Flying, Flying, Flying, but not Sleeping!
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.
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.
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.
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.