Sickness, Cyclones and Cancelled Flights Oh MY!

Yup, it's been a rough couple days and we're about to go into the roughest following Heather and Nathan into Embassy Day One a day later. And to think I've already been reduced to tears and haven't even gotten to that part yet! We'll have good stories someday though (or at least that's what our guide kept telling us).

So Sunday started fine, we were going to go over to the zoo since Riyani was doing so well. Then the rain started. Apparently we brought the monsoon early. But turns out it was a good thing we didn't go anywhere- I have no idea why since all I'd eaten was scrambled eggs and croissant but I got violently, violently ill. And to think I was soooo cocky wondering why people got sick in India! Soooo glad we brought the pepto.

But by Monday I was mostly recovered so we packed up and got ready to go (keep in mind we haven't turned on a television since we've been here). It's raining but we just think it's monsoon. Then we notice how violently the trees are swaying. But we are totally distracted by flight paperwork. Well, we quickly discovered there was a problem when traffic stopped. It took us an hour to move 100 feet (we could still see our hotel). Our guide was frantically making phone calls trying to figure out what was happening with the traffic and the driver was going on the sidewalk a million miles an hour trying to somehow get ahead of the traffic. Turns out there were downed trees EVERYWHERE- huge uprooted trees laying across roads, highways, houses. We still just thought it was a bad storm and continued on. Somehow we made it to the airport and then about 200 feet from the airport a small tree fell directly in front of our car. The guide cursed loudly the driver screamed but we were able to get around it and are fine. Except after all that our flight was cancelled at the last minute. We still had no idea that we left the hotel at the exact minute the cyclone started.

They rebooked us for India Air (don't recommend it) for the next morning and took us to a '5 star' hotel called Vedic Village. It had no telephone, no Internet and tiny twin beds. And Riyani was freaked out by that time so it was a rough night. But the little trooper made it up at 4:30 am to go back to Kolkata airport, where the people were very kind. They had us wait in a small 'baby room' so she could have a bottle and sleep in peace. But then our flight was delayed for hours so we ended up spending waaaay too much time in there and she was very restless and wanted to get down (wasn't clean enough for that). We ended up running out of bottles before we ever got on the airplane. Ugh. But eventually we did get on and after a long flight and 20 minutes of her blood curdling screams (poor thing had just had enough!) we did finally make it to Delhi.

We went straight to the embassy and filed our I-600- so easy, but we caught them at lunch so we had to wait a little. Then we headed over to the visa part and did the pre-filing and got the med exam info. We got her medical exam done but didn't have the immunization waiver filled out right (and they wanted to give her 4 shots! That's when the getting up at 4 and the long travels finally caught up with me and I lost it! Thank goodness for Greg who kept it together.) So we have to go back to the embassy and have it notarized, go back to the doctors to get the final paperwork and then sit for hours and wait today. Sound like fun? I'm sooo looking forward to it!

In good news, except for a few meltdowns and who can blame her Riyani has done amazingly well. She's waking up now, will post pictures and more when we get back this afternoon!