I'm chillin at JFK on the way home: 36 hours down, 8.5 to go. Sarah and I left New Delhi after a very relaxing 'day of beauty' at the Taj Palace and her Nagpur host, Sati Khanna, met her at the Mumbai airport while I continued on to Amsterdam later that night. Raychael is probably boarding her flight to Paris as I type. She met her friend in Hyderabad on the 23rd. As Ryan warned, getting through security is a beating. Before you can check your bags, they have to be scanned and passengers go through the full-on body search. Then through the same security procedure to get to the gate and a final body search and bag search just prior to boarding. They have a woman guard check female passengers, which is a good thing because they really search. I heard that the security was at high alert because of Independence Day festivities this week. Even after all that, a batty old lady a few rows ahead of me in coach tried to open the outside hatch while we were mid-Atlantic and continued to keep the flight attendants and air marshalls entertained for the rest of the trip. FYI, the marshalls don't wear uniforms - just khaki pants and navy sweatshirts, but they were carrying tazers and were all business.
The team and I will consolidate photos and get a presentation together for the GSE committee and for the District conference. All of us look forward to getting together soon to recap our fantastic experience and to try our indian recipes on each other.
Thanks once more to our wonderful District 3030 hosts. We look forward to a reunion with the inbound team on April 16.
I couldn't have imagined a better or more productive exchange. Thank you Ryan, Sarah, Raychael and Tyler for sharing a month with me. It is an experience I will always cherish and I love each of you dearly.
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