Welcome to Delhi madem. :)

Matt and I arrived tonight in Delhi, India. Wow. Just Wow.

We left Modesto at 5am on Thursday. The kids are both with nana right now (Saturday my parents arrive) and are happy as clams. The are having so much fun that they have not had any time to tal to me on the phone.

We fly first class from SFO to Chicago. Not to shabby. :) I've flown First Class domestically before, so nothing new, but a nice treat. The Admirals Club at O'Hare is great!

Then from Chicago to Delhi, we flew Business Class. Seriously, THE WAY TO GO. BOSE headsets, nice little necessity bags (with Burts Bees, which I needed!), drinks, movies, yummy food, etc. Oh yeah, and those awesome seats that turn into beds. :)

We arrived in Delhi on time. Got through customs ok. Took a while to locate all our bags, then tried to get some local currency and with the ATM broken, and the guy at the exchange being very confsing, we just ended up going to the hotel. Our driver was super nice. he held a sign that said:

Mr. Monica Brown

In which the R in Mr was covered with an S in marker. Haha! Once he saw Matt, he only address Matt and spoke details with him - even though the entire thing is booked under my name! In the car I chatted a lot with him, and he opened up a bit and addressed me individually more. The airport was funny, there was a little stand for "Mother Dairy" selling yogurts and ice cream. Some guy tried to sell me bottled water, in which I couls so tell that he had filled that bottel from the tap, it wasn't even full!

The ride from the airport to the hotel was interesting. The air is THICK with dirt and smoke. The airport is under construction, which makes it worse. It's "cold" here now, so I was noticing that several locals were wearing heavy coats. I had just come from SF and Chicago, so I was down to a short sleeve top and was still hot! Oh, and the cars and traffic, man, don't walk in the street here, you will get hit. We had to wat for 10-15 minutes for our driver to bring the car around and it was interesting to watch people. Matt tried to convince me that some little rickshaw cab was our guy! No way we could fit al our junk in there. The security was nuts. It looks like they are building a new terminal at the airport. The entire thing is surrounded by te huge metal fenct with barb wire on top. And, with gun towers are certain points, just for good measure. In and out of the airport was high security. Our driver tells is that they just celebreated Indian Independance Day and that security is always high that week.

Our hotel is surrounded by a big wall, and they search the car in and out (trunk, underneath, engine, etc) when you come in. Then, they x-ray the luggage to enter the hotel, and we have to pass through metal detectors to enter the hotel. I had to get pulled aside into a curtained off area to be searched (women are all done this way, to be descrete I guess).

Tonight we stayed in the hotel, had drinks with some other guys form the US wo sat behind us on the plane. They work for Chase, nice guys. They have been coming here for 6 years for work. They gave us some great tips. One great peice of info, they said it is perfectly safe to walk around here, just use the same cautions in the US. It really looks VERY slummy around our hotel, but they assured us that is is ok.

Oh, and so far, food and drinks in India (snack at the bar and some drinks), NOT CHEAP. I know it is jst because it's the hotel, but $50/bottle of Sutter Home? COME ON!

Tomorrow we are meeting up with our great friends Alex and Sandra. We're al going to the Taj Mahal and Red Fort together.