I have arrived....

Well....

Where to begin?  It's almost insane what I went through to get here, but I have finally arrived in India.  For those of you who don't know, I flew from Amsterdam to London (which is only about an hour and a half flight) only to miss my flight to Mumbai (which only leaves once a day) so I ended up having to spend another 24 hours in London.  Some would say "not a bad place to be stuck". Well under normal circumstances I might agree.  I flew in on British Airways, and was supposed to fly Virgin Atlantic to Mumbai.  Well British Airways is the reason I missed my flight, and they had a flight leaving at 10:30 the next morning, but wouldn't let me on it because they claimed "Virgin Atlantic doesn't work with anyone", without bothering to try transferring my ticket or anything.  It was also freezing and raining in London and I had not an ounce of warm clothing.  I was wearing a t-shirt with a small long sleeve shirt over it.  No sweater, no coat.  Which means I couldn't go outside.  I was also staying in a hotel right next to the airport which means I wasn't really in the center of London either.  I just took the time to relax, it wasn't too bad except that they were remodeling the hotel I was staying in, which meant constant drilling noises, my shower didn't work, and the food was absolutely terrible.  Needless to say, I was glad to finally get on a plane at 9:30 pm the next day.

The flight to Mumbai was fine, I slept quite well and read a bit.  Things started to go badly again though pretty much the moment I stepped off the plane.  I thought I had plenty of time to make it through customs, find my bags, get another boarding pass for the next flight, etc. since I had over a four hour layover.  Way too much to wish for apparently.  I really can't even begin to describe what a complete mess and how completely unhelpful people were.  I was originally supposed to fly on Kingfisher airlines from Mumbai to Bangalore.  When I missed my connection in London, British Airways rebooked that flight for me for the next day.  However, Virgin Atlantic when I flew out the next day claimed that the Kingfisher flight British Airways had booked me for (?!) was full....Yeah don't ask me how that makes sense.  However, they said "no problem, we booked you on a flight on Jet Airways a bit earlier anyway".  I thought "great". Something actually working in my favor.  Now the problem is that when I got to Mumbai Jet Airways said that they had cancelled the ticket Virgin Atlantic had booked for me because no revenue was coming from it (which makes sense considering I was booked on a different airline originally), No problem, I'll just go to the airline I was supposed to fly on and have them put me on the next flight.  Kingfisher claimed that I had to buy a completely new ticket and have the ticketing company reimburse me for the ticket I had not used the day before because they couldn't update any flight information or change my booking even though I had missed the flight the day before, they had already been paid, etc.  To make a long story short, they sent me to Virgin Atlantic, they said they would take care of it, they didn't, I then missed ANOTHER flight, for them to tell me to call British Airways and tell them to fix it after Virgin had already claimed responsibility, I lost my temper I admit, and then I ended up buying another ticket to get me to Bangalore because it was quite clear NO ONE was going to do anything to help me and they probably wouldn't mind if I ended up living in the Mumbai airport.  If you can't tell, I am still a little bitter, and if I had a phone (and knew who I was supposed to call- travel insurance, website I booked the ticket through, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic?) I would be ranting to someone right now, and SOMEONE is going to reimburse me for me having to pay for the same ticket TWICE.  

Moving on...I promise I will be in happier mood from this point on.  I luckily had a taxi waiting for me and the man was very nice.  It took us about four hours to get from the airport in Bangalore to my room here in Mysore though, which put me getting in at about 1am.  It was a long trip.  The first thing the taxi driver asked me though was if I was religious and then we had a pretty lengthy conversation about Christianity and Hinduism.  He told me that Hindus are basically Christians following the Old Testament who worship idols and not God....I was a little confused.  

So my room is part of some kind of academic institute.  I am still not entirely sure what they do, and no one else seems to be in the complex except for me, which is fine for now I suppose.  I am still a little overwhelmed with trying to find places to eat, knowing how to get around, etc, but I know I will figure it out soon.  I went today to try and buy a few Indian shirts (mine are not appropriate in such a conservative country) but only got one that I thought was ok.  They also had these legging type pants, but there is no way I can wear those in this heat.  I think they said it's about 85F outside, but it feels like much more when you are in the sun.  In my room, or in the shade it feels pretty ok.  I haven't seen any cockroaches or anything scary yet, but maybe I shouldn't have jinxed myself!  I haven't even seen the city center yet so I really can't say much except that my lunch of rice today cost me about 1 dollar :).

I am going to post some pictures of the room I am in for now (don't know if I am going to stay here the whole time though).

Miss and love you all.