In da Motherland

I'm in the Motherland!! The trip to Delhi was pretty uneventful, including:

1) The bus ride from Ottawa to Montreal
2) The flight from Montreal to Amsterdam
3) The flight from Amsterdam to Delhi

I forgot how brutal the red-eye flights are going to Europe. I was dead-tired by the time we arrived in Amsterdam, and we still had half the travelling time to go. Fortunately, I managed to get a lot of sleep on both flights, which helped.

The Delhi airport wasn't actually as bad as everyone was hyping it up to be. That's likely due to the fact that the KLM flight arrived there after midnight. There were still a million people in the arrivals hall waiting to pick up passengers...you almost feel like a celebrity for 5 seconds with everybody watching you.

Random weirdness: Everytime there is an announcement over the PA system in the airport, it is prepended with a sound. This sound is exactly the sound your computer makes when you receive a new e-mail in Windows Mail or Outlook Express. Did some guy actually record that sound into a WAV file on his computer and copy it into the airport PA system??

More random weirdness: I was waiting with all our luggage outside the airport while Dad looked for the prepaid taxi, and a couple of dudes came up to me and asked if I was "Mike".

The temperature in Delhi was 21 degrees when we arrived, which was pleasant. I now know that "burning pollution" smell that everyone refers to...I could feel my lung lifespan shortening by the minute. I think I'm used to it now, but I don't know if that's a good thing!

It's a beautiful day outside today however...around 22-23 degrees. We're in Khel Gaon (Asian Games village), and it's very quiet here....no cars honking or anything. I'm hanging out with aunt and cousins here, and their cream-coloured Labrador Retriever. They have filtered water here...we've been drinking it and haven't gotten sick yet, so the filter does work!

Digestive update: I'm experiencing "blockage". I will probably have the opposite problem in a few days.

Tomorrow, we leave for Jaipur!