My India Journal part 1 of 8

We checked out of the hotel in Atlanta and rode the shuttle back to the airport. I didn’t hear anything else from the lady going to El Paso, so I assume she made it alright. I hope so! After we got our bags checked in, we went to the terminal to find our gate. That airport is really cool! They had a lot of art done by kids and a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the common area of our terminal. I really enjoyed reading the tribute. He received the Nobel Peace Prize and they had it (or a replica) in a case. They also had his eyeglasses, which he didn’t need but thought they made him look distinguished. J I didn’t realize how much of an influence Gandhi was for Dr. King. There was a picture of the whole family eating Sunday dinner, and there’s a portrait of Gandhi hanging above the entrance into the dining room. That was a neat connection since we were headed to Gandhi’s country. Anyway, I thought that whole exhibit was neat. Then we thought about lunch. Since we had plenty of time, I wanted to go to Nathan’s and get corn dog nuggets. A lady that I work with said any time she goes through that airport, she has to get corn dog nuggets from Nathan’s, so that’s what I had my heart set on. After riding the terminal train all the way back to the main T Terminal, there was a sign saying that the T location is closed, but please go back to the D Terminal location. ARGH! We had just come from E Terminal! At that point I was getting light headed, so we ate at On the Border, (I think) instead. The food was great, but the service was lackluster. (One thing we noticed was that while we got real forks and spoons, our knives were plastic. That’s the world of Post 9-11 that we live in, I suppose.) I planned to make my visit to Nathan’s on the way home, so I wasn’t too disappointed. On a full belly, and feeling much better, we headed back to the E Terminal to wait on our flight. We could see the screen of Delta information, so it became a game of “How many seats unclaimed? How many unreserved? How many people on the list? What number are we on the list?” for about 2 hours. Then the gate agent shows up and starts dealing with all of the craziness in front of her. I think she must have had a hard day already, and the people wanting on this flight weren’t helping any. The other people were being so pushy and since we just listened to what she told them and waited our turn, I thought we might lose out to a squeakier wheel. Finally, and the VERY LAST second, she gave us our boarding passes and we were able to get on the plane. I knew that if we didn’t make this flight, we’d be another day delayed getting to India, and after waiting one day already, I was a bit of an emotional basket case. When she announced our name for the boarding passes, I have to admit – I teared up! After being so confused about whether we had gotten it right the day before, it felt good to get confirmation that yes, we were on the track we were supposed to be on. I looked down at my boarding pass and noticed that the row was a really low number for such a large plane. We got on and can you believe it? We were in Business Class! I’ve never ridden in anything but Coach all my life, and here I am flying Stand By, and I get a Business Class seat! It blew my mind! That’s when I suspected that God does have a sense of humor! J All that worrying, and we end up in Business Class. The flight to JFK was great! Part of the thrill was being on “the other side of the curtain” (Seinfeld fans know what that means) but most of the thrill was that we were making it to at least one more step in the journey to India and to Elizabeth! We each had our own DVD screen and could watch any of about 50 things On Demand or play interactive games with other passengers or individual games like chess or Bejeweled. How cool! I watched some, but fell asleep, too. That felt good! When we were getting ready to descend, I looked out the window and saw the moon – and it looked like we were level with it! It was the coolest thing ever!