05 Mar India: Day 1 Part I – Airplane and Arrival

Surreal. The only way I can even begin to describe what I feel: Surreal. Other than that, no words come to mind. I remember how I responded to my professor when he told me that I had to experience India. “Absolutely not possible,” I replied given my current starving student/artist budget. He persisted by telling me that I could film for McCombs in exchange for a trip to India. “That would be amazing, but I’m not going to get my hopes up.” Even in the week before my scheduled, I almost drowned in the sea of midterms, papers, packing, and projects. “I can’t go to India now.”

Turns out I can.

It feels amazing to do my two favorite things: filming and traveling.

Day 1 (No such thing as too much sleep)
Additional Photos: Paul Pine

After celebrating the end of midterms by partying with my Moth to Flame team, I still had to pack. My friend Chris Jackson had driven down from Waco bringing the first of the SXSW swag (Chapstick!!!) and to take me to the airport. I had intended to spend my time on the plane working and editing, but before the plane even took off at 10:53 am, I passed completely out. Probably due to the lack of sleep I had received this past week.

One of the cafes in Newark-Liberty International served as my editing station since I had a four and a half hour layover before my next flight. When my laptop’s battery died, I felt compelled to experiment with my friend’s Go-Pro (Kelsey you rock!!) Don’t know what a Go-Pro is? Don’t worry, neither did most of the people at the airport as I received an awful lot of stares because the camera was attached to my head.

For some strange lack of sleep reason, I passed out after boarding my plane (8ish pm) for a good few hours. However, I awoke to a goldmine of movies. “The Artist,” “Hangover 2,” “Drive,” and “Timed Out” entertained me as I watched the back to back. I promptly fell asleep, again, and awoke in Mumbai (10ish pm).

Full disclosure: When I bought my plane tickets weeks before, for some reason my brain forgot to tell me that the rest of my classmates had arranged to arrive in New Delhi first. So I bought tickets to Mumbai. Miraculously, my brain remembered this little but vital piece of information days before my trip started, and I got a last minute domestic flight from Mumbai to New Delhi. I spent my time in Mumbai writing, then I boarded the connecting flight (2ish am). Finally, at around 4:30 am I made it to New Delhi.

Now I had to find my friend Paul Pine who arrived at 5 am. Only I had no way of contacting him. After a moment of panicking and cursing myself for not think of this beforehand, I remembered that his flight was with British Airways. I easily spotted him at the baggage claim, and we made our way to the hotel.

Unfortunately it was 6 am and we could not check in until noon. So we stayed up drinking tea and eating the ridiculously delicious food that our four star hotel had to offer. I stopped somewhere around 3-4 plates. After the meal and several hours later, we finally checked into our hotel. That’s all I got for now as I am about to pass out again.

But don’t worry, Part II of Day 1 contains…