Trip Day One

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We remain thankful for the internet today.

Yesterday, Kevin was checking our friendly neighborhood KLM website to see if our flight from the beautiful, yet far away, new Hyderabad airport to Amsterdam was going to be on time.  According to KLM, the flight was leaving nearly three hours late.  Thankful to find this information out before making the one hour drive to the airport, we were able to delay our departure from home by two hours, therefore making sure we didn't hang out at the beautiful, yet far away, new Hyderabad airport for 5+ hours with our delightful, yet exhausted, children.

The trip to the beautiful, yet far away, new Hyderabad airport took exactly one hour.  Traffic was incredibly light.  The roads smooth, our taxi driver competent and safe and friendly.  The airport was truly beautiful.  And HUGE.  We sat in awe and complete culture shock that we were still in our home town and had not in fact been magically teleported into some other nation.

We got to sit in the VIP lounge thanks to Kevin's Platinum status and enjoy the free food and beverages while we waited 'til 5.45am when our flight actually departed.  It was daylight when we left -- something we've never done before... Depart in the light on an international flight.

The flight was perfect and uneventful.  The children once again miraculously well behaved, sleeping for about 4-5 hours of the 9-hour flight.  We were thankful for that. When they were awake they sat nicely and quietly in their seats.  Amazing.  We were able to sleep for 3-4 hours and watched another inspirational sports-theme-related Hindi movie... this time about a men's soccer/football team based in London and starring Megan's love, John Abraham.

The layover in Amsterdam was short and sweet.  Flight onwards to London just fine.  Arrival in London quick and easy.  Our luggage was there waiting for us when we reached baggage claim.  We brought only two pieces of luggage. Our carry-ons were backpacks rather than rolley bags... And let me tell you, I am all about the backpack now.  My backpack has a compartment for my laptop, so everything was safe and protected and incredibly easy to carry.  We brought hardly anything for the kids to play with on the airplane... and that proved to be a wise choice since they didn't even really play with what we brought for them.  Thankful indeed!

We took a London taxi from the airport to our hotel where two comfortable rooms were waiting for us.  We have two cheap rooms rather than one large expensive room for all of us.  We had McDonalds for dinner and the kids scarfed their food down like they hadn't eaten in days.  Leah had her Starbucks!!!  Woo hoo!!!  Life is complete.

All in all, a very successful Trip Day One.  We'll be going to bed at around 7pm and hopefully will be able to sleep in a little tomorrow since we don't have any morning plans.

More soon... hope you're doing well.

~lk

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