Travels to india

So I have completed more than 11 days of being away from the states. Just wanted to do a recap of what's been going on since my departure.

I left on the 31st from BWI and flew into London. Having a 12 hour layover, I convinced Mougie to come spend the day with me. Luckily enough she's an amazing friend and made the 4 hour hike from Grimsby up to London to protect the foreigner from British harm. I had a hotel room that they gave me for the day, so I came through customs, caught a hotel hoppa (please note the British apparently think their gangsta by calling it a hoppa and not a hopper), navigated to my hotel and dropped off my items. Caught a quick but not refreshing shower considering all of my things are still in my suitcase that was automatically placed in queue for my flight to Mumbai. Mougie and I had some issues attempting to meet up as she had issues with the bus and once I got to London I had issues contacting her. So we finally agree to meet back at the airport and I attempted to take the local bus to the airport because unlike the hotel hoppa (at $20 rate), the local bus to the airport is free. I was told by the hotel staff just to walk across the street and I could pick up any bus that said Heathrow terminal 5, well they sent me to the wrong spot. I asked a local where I could get the bus, she looked at me like I was crazy and sent me to a different spot. Also wrong! so finally, I went to the map at the bus stop and deciphered it for myself, got to the right spot and caught the bus. Met up with mougie at terminal 5 and we took a tube into central london where we had some lunch (only took a couple of hours to decide on a place to eat :) ), saw harrod's (amazing department store) and had a pint at the bunch of grapes. From there took the tube back, lots of traffic, had to jump off and take another local bus, which I managed again because I'm awesome and can decipher the hardcore london maps now and got back to the hotel an hour after I was supposed to check out. Grabbed my things, caught the hotel hoppa back and got to wait as my flight was delayed...After about an hour we got to board and then depart. Flight from London to Mumbai was smooth, landed in Mumbai and had a 5 hour layover with nothing to do and no internet access to be found. Realized I stick out really badly within Indian culture due to my style and my tattoos. In Indian culture it's not rude to stare or talk about you as odd as that sounds so people would blatantly gawk at me, point at me, conversations would start when I walked past, and my favorite is when I would walk pass I would hear the shutter sound of a camera phone. At first this was unnerving, but now after dealing with it for over a week, it's pretty common, I feel kind of like Lady Gaga but with a better looking face.

My flight from Mumbai to Lucknow was a domestic flight, so I had to grab my luggage, take a bus to a different part of the airport then take their local airline Kingfisher air. Their airports are very different in that one can't really check in an hour before the flight. They weren't sure why I was asking to check in or what they expected me to do with my luggage, so I just waited in the terminal and came back an hour before my flight and got it sorted. Needless to say security was a difficulty, they have different entrances for men and women and I don't think they trusted that I knew my own gender/sex. I also found the issue in that people would constantly cut me off when I was speaking, cut me off in line and in general were very rude. From what I've noticed this is a cultural thing and even though they stem from British rule, the same manners/cultural rules do not apply. It's not seen to be inappropriate or even rude, it's just the norm. I finally had every piece of my luggage checked and tagged (yes you need luggage tags even on your carry ons and they check it constantly, this was not fun) and sat around watching cricket with the other passengers. The cricket world cup was playing and India was a main contender so the country seemed to be on edge as these matches last upwards of 5 days and this was the final day.

Boarded the plane to Lucknow, finally caught a couple hours of sleep on the plane. Touched down, got my luggage, had Sharif waiting for me to take me to my hotel . Got to the hotel, yes, I am staying at the Comfort Inn (I think they fear us Americans can't cut it, as my fellow colleague from Sri Lanka was placed in the local Hotel Bandhan (not nearly as nice), but I'm not going to complain). Got wireless set up, got a real shower and clean clothes and faced issues with jet lag. Had issues sleeping all nite and finally passed out the next morning at about 8 am (Sunday, India time). Hadn't slept since I had left on Thursday Night (Bmore time). Slept all day Sunday, woke up, spoke with friends/family and went back to sleep to prepare for my week.

Thus ends the adventures of arriving