India Shortlist

My time in India is wrapping up! I’m not looking forward to our travel schedule, but will be glad to be home soon. We’ll have a drive of about an hour and 15 minutes from the resort to the Goa airport, followed by an hour long flight to Mumbai. Then, we have a layover of about 9 hours in the Mumbai airport before we fly to New York on Air India. The flight is roughly 16 hours. We land at JFK in New York but have to transfer to La Guardia airport and wait another couple hours until the final flight on American Airlines to Dallas (a 4 hour flight). Whew! Travel schedule courtesy of SMU’s travel agency (which also took until the end of April to book for the group). What a pain!


Before I spend the next couple of days in airports, I wanted to reflect on some things that I will miss from India as well as some things I am looking forward to at home. Here is my “short-list”:

Things I Will Miss from India (no particular order):

• Buffalo-milk ice cream (delish!)

• Chai (tea), esp. Wahg Bakri brand and the masala chai at MICA

• Endless naan bread (esp. butter and garlic naan)

• Longer nails!

• Amazing photo opportunities

• Spices

• Natural fragrances/oils like neem, Indian berberry, jaggery, jasmine, sandalwood, etc.

• Great deals on beautiful scarves and jewelry

• Tiger Bus

• Folded towel characters waiting in our Goa hotel room :0

Things I Look Forward to At Home (no particular order):

• My family

• Laundry done in a washing machine and dryer

• Iced drinks

• Salad (that’s safe to eat!)

• Starbucks mochas

• Free Wi-Fi internet

• Getting into a dry bed and dry clothes!

• My favorite foods (esp. having meat, like at Chipotle)

• Cooking for myself

• Giving away the gifts I purchased


This trip has been an amazing experience which I'll always remember. I'm looking forward to seeing my husband and kids (and friends) again in Texas on Wednesday, but I'll take a little part of India home with me. Thanks be to God for His wonderful provision, to SMU for the opportunity, to my family for their ongoing love and support, and to India for the hospitality.