Archive for the ‘India’ Category

Days 2 and 3, shopping and travelling!

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

So on our first full day there, Desmond got up ridiculously early as noted, fortunately we didn’t have much planned for the day. My Mother in Law and I went out shopping with one of Dan’s cousins and bought fabric and such for making sulvar kameses (spelling is probably off), but other then that we didn’t do much. Desmond did explore some and get to play with someone’s keys, other then that though it was a low key day.

You can see how exhausted he is in this picture. He definitely suffered from jet lag on the trip.
playing with keys

The morning of day three Desmond again woke up really early around 3am or so. Unfortunately it was not another low key day, it was the first day of traveling and visiting relatives. Now I am glad we got to see all Dan’s aunts and uncles and their families, but it would have been so much better if we had had another 2 days or so downtime before we started making the rounds, or if we had visited one house a day instead of 2 to 3. Desmond would fall asleep in one house and wake in a new one, it was a bit disorienting. We had a rented taxi/car with a driver for the day, no car seat again. Desmond did enjoy wandering the car though.

taxi

taxi 2

We first visited Dan’s uncle who also lives in New Delhi, his Aunt passed away a couple of years ago, maybe a year or so after our last visit. Desmond had fun playing at the house and Dan’s cousin’s daughter had a son who was just about Desmond’s age which was nice, though he went down for a nap not to long into our visit, which Desmond tried to do as well but wasn’t quite able to fall asleep with everyone around. I do not remember names of the people in the photos, but the first one is Desmond with his Dada and Dan’s Uncle. The second is him hugging his “cousin”.

sitting

hugging

He did quickly fall asleep in the car once we’d left though.

sleep

We then drove about an hour to Dan’s Boua (spelling? Aunt) Brahmi’s house. Unfortunately this aunt had also passed away, but her son and daughter in law and their two sons live at the house. This is where I was able to use their computer to get online and update the blog and e-mail people. Both the sons speak very good English which is nice, since neither Dan or I speak Hindi. Desmond did wake shortly while we were here, just about long enough to have a glass of Fanta and I think he may have eaten a cookie or two, but can’t remember before falling right back asleep. He really wasn’t a huge fan of Fanta.

Fanta 1

Fanta 2

Fanta 3

He then slept through the rest of the visit and when we got in the car he slept all the way to our next and final stop for the day/evening.

sleeping

We finished off the day at Dan’s Uncle and Aunt’s house. His Uncle had passed away since our last visit as well (yes it was a bit depressing visiting three houses of relatives where the directly related one had passed on). It was nice to get to our final destination for the evening though. Because of his nap Desmond did stay up for awhile that evening and he got to eat chocolate ice cream which he was quite happy about. He was less happy about us confining him to the bedroom we were in, but the main room has a fairly steep staircase and we didn’t want to watch him every second to make sure he wasn’t climbing up and down them (like he enjoys). It was a fairly exhausting day especially after having been up so early thanks to Desmond’s jet lag.

Heading to the house in India

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

So we arrived in India around 4pm Indian time the day after we left the US (was around 7/8am our time). We got there and took a Taxi to Dan’s Aunt and Uncle’s house in New Delhi. Unfortunately no seatbelts so no car seat, and I really was not happy the whole trip with Desmond not in a car seat, it was very scary. Anyways Desmond was exhausted and stood and sat with his Dada (Grandpa) most of the trip to the house. He did sleep some, but not a lot since there was so much to do and see.

taxi

taxi 2

Once we got to the house, we had dinner and visited with various relatives. Desmond went down around 9pm or so Indian time and Dan and I followed shortly after, which was a good thing. Around 2:30am Desmond woke up for the day starving and ready to go. We tried to get him back down but it wasn’t happening, so we fed him and gave him the iPod so he could watch My Friends Tigger and Pooh while we attempted to at least half sleep for a bit. It made for a very tired Sarah and Dan the next day. Here is Desmond enjoying his early morning wake up.

ipod

iPod 2

Ipod Daddy sleeping

Oh and thank you Mom for the little fake mp3 player you got him for the trip, he didn’t really use the player much but those headphones were wonderful since they were just the right size for him and worked with the iPods.

Flying, Flying, Flying, but not Sleeping!

Friday, November 7th, 2008

So we started our trip on Monday October 20th, we headed out of the house around 7:30am and got to my in-laws around 8:30. The blue van was there around 9:30 and we headed to National Airport to catch our flight to JFK. We didn’t have any problems at National other then my mother in law getting wanded and somehow even with them checking her bags them letting Desmond’s cup full of water through the security checkpoint. Here is a picture of Desmond enjoying his chocolate chip coffee cake at National.

Mmm Chocolate!

We arrived at JFK and got our luggage fairly quickly, we then had to figure out where to go for the international flight. We figured it out and navigated JFK’s transit system. We arrived and checked in without too many problems, we then went to get something to eat thinking we had about an hour to 90 minutes till boarding, turns out we had 30 minutes, who knew they boarded super early. We got our food and then boarded. When boarding they checked our rolling luggage bag which wasn’t a big deal and the car seat. I let them take the car seat since they said they had car seats on board, and the info I had from the FAA said this was possible and we might not be able to use ours if they had them.

Turns out what they call car seat on an Air India flight are really bassinets, Eek! So we get aboard and ask the flight attendant about the car seat and learn that no they don’t have them. Which leads to Dan and his Dad having a long discussion that eventually involved getting the pilots approval to use our car seat for Desmond since we had paid for his full seat. It all got worked out, but Dan and I were not looking forward to having to deal with it on the flight home (turned out to be a non-issue, no problems at all with the car seat on the flight home, would have thought the flight out of India would be tougher then the flight out of the US on the issue).

