The trip has officially begun. With a struggling High Performance Team, I was asked to go to India to help build the relationship, and help get the team back on track. I knew this was a good idea. It was an opportunity for the team to really connect to the work we do, and for me to really connect with the team. Besides, I love to travel, right?
Well, I took a big bite of travel today. I had the car service my house at 4:30pm on Friday. I like car services to the airport. i don’t have to worry about getting there on time, and when I get off the plan exhausted, I don’t have to deal with extended parking and driving home for an hour. But I have digressed. I got to the airport at 5:30 and checked in. I was at the gate by 6pm. Business class meant I got to wait in the President’s Lounge. That is where I met up with Laurent and Jerry. We had a few drinks, and piled onto the plane. the rain did not cause any delays, and we left (relatively) on time at 8:30pm.
The 15 1/2 hour flight to Mumbai did not go very quickly for me. They started us off with dinner, which was surprisingly good. It was a curry chicken. All the courses of dinner took about two to three hours. I worked on my slides for all of my presentations, and that ate another 2 hours. With my power cord packed, that was all I could get out of the laptop. I watched the new Star Trek movie, and Iron Man, and that took up another 4 hours. That left 6 hours of me trying to fall asleep without success.
Once in Mumbai, we had a 4 hour layover to Bangalore. I upgraded my ticket to first class on the India Air trip, so that I could sit with Laurent and Jerry in their executive lounge. We talked a lot to pass the time, and I worked some more on my slides. The flight to Bangalore was uneventful, and we got our baggage without too much pain. The hotel is 45 minutes from the airport, but the rainstorm we hit extended that a bit more.
I am finally in my hotel. After the hour to Newark, the 1 hour check-in and security, the 2 hour wait, the 14 hour flight, the 4 hour layover, the 1.5 hour flight, the 1.5 hour trip to the hotel, and the little bits of time in between, Newark to Bangalore took 27 hours.
NowI can finally get comfortable and sleep. Goodnight from Bangalore, everyone.
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