air india

when last you heard from me, i was in chicago, too sick to move and lots of homework to do. now... well, as i write this, i´m in kirchheimbolanden, with my christmas cookie dough chilling in the refrigerator. thursday i only felt gross, a considerable improvement over wednesday. i went to mz first class and called in sick to the others, and to work. i returned my library books and went to the flowershop and said goodbye to ch and gave him his christmas gifts, and did the rest of my packing. i loaded as many albums as i could think of onto my ipod. left for the airport. arrived a little more than 2 hours before my flight left. well, the air india line was the whole way to the end of the terminal! it was crazy! all those indians and their fancy suitases! chatted with the beautiful girl in front of me in line. she rode the train with me to the airport and was on the same flight- i quickly learned thez were all on the same flight. there is only one flight. stops in frankfurt, bombai, and one more indian city. i was less worried after seeing how many people were behind me. it only took me 1 1/2 hrs to get to the check in counter. i was at the gate with all my baggage inspected before the scheduled take off. the plane was HUGE! double decker, 84 rows, i was 1/2 way back, 58. my seat mates were other single women, a girl transfering in frankfurt to spend a year working in istambul, and a phd student at UIC going home to bombai for xmas. before we even took off the adorable little purple and turquoise saried stewardess was passing out orange juice. the student told us the joke that on air india, they are always feeding you- they wake you up to feed you. it was true. after take off, we had our drinks and ''snack'' which was spicy and yummy, and will make me more adventurous next time i'm in a snackshop on devon. then dinner- yellow rice with cashews and rasins, pea and cauliflower curry, and these fried potato filling balls- will have to ask samir about this. by far the worst indian food i´ve ever had- but also the best airplane food i´ve ever had! after 3 mizerable hours of sleepless darkness, they really did wake us up to feed us breakfast! very continental fruit and crosant. the barf bag was beautiful too- printed with this fancy indian design. i brought one home with me.