June 30th New Dehli

Yes that is right 6/3o- New Dehli not Sangam....not yet anyway.

We are in India... just not in Sangam ..yet. A longggg story but the short of it is.

Left Phila sitting in the airport or on the runway till 11:30 pm. Storms in the area caused that delay and for a slightly longer flight...flying around the rain. Arrived in London and circled that airport for 30 or so minutes. Between the two we missed our connection.

Thought we had flights out or so we were told by Brit Air staff. Not so and that resulted in us
trying to find connecting flights. Spent over 2 hours in security lines to finally get to someone for the connection. a flight was found but not till 9:45 that night. So for the next 7 or 8 hours we toured Heathrow and ate a light lunch/dinner compliments of BritAir. Interesting airport Heathrow is - lot of up scale stores!

Learned from a fellow scout who happended to work at TGI Fridays about the bomb threat and the reason for the heightened security level. So that is why we stood in that long line and people were constantly running to their flights!

Ok so now we are boarded on JetAir - a very nice airline. Sat on the runway again waiting for people to clear security. Leave not at 10 but sometime around 11:30 - least I think that was the time. Long long flight-- 8 plus hours. It is morning and we are circling Mambia. Apparently there is a raging storm below and there is no visibility to land. The airport is closed. Getting low on fuel so the plan is to fly to New Dehli - 1 1/2 hours away and re-fuel. When we get to New Dehli we learn that Mambia is still closed.
We are transported off the plane and learn that our packs are not with us. Where they are is a mystery. Good thing we packed spare clothes!Spent another hour processing lost baggage claims.
End result we are staying in New Dehli and awaiting a flight back to Mambia. The airline has put us up in a very very nice hotel so we can at least sleep vertically! Wow!!!

We are tired and slighty sore from sitting for almost 36 hours. To say the least it has been an adventure!!!

Just learned that we are leaving 4:30 am India time for the airport and to Mambia. Maybe...just maybe we will get to Sangam. Now it would be nice if our packs were there as well.

Wednesday, June 27 - Thursday, June 28

Well some of us are ready, however there are a few members who will burn the midnight oil ...packing, treating their clothes or making swaps. Eva just dropped off part of my uniform - a white blouse which is now soaking in the infamous Everglades Outdoor Protective Clothing Treatment Insect Repellent. Stuff sounds nasty but we are told it works!

I was up past 12 midnight making swaps. Simply forgot about that agenda item. My swap theme is a Daisy.... With my daughter's wedding being all about daisies I thought it was a fitting swap.

Below is a basic outline of the order of events...

Fly out from Philadelphia to London. Quickly change planes and fly from London to Mumbai. From Mumbai we will take a chartered bus to Pune and our first stop - Sangam World Centre. Sangam is one of four World Centres of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.

The troop will be attending the following program:

Holistic Living (7 days): July 1-7

Improve your sense of well being through healthy living and eating. Learn yoga and meditation in the safe, serene surroundings of Sangam. Discover thousands of years of Indian culture, philosophy and spirituality as you experience ayurveda, vegetarian cooking, Indian massage and natural medicine.

I think I can speak for Eva,Linda in that we look foward to the "serene" surroundings and especially the Indian massage. Last week, Eva's daughter graduate from high school, my daughter's wedding was on Saturday -June 23 and Linda has been working 10 to 12 hour days.

In addition, to the Holistic Living events, we will experience the excitement of Indian life such as visiting a family in Pune, trying Indian food, visiting an outdoor market and, of course, go sari shopping.

When we leave Sangam on the 7th, we will be on a guide tour for approx. 11 days visiting cities such as Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Pushkar, and ending in Mumbai.

Spent today -Thursday- running with Linda dropping off last minute materials to parents and buying last minute items. Discovered we had no double A batteries in the house and I needed to have pictures developed for my family album which we share with our host Indian family. No time to put it together now so I leave that for the 15 hour plane ride

Namaste

I got my name in lights with notcelebrity.co.uk