Yesterday was the longest travel day I’ve ever had. Left my house at 4:30 CST to catch my flight 6:45 flight to Orlando which was then delayed for over an hour. When I made it to Orlando, little sleep coupled with bad signage and poor direction giving resulted in me taking the wrong tram to terminal B. Instead of going to the terminals like every other tram marked terminal B, my tram went to terminal B, but before the security line. Luckily I had a 3 hour layover and it wasn’t that big of a deal, but by the time I got through security again, my flight to Dubai was about to start its boarding process.
Thankfully, I wasn’t alone in my mistakes. There was another family that were given the same wrong directions as me, so we stuck it out together. Turns out they were also going to Dubai to catch a connecting flight to Nigeria. They were very nice.
What a flight it was. The 14 hour flight was under-booked and I ended up getting a whole row to myself. That alone made the flight for me. I mostly slept and watched movies from the wide range of choices, but it was nice. The food they served for lunch/dinner and breakfast was also great. No issues with Emirates at all!
I arrived into Dubai around 12:30pm GST and was there for a little under 3 hours. After you deplane your flight, you immediately walk out of security. To make your connecting flights, everybody has to go through a security line again. For having about 200+ people needing to go back through security, the process was very quick. The Dubai airport, much like my limited views of the rest of Dubai, is very fancy and flashy. Bigger is better and money is king. It literally felt like I stepped into a shopping mall. Some of the duty free stores seemed practical, but most were not. And not like, ‘oh do you really need to buy new clothes at the airport’, impractical, but more, ‘do you need to buy the new BMW M5 at the airport,’ type of impractical. Seriously, 2 people tried selling me 2 different cars. After exploring more of the airport, I ran into the nice Nigerian family again and they pointed me towards a nice lunch spot. I ate lunch at this great burger place, and had one of the best milkshakes of my life. Then I walked what seemed like a mile to my gate and waited to board. Sadly the 3 hour flight to Delhi turned into a 5 hour flight due to Pakistani airspace still being closed. On the flight they handed out customs forms, but I stupidly didn’t bring a pen with me. The lady next to me also didn’t have a pen 😦
The airport in New Delhi wasn’t as crazy as I expected it to be. My flight came in late at night so the customs lines were short and quick. Waiting for my baggage, I felt anxious for the first time this trip. My bags took literally 35 minutes to come off the belt and the whole time a small part of me was scared that my bags were lost or somebody mistook mine for theirs. After that whole ordeal, I walked out into the entrance hall and quickly spotted my tour guide holding the WPI sign. After a brief conversation we walked out to were the driver picked me up and took me to the hotel.
Indian Traffic is crazy. It is exactly like how people tell you it is: No rules, and the biggest vehicle wins. It was past 10:30pm at this point but we were still in traffic somehow. My driver was very funny and curious about Texas. I arrived 40 minutes later and was greeted by the most accommodating people ever at one of the nicest places ever. My favorite thing so far is the waterfall shower. I soon went to bed after watching the end of Godzilla on HBO.
To wrap it up, it was a long travel day full of excitement. Today, we are touring Old Delhi and will be seeing beautiful sites. More pictures and posts to come.
Brandon's Waughsome Adventures 