Screaming “India Baby” (ala Joey on Friends in their London trip)  at the top of my lungs every few hours is getting really annoying (not to me, to Yano).  “New Delhi baby”, on the other hand, doesn’t have such a nice ring to it.

We arrived this morning, and took a taxi to our Couch Surfing friend Dheeraj’s place.  The drive there was exhilirating– everything I expected– crazy driving, kamikazee motorcycles, cows in the middle of the street, you name it.

Dheeraj’s family has been wonderfully hospitable.  We’ve had the best food, and a 30 minute nap that turned into 5 hours.  Obviously we haven’t done anything but walk to the internet cafe.  I suppose we can start our day tomorrow.

Ok, we must go.  My brain isn’t really working and Yano insists on going with Dheeraj to the gym.  I, OTOH, am going to drink some tea and take a nap.

We are major jetlagged.

We had a 12 hour layover in Helsinki, Finland.  Of course, we had to get out– airports are boring.  As we got our things, one of the passenger shakes their head and says “you’ve made a big mistake to come to Helsinki in December”.

It wasn’t that bad.  Sure, it was dark, but we did get twilight for about 5 hours.  Sure it was cold, but at least it was windy.  And sure it was expensive, but at least we were the only tourists in all of Helsinki.

We walked for a few hours, eating highly overpriced croissants and very good coffee, but the high point of the day was the Helsinki Museum which had ongoing documentaries in an old theatre about life in Helsinki right after cars made their debut.  We had the theatre to ourselves (remember– only tourists in Helsinki) and fell asleep for about an hour and a half.  I love jet lag.

The day before we left I was double checking tickets and connections.  It turns out, in my excitement over the trip I had miscalculated.  Our trip began on the 16th, not the 15th.  Yano was mildly irritated, since she had to take tests days before to fit in our early departure.  We discussed various options, including spending a day touristing in San Juan.  That didn’t go so well…

So, we changed our San Juan <-> New York ticket for a day earlier, which meant we now had a 30 hour layover in NYC.  Thanks to a quaint hostel near Central Park we were able to stay for $26pp and see Manhattan.  Stupid me decided to join Yano in an 7 mile run in Central Park and we got horrendously lost, which made us go faster and faster.  7 miles turned into 8, and 8 turned into 9, the last of which was walking.  Not one to waste a day in a foreign city, we washed up, and went for a stroll in 5th Avenue, 42nd street, Times Square, Grand Central Station, and what we thought was the Empire State, but was actually the Chrysler building.  Whoops.  We ended up with very swollen feet, which wer’e still paying for.  I don’t think the human body is meant to carry a huge backpack for hours, then run for 9 miles, and then walk for 3 hours in an effort to save on metro fare (BTW, there’s a $7 all day pass for public transport which we didn’t know about).

Onto Helsinki swollen feet and all…

You know, if I’m going to die young, let it be something worthy of a story– a heart attack in a bike race (as I cross the finish line, hands pumping in the air), a terrorist attack, or maybe a a parachute that doesn’t open.  But please, oh please… let it not be a an (avoidable) car accident.

Here we are worried about terrorist threats in Mumbai, when what we should be worried about are stupid drunk drivers.  We were running some errands a few hours ago for our trip, and I decided to avoid the highway because I thought it’d be safer.  Going about 5 miles an hour in downtown Mayaguez some drunk driver decided to turn into our lane and hit us head on.  Luckily he was also going 5 miles an hour, so it was just annoying– having to lose 2-3 hours while he got arrested and sobered off barely enough to have the situation explained to him.  The man was so drunk he could barely stand up.

At the police station we realized this was not the only drunk driving case for the night– maybe the 3rd.

Oh, and guess what the punishment for drunk driving in PR  is: driving school and a $300 fine.  What the fuck!  Drunk drivers should lose their license for 3 years, spend 30 days in jail, and pay a $3000 fine to get their license back.  Second offense?  6 months in jail and you lose your license for life.  Oh yeah, and 6 month community service at a car wash… in Santurce.

We’re all right, though we have to spend our first day back from vacation going to court.  Can’t wait…

Well, provided no more drunk drivers, we should be in the airport in about 3 hours.  Excuse the typos, it’s 3:30am.  Yawn.

Well India it is, unless something drastically changes from here until Monday…

We leave on Monday, and get there on a Thursday.  How’s that for time changes, and long layovers?  We bought 2 separate tickets– Puerto Rico -> New York City.  NYC -> Helsinki -> New Delhi.  We have a 6 hour layover in NYC, and a 12 hour layover in Helsinki.  There’s a CouchSurfer who we hope to meet for coffee/food in Helsinki, provided the Panamanian in our entourage doesn’t get stopped at immigration (which is usually the case when she pulls out a Panamanian passport, US resident card, a marriage certificate, and a slew of immigration papers).

Apparently Helsinki in December is not only colder than PR, but a whole lot darker.  If it’s too cold, I’ll fake some traveler’s diarrhea at the last minute and stay indoors.  No shame there– my plan was tropical India, not tundrid Helsinki in the winter.

• Passport, check.
• Empty backpack so I can buy cheap clothes in India, check.
• Phone numbers of unknown CouchSurfers in India/Helsinki, check.
• Email scanned copies of passports to self, check.
• SSH key on an USB stick, check.
• Email 50 pages of scanned nurse anesthesia reviews for Yanory to forget about, and never study while on vacation, check.