Friday, July 22, 2011
When I first booked our tickets to India, I made certain I had at least two hours between each connecting flight. We flew from Tulsa to Chicago, Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany, and Frankfurt to Bangalore.
The Tulsa to Chicago went well. The kids were happy, the plane was on schedule, and our six large suitcases were checked with no issues (they didn't even weigh them!) When we landed in Chicago, I took the boys and their super heavy backpacks to a McDonalds near our next flight's gate. We got our nuggets and settled in for our flight.
Our flight was delayed. And this is where my plans started to unravel. The delayed flight was supposed to leave @ 6:36pm from Chicago, and be in the air for 8 hours. So, I had decided to have Tyler skip his nap, so he'd have a better chance of sleeping through the entire plane ride. Well, 6:36 was manageable, but the 7:45 takeoff was about an hour and fifteen minutes too long for the napless wonder.
He was unhappy. And very very tired. So tired in fact that it took a good 20-30 minutes of all-out sobbing on the plane before he crumpled into an exhausted lump. When he finally did fall asleep, it was at an awkward angle across both mine and his seats, leaving me perched precariously on the edge of a cushion for the three hours he slept (yes, only three hours out of eight)
We landed in Frankfurt an hour late, but since I'd originally given us an hour cushion, we still had a good chance of making the next flight. I was not too happy about the immediate departure, since it basically caused us to sit in plane seats for a virtually uninterrupted 16 hours. But, we take what we can get.
What I did not expect was to have to go through security again at the Frankfurt airport. Our Bangalore flight was in a different Terminal than our arriving flight, and in Frankfurt, that means a security checkpoint. Enter Buzz Lightyear....
The Tulsa to Chicago went well. The kids were happy, the plane was on schedule, and our six large suitcases were checked with no issues (they didn't even weigh them!) When we landed in Chicago, I took the boys and their super heavy backpacks to a McDonalds near our next flight's gate. We got our nuggets and settled in for our flight.
Our flight was delayed. And this is where my plans started to unravel. The delayed flight was supposed to leave @ 6:36pm from Chicago, and be in the air for 8 hours. So, I had decided to have Tyler skip his nap, so he'd have a better chance of sleeping through the entire plane ride. Well, 6:36 was manageable, but the 7:45 takeoff was about an hour and fifteen minutes too long for the napless wonder.
He was unhappy. And very very tired. So tired in fact that it took a good 20-30 minutes of all-out sobbing on the plane before he crumpled into an exhausted lump. When he finally did fall asleep, it was at an awkward angle across both mine and his seats, leaving me perched precariously on the edge of a cushion for the three hours he slept (yes, only three hours out of eight)
We landed in Frankfurt an hour late, but since I'd originally given us an hour cushion, we still had a good chance of making the next flight. I was not too happy about the immediate departure, since it basically caused us to sit in plane seats for a virtually uninterrupted 16 hours. But, we take what we can get.
What I did not expect was to have to go through security again at the Frankfurt airport. Our Bangalore flight was in a different Terminal than our arriving flight, and in Frankfurt, that means a security checkpoint. Enter Buzz Lightyear....
We'd packed Buzz and Woody in Timothy's backpack for fun on the plane, but apparently Buzz looks a lot like a bomb in the X-ray machines. Timothy's backpack was flagged for hands on inspection. When they confirmed that Buzz was in fact a Space Ranger and not a Space Invader, the security people decided to apologize for the trouble by allowing Timothy to stand by the X-ray screen while they re-ran Buzz. It was very nice of them, and Timothy had been doing so well all day, I hated to turn down their offer. I ignored the ticking clock in my head and smiled while they chatted with me in German. (I would have chatted back, but the only German I know is from the movies, and it's mostly a dictionary of curse words)
So, LONG story short, we made it to our connecting flight, grabbed our boarding passes, and were hustled immediately on to the plane for takeoff. Good thing, because Jason would have been pretty upset if I'd had to call and tell him he was staying up in the middle of the night for nothing.
And while the kids and I were all very very ready to be off the plane in those last few minutes (hours), we made it to Bangalore unscathed. Now, since it's 12:45am here in Bangalore, I'm going to attempt to sleep and reverse some of this jet lag.
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