Whoa. What a Trip.

Boy. If you want to do something really disorienting, fly almost exactly halfway around the world, arriving in an odd country. Seriously, this place is about as far away, in terms of time zones, as you can get from Chicago. Any further east and I would’ve traveled west.

The flights were fine. The first was pretty standard fare to Europe–a whole bunch of American tourists looking for their connections in Frankfurt. I saw the customs line, and it looked like it handles a dozen people per flight, maybe. Nobody’s actually traveling to Frankfurt. One of the stewardesses on my Chicago leg gave me a “Tchuss!” on my way out, so my ordering of chicken in German may have been convincing. Or maybe she just knows how to flatter an American who speaks weak German.

My first taste of India came in the line for the Bangalore flight. This flight was 90% Indian, and the queueing process reflected a struggle between efficient Germans and Indians who magnet towards chaos. There was a line, but it was gone the moment they actually started to board. When they opened the business class line to everybody, this process just became a heap of people next to the gate. I got on quickly enough to get overhead bin storage, though, so Charlie: 1, Indian pandemonium: 0.

To be a little cliche, everything still feels a little surreal, and the arrival in Bangalore certainly fit that bill. But if I’m being honest, the welcome at the airport was as comforting as possible. All of the signs were in English first, followed by Kanada and Hindi, and all of the advertising was in English exclusively. I knew English was somewhat universal here, but seeing that it’s the language of advertising was comforting. Customs was a breeze, nothing at all like the hour-long snake line at a place like Heathrow. And Sanju had a guy with a name placard waiting for me, which was pretty sweet. While I was waiting for the car to be pulled around, one car pulled up with large Chicago Bulls stickers on the front of its side mirrors. Yeah. Not so far from home after all.