PRE-India adventures

 I have just arrived in India and am so excited!  I arrived this morning around 5 am -- and it sure felt good getting off that plane, as I arrived about 28 hours later than my itinerary!  When I got to the airport on Saturday, they said the plane was about 2 hours late...ok, no big deal...but then 2 hours later, they announced that they were giving us all dinner in the terminal.  When they did so, a rumor began circulating that the plane was not coming at all...which ended up being the case.  They trooped us all back through customs (1 passenger at a time, with an enormous cluster of people trying to get through all at once, of course) to get our Exit stamp CANCELLED and then onto buses to go to an airport hotel.  They pretty much forced us to share our room with someone, and I was really lucky that I ended up with a really nice Chinese girl about my age named 'Lena' (her english name).

The plane was then scheduled to leave at 12 noon the next day...we got free breakfast and lunch...and then the plane was moved to 4.  It felt like the wait would never end, and meanwhile Max had arrived in New Delhi at the scheduled time (the night before) and was waiting for me.  He had managed to come sans suitcase, so he was without me OR any of his stuff (which is worse?...don't answer!)  When I heard the plane was postponed again, I was fed up, and went to the airport to see for myself.  Lena accompanied me, and we actually went into the Ethiopian Airlines office and talked to the manager himself.  He showed us the emails he had received (the plane had gotten a flat tire) and now the delay was finding crew.  He seemed really nice, if extremely stressed out.  He assured us that we could get a refund if the flight did not leave that day.

 As the afternoon wore on, it became evident that the replacement flight was not going to arrive - at this point I was desperate to get to India and Max, and I ended up canceling my Travelocity reservation (with a full refund, thank goodness!) and buying a last minute ticket on the internet for the regularly scheduled Beijing-New Delhi flight yesterday (which was still on time).  It ended up being 2 hours late, but I finally made it this morning and was so happy!  And my flight did not end up leaving until 3 pm Beijing time today, which means I STILL would not be here!  And I've had a full day in New Delhi (posts to come).  So the moral of the story is, sometimes being aggressive at the airport works out, and don't fly with Ethiopian airlines in Asia, really far away from Ethiopia and their spare tires!