!ncredible !ndia

After an almost six month hiatus in the United States I am back to my globetrotting ways and the first trip overseas this fall is to India. It has been a few years since I have been to India, so this is an interesting change to the fall semester recruiting schedule. Over the next week I'll be spending time in Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, and the Himalayan foothills region visiting schools with colleagues from Oberlin, Middlebury, Lafayette, and Bryn Mawr.

On Thursday around noon I made the trek, once again, to BNA and boarded a Continental plane first to Houston and then boarded an even better plane (Emirates) to Dubai. 14 hours later, after three meals, numerous drinks, and a lot of catching up on movies on my 14 inch TV, I landed in Dubai. I had a three hour layover in Dubai and I was able to get some grad class work done (a whole new element to international travel) and grabbed dinner at McDonald's - when in the Middle East why not grab my favorite sandwich, a McArabia! Then I found myself back on an Emirates plane bound for Mumbai. After a short 2 1/2 hour flight I landed in India at 3:00am local time.

In typical !ncredible !india fashion we were treated like cattle and put through swine flu lines where we had to fill out a form and then get looked at by some apparent medical expert at the airport. It was ridiculous, I think India just enjoys the idea of Americans bringing disease after all the years of Americans worried about getting malaria and dysentery here in South Asia. Either way, after that then it was time for baggage claim in India. If you've never experienced this then consider yourself lucky. Let me try to paint a picture. Everyone crowds on top of one another right up against the baggage claim belt, and because Indians carry so much luggage when they travel overseas, they all have luggage carts and are banging them into one another and crowding you out of your space at the baggage claim belt with their cart and their bodies. It is frankly ridiculous. There is also nothing more random than a baggage claim in India - regular luggage mixed in with flat screen TVs (seriously, brand new Sony Bravias were on the belt), boxes, and just stuff rapped up and tied with rope. Odd.

Following the usual baggage claim debacle I emerged from the airport and found my driver and arrived at the Hyatt Regency Mumbai a little after 4:00am on Saturday. I pretty much crashed when I hit the room and woke up a little bit ago and am getting ready to meet everyone else and leave for Pune.

Welcome back to the blog!