Friday, the day after we got Sarah, started around 8am in Kolkata. The first night, Sarah slept 12 hours! We were sooo blessed by this! She woke up happy, alert and ready for the day. After breakfast, we checked our flight schedule and found out our flight to New Delhi had been cancelled because of the strike!! YIKES! We quickly called our travel agent in the states and he said he would call us back in 15 minutes. However, after this conversation we never heard from him again until we arrived in America. I will never use his services again and I know our adoption agency has now taken him off the travel packet. Anyway...
Chad, called several people. One person would tell us the site was wrong, the flight is not cancelled. Another person would say, give us cash and we'll get you a flight. A different person would say we'll call you back. This cycle continued for SEVERAL HOURS. Chad was tirelessly making phone calls all morning until we finally heard back from our hotel's travel agent. Around noon, the travel agent came to our room and set us up with new tickets to Delhi through Jet Airways. The flight would be a couple hours earlier than we had expected. So, we quickly gave Sarah a short nap, packed, and headed to the airport. PRAISE GOD we were flying out that Friday!! If we had flew to Delhi the next day not only would be have missed Sarah's scheduled medical appointment but we also would have been paying 1,000 dollars a person for our domestic flight!! The private airlines were definately taking advantage of us, the Air India customers.
Thankfully, our driver to the airport was fantastic. He gave us an "on the go" tour of Kolkata and spoke great english. We had no problems getting on our flight. It was a little delayed and very crowded but we were just happy to be on a plane by this point in time. Amazing how your perspective changes isn't it!? We arrived at our hotel around 11pm. We quickly put Sarah to bed, video skyped with Ethan and slept. It was great to finally hear Ethan's voice and see his cute face.
Our next morning was pretty relaxing. We slept in, ate a leisurely breakfast, unpacked a little, and played with our baby girl. Our appointment wasn't until noon and was only 2km from our hotel. The medical appointment is done by an U.S. Embassy approved physician. It is just a requirement for immigration. We had to do the same thing for Ethan. We had no problems getting to the medical center and our driver was great. The medical center was chaotic and crowded but we found where we were going with little difficulty. We checked in at 12pm but weren't seen until 1:30. So, our little girl was starting to get pretty cranky by the end of it. Thanks to another family that traveled before us, we had a waiver for Sarah's vaccines. No shots were required!! THANK YOU LORD! We are still required to give her shots when she is home, but I'd rather do it here than in India. The exam was pretty quick and simple. He listened to her heart and that was about it. We were fine with that. It was getting really hot in there and we just wanted to get back to the air conditioned car.
On the way back to our hotel, Sarah fell asleep. We did ask the driver to pull over real quick so we could get a good picture of the tower. We were satisfied with this view. It was terribly hot in New Delhi. May is a VERY hot month. By this time of day, it was pushing 110 degrees with lots of humidity outside. We all rejoiced for our successful day and celebrated with a family nap and dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.
The next day was also extremely HOT and we were VERY tired. As a result, we decided we would just stay close to the hotel. Our hotel was connected to 3 malls (all air conditioned!). So, when our daughter wasn't catching up on her rest, we explored the malls and did a little shopping. We bought our daughter her first bows, shoes, etc. It was a pretty good day. :)
"The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exhault him." Exodus 15:2
2 comments:
It is fun to read about your experience. Funny how all our trips are a bit different with surprises along the way. What a blessing to get a flight back to Delhi during the strike and for Sarah to not have her shots in India.
Happy Mother's Day!
April :-)
I hope the waiver still works by the time we travel -- it would be so nice not to have to do that so soon after meeting our new child. So, so grateful that you found a flight that didn't set you back $2,000+!! Sometime I'd like to know which hotel you used in Delhi . . . the one we stayed in last time was not particularly child-friendly. :o) Can't wait to hear the rest of your story!
Nancy
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