Yesterday was a bad day. I woke up in a bad mood, I was tired and stressed. The stress led to a cold and a break out. I set aside that day to sort out my airplane ticket issues.
This sounds like a meager task, but I had to go to the airport to do this, which meant taking the metro 40 stops, with 3 changes which adds up to be more than a 2 hour trip . It was basically like going from fresno to the beach, just to sort out my stupid tickets. Andi, my british friend went with me as she also had to re-schedule her tickets. We got on the metro, which was packed shoulder to shoulder with no place to sit and rode all the way to the last stop on the metro(s). So here I was with snot dripping out of my nose, coughing, drowsy on cold medicine standing in a shoulder to shoulder crowd for 2 hours. When we reached the end of the line I met 20 teenagers, and I could automatically tell they where from California. So then I had this erie feeling of being in Riverpark or something. So that plus being in a place far away from the city where there was land and no high rise buildings for the first time in 3 months gave me really erie feeling.
when we left the metro station we had to find an auto rickshaw (kinda like a go-cart if you have never seen one) to take us the rest of the way to the airport. When we got to the place where several autos where parked, and I saw all the auto drivers standing in a circle smoking, chewing and laughing together. I automatically knew all of then where in bed with one another and would charge us whatever they felt like without room for bargain... and they did.
We got to the airport and Andi went to the ticket counter first and her change literally took like 40 seconds. But of course, I was in a bad mood with bad health and in my pessimistic mindset, I just knew that I was going to have a repeat of my ticket trauma I had in Germany.... and I did. I was being switched back and fourth, this counter to that counter to this office to that office until they told me that they didn't have anyone there that could help me, and they didn't even have a United counter. They did give me a phone number, that led to an automated voice helpline that did not help.
We couldn't find any taxis that wernt overcharging for the trip back to the metro, and we ended up paying 4 times the amount we had paid the auto that brought us there. To worsen my mood, when we got to the metro station, I knew that if I got a Sikh security guard would think I'm a woman [My continually growing hair seemed like no problem until I finally got around to buying a razor. I despise my tiny patchy facial hair, but went without shaving because I had no time to shop for a razor. A week ago I finally bought one and started shaving. Soon after that ever we went thru security checks, which had a line for "ladies" and one for "Gents", if the guard was a sikh, he would look me up and down... look confused and gesture that maybe I should be in the ladies line. When I didn't comply, he would just shrug and give me a rather inappropriate pat down (which made me realize WHY there was a line). It turns out that my tiny patchy facial hair was the only thing securing my gender in india] So sure enough I got a sikh gard and he could tell that I was a "gent" but still laughet and said "boy or girl? or maybe a bit of both! ha your hair is to long my friend!" and I laughed and said "my hair is too long? You [being a sikh] never even cut your hair! you just have something to put it in [turban]!" he laughed I laughed but it still didn't help my mood. I decided to stop shaving until I leave delhi so I wouldn't have these awkward moments. (usually if they look at me and think I'm a woman I say "what? do you think I'm pretty?" in as low and full voice as I can muster.
So... yeah... had a bad day. But I ended up calling my grandma and she put some life back into me.
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