Once it was settled Dan was upset, having to have dealt with the whole mess, but Desmond was happy since he was in his seat and we were happy since he was secure in his seat. We did try the seat forward facing for a few minutes since there was a TV screen in the back of every head rest, but Desmond wasn’t really interested in it, so we quickly turned him back rear-facing like he is use to.

Here are a couple of pictures of how Desmond spent some of the flight.

Sleep!

iPod Watching

More iPod Watching!

Unfortunately he did not spend most of the flight asleep, he got maybe 4 hours in 2 2 hour chunks. He did a lot of running down the aisles and iPod watching, we were so glad we decided to bring them, both on the flight and later in the trip as well, they were wonderful for keeping the boy entertained at odd times in the night.

Eventually we arrived in India and changed some money, got our luggage and headed out to meet everyone. They were all waiting outside the airport, since there are some strange regulations on who is allowed on the inside of the airport in India these days. Desmond and Dan were both wasted and I wasn’t doing much better.

arrived

We were there in India and we got all our bags on top of the Taxi and headed to Dan’s Aunt and Uncle’s house for the evening/night, it was our home base for the trip.

The Start of the trip report…

Friday, November 7th, 2008

Okay I just uploaded a couple of pictures, I have a lot to go through and I’m going to start on the trip report to India in a few. Overall, the trip was decent. I am never doing it again with an 18 month old, either an 8 month old or younger or a 3 year old or older is fine, but an 18 month old was just a little too mobile, but not quite old enough to listen to why he shouldn’t be doing things. I’ll start off with the airport and work on from there!

We’re Home!

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

We just made it in the door after 28ish long hours of travel. Desmond slept some on the plane which was nice. We’ll see how tonight goes. We had fun, highlights of the trip involve Dada walking into a cow, Desmond waking at 2:30am the first 2 nights we were there, a nice trip to the doctor for Desmond for a cold and lots and lots of relatives. I’ll try to update with photos and such soon.

On the way home

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

So we should be on our way home now, enjoying the plane ride from New Delhi to JFK. I’ll post how the trip went and photos when we get home. Probably some on the 5th and a bunch more the following couple of days depending on how bad jet lag and the toddler are, and how we end up getting from JFK to home, our flight home changed so we are getting in 12 hours earlier then expected, so now we need to figure out how to get home. Since oddly enough 15 hour at JFK with Desmond is not our idea of a good time.

Don’t forget to Vote if you are in the US, even if the choices do suck!

Safe and Sound in India

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

We made it here safe and sound.  Today was the first day we could get online, the flight wasn’t horrible Desmond slept for 4 hours of the flight, would have been nicer if he had slept a bit longer, but he didn’t.  He has been waking us at 2:30am since we’ve been here we’re hoping he starts sleeping a bit longer soon.  So far it has been a nice trip, though a bit more sleep would make it even better.

I’ll try to post again when I can.

Our bags are packed, we’re ready to go!

Monday, October 20th, 2008

Okay I’ll be shutting down my computer in about 10 minutes or so, we’re packed, the bags are in the car, Dan’s doing last minute house things and then we’re on our way to India. Enjoy the posts that have been put up for while I’m gone and I hope to post some from India so keep an eye out.

Anyways I’ll either post from India or on the 4th or 5th when we get home. Have a great 2 weeks all!

All Packed!

Sunday, October 19th, 2008

So we are all packed except for a couple of minor items. This is really nice, we still need to clean a bit, but we are more or less ready for India! We did have to stop and pick up a hat for Desmond, since the one I had was too small, but I found one at Gymboree for 99 cents so it worked out nicely, now if only he’d keep it on his head.

Anyways we are all set and ready to go. It seems that Benadryl does nothing for Desmond, it doesn’t make him hyper, which is good, but it also doesn’t seem to knock him out, which is less good, but not a huge deal. So we won’t be drugging him with Benadryl to get him to sleep on the plane, I hope he sleeps on his own, 15 hours on a plane with a non-sleeping toddler would just not be fun!

Flight Change

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

So we got both good and bad news about the flight home from India today. The good news, we’re on the direct flight home, which is nice, it is shorter then the one with the layover in London, and since the layover was so short it wasn’t really worth the stop. The bad news is it gets in 12 hours earlier then our flight with the layover. Now this won’t be bad news, if we didn’t now have a 15 hour layover at JFK. Which so isn’t going to happen, there is no way Desmond will survive 15 hours at JFK let alone me and Dan.

Our options are to change our flight with Delta which is a $50 fee for each ticket, to try standby, which may or may not be the same fee or a $25 fee, hoping that Delta doesn’t raise their fees in the next 2 weeks, rent a car and drive home or pay for Amtrak tickets and just abandon our tickets home on Delta. All three will likely cost about the same, since with Amtrak we don’t need to get Desmond a ticket, he’s under 2, we can’t use the car seat anyways, and the seats are large and it being a train he can walk around which he’ll love. We figure we’re going to wait until we land and figure out which option to take from there. We are 99.9% positive the option will not be renting a car, because we really don’t want to drive 5 hours home after being on a plane for 15+ hours and being jet lagged.

I have a feeling the train may end being our top option, except the bus ride to the train is 2 hours before we get on the train, so that maybe pushing it a bit for Desmond after a day on a flight already. It costs almost exactly the same for either the train with the bus to it or the plane change fees, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens when we arrive and if there are any ticket even still available on an earlier flight when we get in.

On the plus side we’ll be arriving home around 5pm most likely, which is much nicer then the midnight we were expecting.