We are on our way

 I received a text message bright and early Friday morning saying our flight from Seattle to Charles de Gaulle was delayed.  That made our connection in Charles de Gaulle very tight.  I called Delta to see if this was a problem.  They told me that we did have a possibility of going on a later flight which would go through Mumbai on our way to Chennai.  We opted to risk staying with our current schedule.  After all we had 46 minute in Paris.  

Nathan picked us up at 7 am and got us to the airport.  Traffic was not bad so we got to the airport in plenty of time.  

We decided to do carry-on so that there would not be a chance of losing our luggage somewhere.  The ticket agent assured us that 46 minutes was plenty of time in Paris.

I had TSAPre✓.  So I got through security with plenty of time to get my coffee, even though someone else got my order and they had to redo my order.  George had more trouble because they had to open and search his suitcase.  I guess they were questioning all the stuff George was taking for Rebecca.  

Portland airport

We took off on time.

Typical Portland weather

It was not a full flight and it was a small plane so George and I could each have a window & aisle seat. 1 hour and 10 minute flight.

The weather was clearing as we neared Seattle

Fly-by downtown Seattle.

Seattle airport

When we landed in Seattle I got a message from Delta indicating that they were automatically trying to reschedule our Paris - Chennai flight.  That concerned me so I walked down to the help desk.  They assured me that they were not trying to reschedule our flight.  They suggested that we wait until we get to Paris and if we do in fact miss our flight then there is another flight that will get us to Chennai at 8:55 am instead of 12:20 am. 

Very helpful help desk

We had lunch while we waited (4 hours)

We split the Garden Plate.  We did not want a big meal because we knew that food was waiting for us on the flight.

We had a nice flight.  We each got a pillow and blanket.  It was a 9 hour and 28 minutes flight.  I watched 3 1/2 movies: A Simple Wish, Kubo and the 2 Strings, Cinderella, and part of Mississippi Masala.  It just did not grab me.  

Dinner was butter chicken for me and mushroom risotto for George

It was quite tasty.

Not so tasty. For breakfast.

On the plane I got the message again that they were automatically rebooking us.  When we got off the plane there was a ticket agent standing with a sign for all Chennai, Mumbai,  and Dubai passengers.  Now we had no choice.  Because of the delay we missed our flight going directly to Chennai, so they put us on a flight to Mumbai and then a connection to Chennai.  We get in about 8 hours later than we were supposed to. But at least we had a reservation.  The agent snuck us through a back door for a shortcut to our gate.  She gave us a food voucher but we had no time to enjoy it.  Besides we were both full.  

Charles de Gaulle airport vertical garden.  No time for Lauderee macarons. 

We got on our flight to Mumbai.  It was an Air France flight.  The food was not as good as the Delta, which was surprising.  We had 2 meals but I did not take pictures.  Both flights they did push the wine.  This was listed as a 7 hour and 37 minute flight. I watched An American in Paris with Gene Kelly. Great dancing, but not a very gripping story. Not very many movie choices. George enjoyed hearing all the French.

I started playing Angry Birds

Then George played as well.  

The flight was a little longer than the 7 hours because we had to circle over Mumbai a while.  I might have dozed a tiny bit.

We finally landed at 11:48 pm so I had a chance to quickly play a game of Wordle.  It was the first chance I had for March 2.

Mumbai is huge, clean and very quiet at midnight

Everything went pretty smoothly

But then we got to the line for going through security for our flight to Chennai.  Ugh.  It moved very slowly.  No Global Entry line for faster service.  After being in that line for about 45 minutes an official came by calling for people connecting on a domestic flight.  That was us.  There were several people who followed him to stand in another line, it was actually a line for first class but since no one was in that line we were the lucky ones.  We were there about 15 minutes.  We had to take almost everything out of our suitcase.  They took my nail clippers, tweezers, and folding collapsible scissors (which do not have a pointy tip and are not sharp).  Oh well.

We found a place to sit and hang out.  We had about 5 hours to wait for our next flight.  I called the hotel to change our shuttle time.  I had tried to cancel the hotel earlier but it was too late so we decided to go there so that we can shower and have a good breakfast before heading to the beach resort.  The earlier plan had been to go there and get some sleep.  We will have our same shuttle to the beach.  So we will get there the same time as before only with no chance to try to sleep.

I saw a sign for filter coffee which I HAD TO HAVE. Ah this is the life: filter coffee and blogging. 

So far 17.75 hours of actual flight time.

So I am going to end this and put the last leg of our trip to Chennai on my next blog entry.