New York, New York

Trusty toilet paper to take with us

Dec. 31, 2012-Happy New Year to all!

We are in New York City staying at a motel near JFK. We were lucky not to get evicted from our flight from Cleveland today. By the time we got off the plane it reeked of garlic bagel. Not wanting to miss a meal, we bought bagel sandwiches & carried them on board.

I just wanted to check in with you to wish you well in the New Year. We arrived this afternoon in preparation for our departure for the South of India tomorrow. It took us as long to get to the motel from the airport as it did to fly here from Cleveland. Most of the issue was getting on the airport train going in the wrong direction. When we finally got to the shuttle stand things smoothed out. Our first glitch. 

We spent the evening with friends formerly of Akron. They're both well & introduced us to a great Japanese restaurant in their neighborhood. Always good catching up.

Tomorrow we fly Air India from here to Delhi. Hopefully our next flight will smell of curry, not garlic. It's a fifteen hour flight non-stop. We have a five hour layover in Delhi before we board another plane for Chennai. After a four hour flight we end up at our hotel. Fortunately it will be nighttime & we'll go right to bed.

As you know the emails from India will be full of my take on the experience. We've been to Northern India & are relying on Lauralee Garfinkel's assurance that the South is very different. India is a hard place to be & we figured we wouldn't be in better physical shape next year, so why not go. My motto has always been that we should do the hard countries while I can still squat. Yes, they have those blasted Asian toilets (not in the hotels, though).

We'll be on an Overseas Adventure Travel tour with 16 total in the group. OAT is a subsidiary of Grand Circle Travel with whom we've traveled in the past. India isn't a place we want to tackle on our own.

Toby