Homeward

I'm writing this from a small Internet cafe in Bombay Airport. It's Tuesday and we were supposed to be leaving two days ago. Then things got a bit sporty. The nice man at the counter told us that our flights had been cancelled and that there was nothing he could do for us. I called the airline in Dubai and the nice lady there told me that the next three flights leaving the country from their airline were full. The best she could do was get us on a flight on Tuesday night. Then I called the hotel we had booked in Dubai and the nice man their politely told me that because we were cancelling so late they would retain the rate of our first night's stay which was $140, and that there was nothing he could do for me. This all in the space of a few hours. But something cool happened. Nobody freaked out. Nobody even flinched. We had something similar happen to us while we were in Scotland at the beginning of the trip and it was a different story. Nerves were raw and things were tense. This time around there was a sort of air that said that since option A was no longer an option, option B would need to made up on the spot. We gave our friend Ravi a ring and in two hours he was back with a taxi. We went back to the hotel we had just checked out of and re-checked in. And we had two fun days in the city. Ravi was the guy who helped us out when we first got here and he has been good as gold all the way through. Today during lunch he introduced us to a friend of his who is a big-time politician. He told us that if there were any problems with getting our flight today that we could call him and he would fix the problem. Thankfully it didn't come to that and we have our boarding passes in hand and we are set to go.

Right now it is 5:30 in Bombay. We will fly to Dubai tonight spend a few hours there and then catch a flight to Glasgow, Scotland in the morning. We'll spend 24 hours in Glasgow and then hop the 11AM flight to Toronto and land(thanks to flying with time changes) at 1 in the afternoon on Thursday. So the next time that you will hear from us will be from Canada. It probably goes without saying, but we are all really tired and ready for a chance to unwind at home. More on that from our beautiful homeland.