Beethoven In Trance - Episode 49

After we got back from Portland, OR for our first marathon, We rested on day at home (packed our luggage, cleaned the gutter). We sat on the plane to Delhi the next day.

We first arrived JFK airport @ NY around noon. We checked in, went through custom. And waited @ the gate for our plane from Air India. The plane itself wasn't bad. There weren't any seats in front of us so we have plenty leg space. Only the guy sitting next to us was a big guy and he took a lot of space. The food was great on the plane. Jessica had chicken curry and I ordered fish expecting something indian. Well, it was not, it's a western style poached fish and I didn't like it at all. The next day, breakfast was egg and sausage, nothing exciting. After 16 hours of sitting, we finally arrived Delhi at 4:45pm local time. The airport policy was armed with rifle or semi-auto machine guy. We had a pick up at the airport arranged by a friend of ours here in US. We were glad we had a pick up because the traffic is horrible and there wasn't much order or directions in clean display (and we soon found out the pre-paid taxi was not as we expected).

Arrived at the bride's home in Noida in the evening, I was tired already. We chated with bride's parents and we went to the guest house close by. The room seemed to be ok but the toilet is dirty (and soon we found it was normal). We didn't know how to use the water heater (or maybe it wasn't working anyway). I had to have a cold water shower. I wasn't feeling that well that night, and we decided not to go back to bride's home for dinner. We had some simple airplane food we saved, and I went to bed with air condition on. The air condition sounded like a jet plane and I coudn't stand it. I had to shut it down, but sleeping in a room with no windows at 90F wasn't pleasant either. The tiger essential balm came into rescue (thank god my wife packed it). I put it on my temple, under nose and back above my neck, and I felt much better. I had some rest the next morning before I woke up around 5am.

It was still early in the morning and our friend (the bride) surely wasn't wake. We walked around the block and watched the street getting busy. The streets are really in bad shape, dusty, dirty, and full of construction and human trashes. It wasn't a pleasant sight. We came back to hotel and waited for a while, then went to the bride's home. She was barely waking up so we sat outside of the house in the patio for a while. I had three cups of hot water and that helped bringing my fever down a bit more. We had breakfast almost noon (I was starving by that time), and the food was good. A bit later, we met the sister of one of our coworker friends here. She was nice enough to take us around for some shopping and she gave us a package to take back to US for her sister. We told her to bring more package because our luggage can fit more. So we agreed to meet again two days later when we were back from Agra. After that, we just sat around in bride's house and in the afternoon, we went to a nearby 'club' (almost like a building built for community event) for the engagement party. The club seemed to be half done, there were still constructions going on next to it. Anyway, we started the party a while later and the guests started to arrive. The cousins of the bride danced at the party, and we enjoyed the show. The groom eventually showed up and the dance show stopped. The official engagement ceremony started.

While the couple was sitting in front of everybody going through the ceremony. Guests started to eat. We liked the food there even there wasn't any animal protein. The engagement party went on, and we finally left for guest house and went to bed early because we had a early train to catch the next day. That was our day 2 in Noida, India.