There is a good chance this will be my last post of 2023. We are leaving for India next week and will not return until just before the new year. Maybe I will post something else before we leave--probably not, though. So, let me officially wish everybody in my double-digit readership a happy holidays right now: Happy Holidays!
I'm simultaneously eagerly anticipating and anxiously dreading our trip to India. It's one of those things where I want to have the experience of something without actually doing it. Like, if I could just implant the memory in my head of the trip, Total Recall style, I would probably do that. Actually, I would also have to genuinely believe I did it, and everybody else would have to believe that as well, for that to be satisfying for me. So, I'd need some sort of Total Recall/Matrix combo technology to really do the job right. If I had that, then I'd probably pick that option instead of actually going.
There are three main things I'm apprehensive about. In order from most apprehensive to least: 1) getting sick; 2) long travel times; 3) being abroad for Christmas. With respect to 1), the only other time I've been to India was for my wedding in 2011, and I got terribly sick and was completely out of commission for two days. (Thankfully, I recovered in time for all the important stuff.) I'm super nervous about that happening again. I'll be careful, of course, but I was careful last time and still caught something awful. Hopefully, my immune system remembers that battle and will preemptively fight off any similar bugs this time. That's what the optimist in me is trying to hang his hat on. Even if I don't get sick, however, I still have to worry about the kids. They have never been to India even once, after all. We will definitely be bringing lots of tummy medicines with us. But if do we get sick, well, I guess it won't be the first time we spent Christmas in the bathroom.
On 2), we have done what we can to make the travel smoother. We have all been approved for Global Entry, so we can use the shorter lines at security and customs, but we will still have to wait in some lines, and more to the point, we will still have to sit on planes for 15 hours. There's no way to get around that. We have a layover in Frankfurt (that's Germany, not Kentucky) for a few hours, and S says she knows that airport really well, and there is a by-the-hour hotel in it, so maybe we will do that--we will see. I'm just going to have an iPad full of movies and a Kindle full of books (or maybe just one sufficient long book) and make the most of it.
To 3), I love Christmas time, and for me it's a season of hominess, not adventure. I like hunkering in, being cozy, watching football, eating cookies and drinking eggnog. In India, I don't know if there will be eggnog, or any nog, period. The bottom line: There's no place like home for the holidays, and India is almost diametrically opposite home for me. Not to mention, we already took a big vacation to Hawaii this year, so I used up a bunch of my leave and don't have enough to cover the extent of our stay in India. So, I'll have to bring my work computer with me and work remotely a few days, which is super annoying.
With all that said, I totally get why S wants to go and why she was so adamant about doing it this year. I'm completely on board, for as much as I'm complaining about it. (That's just how I roll, and S never reads this blog, anyway, thankfully.) We actually were planning on going three years ago, but as you might recall there was an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, which made traveling to foreign countries ill-advised or illegal. Since then, we've put off this trip several times to do other things (spend a summer in UP, go on a cruise, go to Iceland, etc.), and S's point is that each time we put it off, it gets worse, because her aunties and uncles in India get a little bit older, and not to be morbid, but there is no guarantee they will all still be around if we put it off again.
The same goes for her parents. They're in decent health, all things considered, but her dad is 81. That's not nothing. S really wanted them to come with us, and they are (they're there already, actually), but she's thinking this will be their last trip out there. Her mom already has to use a wheelchair in the airport because her knees are so bad, and she struggles to walk long, or even moderate, distances. We really do need to do this before it's too late.
So, we will be off to the other side of the globe next Thursday. It might not be the cozy Christmas I desire, but at least when people ask me what we did for the holidays, I'll be able to say we went to India, with an air condescension in my voice, like I'm some sort of jet-set elitist. That will be nice, I guess.
Until next time...
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