Three Sunrises

Well I've seen three beautiful sunrises in the last three days, and finally today it's in Mysore! I have arrived after a bucket-load of travel. 36 hours of travel time, including waiting. There has been a lot of waiting, which a great exercise of patience. I don't mind. In fact, all in all it wasn't nearly as bad as I was imagining it.

I had an 8 hour flight Toronto to Brussels, on which I watched three movies and slept (sort of) for 1 hour. Then a few hours in the Brussels airport.

Here is a sunrise from the plane as we arrive at the Brussels airport.
All of the plane trails are neat in the sky.

Then came another 8 hour flight to Delhi. This flight was less busy so I had two seats, so I did a bit of a stretch out, head on armrest sleep at the beginning, then watched another movie or two. The Indian food on the plane was ok, not as yummy as I remembered it. AND, this may be coincidence but as soon as I opened my meal and took a sniff, I started SNEEZING. I sneezed no less than 50 times on that whole plane ride, no word of a lie, and became stuffy and nose drippy. But felt fine otherwise. Weird! I have never had that before! Is it allergies? Or an insta-cold? I still have a little bit of it left. When I arrived in Delhi I threw some antihistamines down the hatch to deal with this, and also to help me sleep, since we landed at 10pm and flew out at 7am. I went to the 'shower-nap-massage' lounge where I spent my layover last time and I was so looking forward to it again. But... of course, they were all booked. Argh! I tried to reserve in advance online but it was impossible to figure it out. So I spent 10 minutes in the airport bathroom taking a 'shower' haha, and freshening up, changing clothes, brushing teeth, then I slept on the floor in a corner outside the security area, on my yoga mat, with my travel air neck pillow under my stuffy sleepy. It worked I suppose. Everyone was sleeping on the floor. It was a bit of an airport tent city. When I woke myself up at 4am, to prepare to check in again at 5am for a 625am boarding, I went to "COFFEE DAY" which is sort of like India's starbucks, for a tea. A tea. It took over 5 minutes even though I was the only one at the counter. I forgot that everything is an ordeal here and everything is done the most complicated and slowest way possible. They made the water hot with the milk frother thing on the cappuccino machine. Added the tea bag. Waited a while. Then heated and frothed the milk in and put that in a separate container. Served them both on a tray. Brought sugar over. Then a stir stick. Then a lid. The lid didn't fit. New lid. Lid didn't fit. Tea spilled all over counter. New cup. New lid. Napkins. Apologies. *head smack*

Finally I got to the plane. Here is the sunrise as we took off from the airport.

That final flight was only 2.5 hours and went smoothly. We arrived and I got my luggage quickly. Oh - by the way, I am SO HAPPY and relieved that my luggage arrived. Last time I came here with only carry on luggage, which is crazy for 6 weeks, because I am so paranoid about checked luggage getting lost. Once my snowboard was lost when I flew out for a snowboarding trip. Anyways, to my wonder, it all arrived. Yoga mat and all. I shot out the exit doors and looked at the line of men holding signs with names. There was mine. Yay! Although there were 3 names, two of which I didn't recognize, and not the name of the girl I arranged to share my ride with. Uh oh, this might get interesting. 4 people and tons of luggage? Good god! I asked the driver about it, but quickly realized his english was very poor. First I thought he was saying that those two were suppose to arrived at 8am (it was 10am at this point). Also, my (unmet) friend named Emily was nowhere to be seen and her flight was meant to arrive an hour before me. I was trying to ask him what we do, how we look for everyone, how long we wait, what is the DEALIO? I quickly grew boiling hot in my warm wool travelling pants. We waited 30 minutes. I got worried. I looked all over the place for Emily and turned on my data roaming on my phone ($$$) to email her. I tried to call her also, no answer. wu-whoa. He called Ganesh, the car-arranger, and he said to wait for 30 more minutes, and the two other names on the sign were from an earlier pick up (phew!). I couldn't imagine how we could leave Emily there to fend for herself when she was expecting a pick up and it was her first time in India. Shit! LUCKILY after about 15 minutes I saw a girl, who looked like the Emily I had seen on facebook, carrying a yoga mat - YES! This must be her! I waved and pointed and she came outside. "Emily?"... "EMILY!" Yay. It turns out she was waiting inside and I was waiting outside, the whole time for 45 minutes. Oops. 

Off we went in the car, after getting "booster juice" smoothies at a little stall that tasted nothing like actual booster juice smoothies. It was a slow, hot, smelly, loud car ride with lots to look at but we made it. We said we would get together later, but we both fell asleep when we made it to our rooms. I slept 5pm-1am then woke up. Oops. I browsed the internet and emailed my mom, then fell asleep by force again around 3am until 6am. Good enough! I heard the birds waking up and the traffic slowly growing. I opened the blinds and here is the beautiful Mysore sunrise that was blossoming outside my window:

So now it's time to get everything in order. Breakfast, re-pack, register at the shala, move into my apartment, buy all of the basics I need (I forgot a hairbrush, duh!), get my DOG - what?! A dog? details in the next email! Off to brekky now. More stories later. 

xo