dca>jfk>auh>bom
Four airports, three flights, and 34 mf hours later-- I made it! This is by far the longest I've ever been away from India and as always, I had tears of joy welling up as I landed in Bombay. Landing at BOM at night is one of my absolute fave experiences. Ofc there's the thrill of coming home, but it's a beeeautiful view of the city glittering outside your window. I'm mad bc my window was mad smudgy so all my pics of our approach are trash.
The journey itself was long af but going Business was the way to do it fr. I know I'm #blessed and I don't take for granted the ability to be able to travel like this but my goal in life is to have enough to always fly Business (at least for long haul). Being able to lay flat to sleep was *chefs kiss* and the lounge access and free food was the best way to spend my layovers. I got to JFK way early and had like 5 hours to kill before my flight. I started in the Virgin lounge that came with my ticket, and then the AmEx Centurion lounge bc of my credit card. I heard Centurion has a lil speakeasy/hidden room called 1850 so ofc I had to check that out. Ate a lil something something in both places but also saved room bc I knew I'd get a three course dinner after take off (spoiler: it was amazing).
JFK to AUH was about a million hours. I ate the aforementioned amazing dinner, watched a little TV, and then passed out in my fully flat seat/bed for a solid six hours. Cannot speak highly enough about being able to do that and actually sleep without getting a crick in my neck. Woke up to a dank breakfast and spent the last hour gathering up my shit and watching tv. I flew Etihad so I had access to their flagship lounge in AUH and lemme tell you, that shit was niiiiiiice. It was spacious with a ton of seating, full snack buffet, open bar, shower space etc etc. I only had a couple of hours to kill before my connection to Bombay so I just had my bevvy trifecta-- water-coffee-champagne--- bc again, there was a full dinner service on my next sector.
I def need a new carry-on though. I ended up bringing my fave weekender duffel even though I knew carrying it around would be a drag, bc the telescoping handle on my rolly was broken and I had anxiety that it wouldn't collapse when I needed it to, and all the other passengers would point & laugh. Not really but it was broken and I didn't want to deal with it. BIG MISTAKE. HUGE. Carrying the duffel was obviously a bitch to deal with, and it separated me from all the other Business travelers who exclusively had rolly cabin baggage. Heavy lifting is clearly for peasants lolol.
Then one more three hour flight later, I made it! This flight also had the crazy legroom but I just stayed awake and lounged. The #1 indication that I know I'm home is when I walk out of the airport and I get smacked in the face with all the smells and the wall of humidity, no matter what season or time of day it is. After customs and hitting up Duty Free, it was like 3? am local time when I walked out and wham, got all them city smells and the need to immediately remove my hoodie. And this is only January y’all. Summer will kill me ded. Made it home to my mom who was waiting with a drink & flowers (!) and we toasted to being reunited after 3 long years apart. Exhausted and amped up, I tried to sleep but ended up just counting down the hours to my first full day here.
More to come :)
