I got up this morning and had breakfast with my hosts. Around 10 AM we went to visit a school for special-needs kids. DGs Elizabeth and Bazil were there and it was nice to have one last chance to thank them and say our goodbyes. After that, Misty, Elizabeth, Bernie and I went to the Goa airport. Rajiv is planning to spend a little more time in Goa (I'm sure it has nothing to do with the lovely Rajani!)
Our flight to Mumbai was delayed, and as we were sitting and waiting, I had a great conversation with an older British couple.
Waiting to leave Goa.
When we landed in Mumbai, we girls said our goodbyes to Bernie. He was off to board a plane to New Delhi and had plans to visit Agra and the Taj Mahal. Now we were three. One of the Indian GSE team members, Koustubh, met us after we claimed all our luggage. We loaded everything into his tiny car and squeezed ourselves into the back seat.
"How many Americans can you fit
in the back of an Indian car?"
After leaving all our bags at his apartment, Koustubh took us around Mumbai. We went to a book and music store, and then we met up with his brother and sat in a pub, killing time. We had about five hours until we needed to check in at the airport and because of the unbelievable traffic, we really couldn't go anywhere too far without the risk of missing our flight. So we just sat and talked and had a nice, mellow time.
We went back and picked up our stuff from Koustubh's apartment, and made it to the airport by 10:30 PM. It was an absolute mob scene. Koustubh and his friend literally bribed one of the airport workers to let us cut in front of about 300 people and check in.
"What just happened?" I asked him.
"Ah, no worries. Please come." Standard reply.
I was stopped at the security scanner and asked to open my suitcase (which was so full, I was praying it would not burst open) Apparently they thought my Steri-Pen was a bomb! We went through immigration and are now all settled in chairs. We can't even go to our gate until 1:00 AM.
Comfy chairs at Mumbai airport.
"Yoga-Sleeping" 3:00 AM
I'm tired and ready to go home. I wanna see Wolf. I'm excited to see all the pictures I've taken along the way. Each time my memory card fills up, I've been dumping them onto Rajiv's laptop. I think I am going to miss my teammates more than I realize. I can't believe I have spent just about every waking second of the past 30 days with these once-strangers. I can't believe we got along as well as we did.
What a month it's been. What a trip. What an amazing country. India, you have my heart.
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