India Textile Tour---Day 14

The last day in India, and I'm not sure how long the day has been, as I sit in Dulles Airport whiling away the hours until my flight home.  My watch is still on India time and it says 9:45, so that would be night time in India.  I have been up pretty much since 7:00 AM yesterday, I think, so that's about 39 hours?

We hung around the resort until 3:30 PM and then had our bus ride to Chennai Airport, then hung around the airport until time to leave on Emirates.  The plane was late leaving on the 4 hours or so flight to Dubai.  This meant we were going to be late getting into Dubai, which meant our two hour layover was going to be less than that.  Turns out Dubai Airport is really busy on Friday night, so we circled for about 45 minutes...now we had not time on lay over at all.

By the time we finally landed we were so late that we had a separate bus for all the passengers attempting to connect with the flight to Washington.  A long ride through the airport where we were sure the driver was lost and was trying to find the right plane...almost had a ride to Washington without the plane!  Finally arrived where we were supposed to be, up the escalator and then a long walk to the correct gate...where I got the random security check pull aside.  I was almost the last person on the plane, then we waited, this time for our luggage to catch up with us.  Finally took off more than two hours late. 

The flight from Dubai to Washington is 14 hours and miracle of miracles, I actually slept on the plane.  The seat next to me was empty so I could brace my head on it, and with my Bose sound-cancelling headphones playing "Oriental Meditation" music I actually went to sleep.  The Bose headphones are worth every penny I spent on them, made the flight almost soundless.  Two meals and a snack later, we are in the US.

Arrived at Dulles late, but that doesn't matter to me because I have a late flight to San Francisco.  Immigration is pretty much automated, with kiosks where you scan your own passport, then present the printout to the immigration officer, no sweat.  After getting my baggage (yes, Emirates did manage to transfer everything!), Customs was just as easy.  This was nothing like my last experience in Los Angeles, the worst!