First night in Chennai

I'm finally in Chennai, India and settled into my hotel room. Its 5:00 am as I write this, and I'll probably only get a couple hours sleep before my ride gets here in the morning. So far everything has gone very well with no hic-ups.

I packed late Thursday night, and made sure to strip down to just the essentials. So far the only thing I've noticed that I forgot was spare batteries for my camera. It hasn't given out yet though and I'm sure I can buy some here.

I got up at 5:30 Friday morning, took a shower to wake myself up, threw my glasses, got dressed, and went over my stuff one last time. The taxi I scheduled showed up at 6:10 am and whisked me away to the airport. I think I left my porch lights on, oh well.

Eugene's airport is really nice to leave and come home to. It was a good way to start the trip, everyone was friendly and I didn't have any troubles. I checked on upgrade possibilities but my ticket wasn't eligible and there was nothing available. I guess you have to pay for the priviledge to get an upgrade in the first place. Oh well.

Eugene to San Fransisco was a quick and comfortable jump. We were delayed about an hour due to weather conditions in San Fran. I didn't know there was every inclement whether down there. I sat next to a Japanese businessman who just slept for the hour and a half flight. I managed to get aisle seats for the entire trip here, and that worked out just fine. Got to SF around 10:25 with a little over 2 hours until my next flight. I found the gate and then tried to set up my laptop to check out the wireless network. The access point was controlled by T-Mobile so I thought "Great, I'm a T-Mobile customer, I shouldn't have any problems..." Well, I wasn't able to get it to work. I managed to get to my account website and sign up for the hotspot service and pay my overdue bill (left over problems from having my card canceled). Still wasn't able to get it to work and my flight started boarding so I gave up.

During the flight to London I completed about 10 Kakuro puzzles from one of the books I bought last weekend. I stayed up long enough to watch "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I celebrated St. Patrick's Day on the plane with a single overpriced gin & tonic. Then I slept for quite awhile.

Heathrow was very busy. Boy those Brits know how to queue up. I got there at about 7am and it took an hour and several international phone calls between Chris and I before we finally caught up with each other. I landed in terminal 3, had to wait in line to get in line for a coach to shuttle us over to terminal 4, where I had to get in line to get to the arrivals area where I waited in another long queue until they could check me out. The customs agent was a little dubious about why I was leaving the terminal when my next flight was in a little over an hour, but he let me through. Chris didn't have enough time to make a sign with my name on it, but we managed to find each other after another phone call and we met up outside the first Starbucks we saw and took a couple pictures. Chris treated me to an English breakfast and some tea while we chatted about travel, blogging, and work. It was great to hang out for a bit and catch up, even though I had to fly halfway across the world to do it. I'd love to be able to spend more time in London someday.

After too short of a visit I had to run and stand in line at the departures security check point. I was pushing it very close, my flight was scheduled to leave at 9:40 am and it was 9:20 by the time I got to the front of the line. There were a couple Indian women arguing with the security agent about why they had to take their bangels off. Being a pro now at security check-points I had my jacket off, laptop out, watch and wallet, all ready to go and through the machine in seconds. My gate was the farthest one away from the check-point so I had to run my tookis off to get there. Luckily there was another large queue for boarding so I wasn't in danger of being left behind. After a few minutes my breathing slowed and my heart stopped racing and I was on the plane and in my aisle seat.

I was getting exhausted at this point, so after completing only a couple more Kakuro puzzles and flipping through the stations half-heartedly I put on the complimentary sleep mask, reclined the chair all the way back to its generous 94 degree angle, wrapped myself with the feeble blanket, and zonked out. I missed one of the snacks, but I didn't care, I was still full of English breakfast. There were plenty of little screaming children on this flight, and I got to have one of them right behind me, kicking my chair and beating on the headrest for added emphasis as he cried in his mothers lap. Fun stuff. Really makes you want to have kids someday...

The gal next to me was kind enough to wake me up for the last meal of the flight. I got my first taste of India as I ate some spicy fried puffy things and watched a sappy Bollywood film. We got to Chennai around 1:30 am Sunday morning. Where did the weekend go?

I called Keval as soon as I got off the plane and he reassured me that someone was there waiting for me to drive me to the hotel once I got through customs. The passport control line took me about half an hour to get through, and I got worried at the baggage claim when I didn't see my bag for awhile, until I realized attendants had been pulling bags off and piling them up to the side. I eventually found my suitcase and headed over to the currency exchange. After another half hour of waiting in line I had a pocket full of rupees. My driver was holding a sign "Mr. Jeff Bennett". I had to laugh to myself, I'm not used to seeing "Mr." in front of my name. He was glad to see me because he was starting to worry that he had missed me. It was nearing 3:00 am now. After a brief confusion about which side of the car I was supposed to get in on, we had a nice little chat and drive, as I sipped my ice cold bottled water that was awaiting me in the car. The driver reassured me that the Sheraton was the nicest business hotel in the city. I gave him 200 rupees (about 4 bucks) as a tip as the bell hop took my bags inside.

I got checked in with no hassles, although I was a bit short with the clerk because he wanted to sign me up for some Sheraton star plan or some such nonsense and all I wanted to do was get in my room. The bell hop led me to my room, I gave him a nice tip and then got settled in. I have a safe in the room so I put my return trip tickets, one credit card, and some of the US cash that I didn't convert in there. Hope I can remember the code to get back in there when I leave...

I got connected on the wireless network here, checked my email, and uploaded some photos. I added a link to the new album I started for this trip. After writing this, its almost 6am and my contact will be meeting me for breakfast in about 4 hours. Going to try to get some sleep, but I'm not tired yet. Good night.