We started off our travels by meeting in the Chicago airport to check our bags. Before we checked in we had to have an attendant clear our travel visas for India. Then we dropped off our bags and made our way through security. Gina's bag got searched and the officer exclaimed his jealousy of Gina's plethora of snacks before taking out her stethoscope and taking apart her otoscope. While sitting at the gate that was assigned on our tickets, we all met a chatty man who told us all about every single healthcare worker in his family after he found out that we were medical students. We then found out that our gate had been switched so we proceeded to make the long trek across the airport to our new gate. When we got there, we took a group picture and boarded the first leg of our 31 hour travel extravaganza.
The first flight was fine, some people had crying babies but for the most part we entertained ourselves and slept. Derick had the odd circumstance of a lady who kept doing squats every 30 mins and waking him up by hitting him on her way down and up every squat. Those aisles are probably smaller than the gym she goes to but hey, it's a great way to avoid a DVT. They fed us twice before we arrived in Frankfurt Germany. Once in Germany, we didn't have to go through customs or pick up our luggage but we did have another hobbit like journey to our gate which was, of course, on the other side of the airport. Not before stopping at a duty free store and getting free samples of lotion and perfume though. Turns out it is harder to roll your luggage with slippery lotion hands. Next stop? Security. Our guy was concerned with the fact that we all had stethoscopes and made sure to tear apart our carefully packed bags in search of our devices. Then the next security dude thought it would be humorous to tell me I was not allowed to proceed and before I even understood what he was saying he started rolling with laughter and let me through. Whatever makes your day man.
There were no water fountains in the airport so we filled our filter water bottles up in the bathroom. Keiko and Derick went up to the lounge and got us real water bottles that weren't full of warm water and we were forever grateful. This flight was 40mins delayed and full of more screaming children but what else is new. We mostly slept. No special circumstances for Derick this time but when we got to India and tried to exchange money, the man at the counter kept Gina's passport. Of course we didn't discover this until way later. In the meantime, we sat outside the Indian airport throughout the middle of the night. We were accompanied by three Germans and we played music, practiced our Tamil, and they kicked around a soccer ball. Strange men kept asking us if we wanted to go spend the night in a hotel but we politely declined. It was pretty hot and around 4am we were allowed to go inside. But not without our passports! So that's when Gina retraced her steps and got her passport back from the money exchange place. It was cooler inside and we were finally able to go to the bathroom. Ten hours is a long time to sit outside an airport in an unfamiliar country. But we did it and we finally got on our tiny propeller plane to Coimbatore.
When we arrived, we all piled into a car with out luggage and started our journey to Bethany medical center. I sat in front and we stopped once to buy Popsicles and water. There were several instances where my life flashed before my eyes when we were passing a vehicle and another vehicle was coming head on towards us. We would more over just in the nick of time. We passed an elephant crossing as we headed up the side of the mountain that closely resembled a jungle.
Eventually we pulled up to the medical center and had lunch. Then we took a nap, ate dinner, and went back to bed.
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