Coming Home

Greetings from Delhi! +1 managed to book an earlier flight home for me so I won’t have to spend 4 days in Delhi alone as he’s heading south for work – hurray! We used a few more miles to upgrade my seats to business class, which means I’ll get a seat that lays flat.  Airline miles are no joke. A little credit card coordination goes a long way; this year alone between the Philippines and Europe/India I’ve received over $6,000 in free flights. If you are interested, you should bookmark and scan blogs from www.boardingarea.com

Our last week has been amazing. In addition to paragliding, we held angora bunnies, +1 showed me up at a carnival style shooting game (“and you call yourself an officer”), and we repelled down waterfalls. I thought I’d be all slick and bounce down the waterfall like nobodies business because the Army has forced me to repel down numerous large wooden towers. Wrong. The surface under the waterfalls was slippery as hell.  I suppose we could have mitigated the effect with appropriate shoes (I was in walking sandals, +1 in knockoff crocs), but perhaps not as the algae was pretty thick. It was a lot of fun, though probably much more advanced than what beginners should be doing.

Last night we stayed in a Country Inn and Suites, complete with free breakfast, wifi, all the hot water you can stand, and a really nice outdoor pool surrounded by a vertical garden – much, much nicer than any Country Inn and Suites you would encounter in the US. AND – it was free! I stayed at Country Inn and Suites one night in Richmond for work and got 45,000 points – a temporary deal found via the travel blog in the first paragraph. I have two more free stays left as this hotel only costs 15,000 points a night.

For dinner we dined at Pizza Hut in the mall nearby and got ice cream from McDonalds for desert. As with the hotel, they are both much nicer than at home. Jobs are hard to come by, with or without an education. This means many of the retail shops, hotels, and restaurants are full of over-qualified people who are grateful to have work and take great pride in what they do, whatever it is.

It’s not all gravy of course and I certainly won’t miss all of the cutting in line and pushing/shoving, the taxi drivers and sales people constantly trying to gouge us, or the intense pains of guilt I get when staring abject poverty in the face. However, I will miss the chai, the kindness of strangers, and the magical way India constantly reminds you what's most important in life. 

I can’t believe the summer is coming to an end; it’s been an amazing adventure.  The next few months are going to be busy as well – meeting Amelia, starting the new job, getting promoted to First Lieutenant, transferring units, and house hunting. I am very happy and feel extraordinarily lucky.  I love you all and am looking forward to catching up this fall.

Hugs and hugs,

Erin