North Terminal is about a year old or so now and I still call it brand spanking new. Those Jelly Bellies that have been sitting in my Jelly Belly dispenser for the last year or so are not so brand spanking new. In fact, they have a slight stale-y funk about them. But I digress.

I unpack all of my luggage (one 59.5 lb blue rolling suitcase and my laptop bag) and start to the terminal. My mom and Krista come with me so we can have Emotional CryFest 2010 or something before I head through security. As we are walking across the bridge from the parking lot to the terminal, I notice on some monitors that my flight has been delayed a bit from a departure time of 6:59PM to 7:05PM. That would be all fine and dandy except for the fact I have a connecting flight to catch in Frankfurt, Germany. Add on top of that, the layover in Germany is only an hour so I’m already nervous about making it.

I get to the ticketing booths and a nice young lady greeted me. I handed her my passport, she says “Final destination: Chennai, India?” I responded in the affirmative. She looked over at one of the other ticketing agents and they both chuckled a bit amongst themselves. She turned back to me and said, “The flight to Frankfurt is currently on a 50 minute delay.” I then asked her if there was anyway I would make the connecting flight and she informed me that the maximum they ever make up in the air for that particular flight is about 25 minutes… So no.

I was taken over to another agent because they had a couple options for me. I could either, come back tomorrow and take the same flight and hope there would not be another delay OR I could take the flight that would be leaving the gate late, hop a flight to Mumbai, then get to Chennai. Waiting the extra day or hopping on a couple different flights, both would have gotten me into Chennai on the same day, a few hours apart. Plus doing all the flight hopping would have me taking lengthy layovers in both Frankfurt and Mumbai, neither of which I wanted to hang out in very long. My boss and I agreed, I should just wait the following day and if we run into the same situation, then I would just do the Detroit-Frankfurt-Mumbai-Chennai flight.

So, I went home and watched the Jets lose and the Saints win. I think you can tell what matchup I was hoping for in the Super Bowl this year.