Prime Ministers, dying women, crack smoking taxi drivers, what more could a woman ask for besides being on Santa’s bad list?
Ok, we are now at the Aurangabad airport heading home and there are police and security guards all over! Why? Well, the Prime Minister of India is arriving that day to visit. We were right there when he came in, only feet away, but unable to send our Canadian good wishes as the AK47’s didn’t seem to inviting to flirt with….

While in line, we met fellow Canadian travellers identified by their MEC EXACT backpacks like ours. That was nice. If only they had had a Tim Horton’s coffee mug with them….lol

Going through the again amazing security, Amber and I had another snaffu. I had to prove to the woman with the metal detector wire that indeed I had as much metal in my bra as I did to support my voluptous ta-ta’s by lifting my shirt. She had not seen boobs as big as mine to require as much metal as my bra set the machine off with before….And just think, women pay thousands of dollars for these babies!

Amber was forced to practically submit to a body cavity search as she had forgotten her matches in her bag and needed to root it out. Her seat number was added to the “potential terrorists” list that the security guard had. We were hoping it was only going to go to Santa’s bad list, but we will see as we go through our next security checkpoint if she is red flagged as an Al Quaida or not.

We are now in the air, when suddenly I felt an elbow in my ribs….Amber was prodding me saying that while I was chatting with the guy next to me, they had announced over the intercom that one of the passengers wasn’t feeling well and would any medically trained personnel announce themselves to the crew. I am quite disappointed I missed the announcement; I have been waiting my whole life for this. Good thing Amber had my back! I practically pole vaulted over the lap of the guy in the aisle seat to get to the crowd gathering at the back of the plane at 45,000 feet.

Turns out, there was an ex-doctor and a surgeon also on board, but they weren’t quick enough…I found a woman stretched out across three seats, white/greyish looking who in my mind was on the steps of death’s door….but my bubble was popped when I diagnosed her with Delhi belly and had fainted from lack of nutrition as she wasn’t able to keep anything in her for the past two days. She also spoke French, so I hacked my way through her assessment, and consulted with the two doctors who were quite happy to let me do my thing, and arranged for her to have transport to the local doctor’s once we landed. A standing ovation with cheers followed me to my seat.

Landing safely and without further incident we arrived in Bombay.

Stay tuned for the next post….

Annie

The alarm rings early in order to be ready for the 05:45 pickup time!

Here is the backstory in a nutshell. 5 months ago, whilst doing nails, drinking beers and listening to music, Tamara and I were lamenting on the fact we both loved P!NK’s music, but had not been to see her in concert. One hand in the UV lamp meant one hand was free to surf “The Google” and discover she was playing in Toronto Aug 2019…but I probably shouldn’t ditch the family vacation for that… Also she was playing in September in Rio de Janeiro but neither of us wanted to risk being kidnapped… So the calendar then landed on Nov 2 in Texas.

I asked Tamara if she wanted to go… And she said she probably couldn’t make that decision right then and there…. Well….. Oops!! I made the decision for her when I chose “buy tickets now”… Lol

I cackled, as is my fashion in times like this… And tipped back another Michelob.

The next day, fully aware of the fact I wanted Tamara to come because she also wanted to, not because she was pressured to, I found someone to take her place if she ended up deciding she didn’t want to come in the light of day.

Needless to say, she decided to join me on an Annie Adventure… And here we sit!

I was pretty excited about the trip, so this morning I started to walk down the street toward her house and stuck my thumb out as she pulled up in the truck. 8 minutes later we were at the airport and starting our body cavity searches making our way to the departure gate. We only have one in Medicine Hat, so… It wasn’t difficult to find.

30 minutes later we were on the plane… And wondering why the pilots were starting and stopping it over and over. Moments later our pilot came in the overhead saying we had some mechanical issues and they were going to try and fix it, or order us up a new plane. Trudging back down the ailse, the Air Marshall in me found an abandoned suspicious looking bag under the seat in the plane…

Turned out the be the flight attendants bag!

While waiting in the lounge again and sipping $2 mocha-choca-latte-yayas to pass the time, we stumbled across one of our favourite doctors escaping Medicine Hat to go golfing in Mexico…. If he could only make his connection in Cowtown in time!

An hour later, we were hurtling through the air at 400kmph westward, while our teeth chattered and we huddled together for warmth in the tin can with wings. We managed to ask to have the heat turned up, but the polar bears objected after reading about global warming… No warm plane for us.

Touching down 45 minutes later we nestled into a booth at the Belgian Beer Cafe for some steak and eggs and to watch the season 6 finale of Wentworth over brekkie. Tamara had the foresight to prep our layover entertainment by downloading season 7…our favourite show!

After filling up with Alberta beef, we grabbed a drink from Starbucks (where the barista failed to label our drinks accurately… Tkemra and those who shall be nameless… Instead of Tamara and Wonder Woman) and headed to the gate where we started to watch our show again while we had time to kill. While sitting there another traveller thought it would be great to push the envelope of personal space bubbles and practically sit on her lap. She was not impressed. Good thing she had her elbows sharpened recently.

Our next plane had a fire extinguisher seal issue which caused another hour delay… We got to people watch and were able to nickname the Nut man as well as the DVD man. A supa hot tea was in order… And we were informed that since McDonalds was the cup sponsor, we had to be aware the temperature of the tea would be higher than normal… I refreshed the memory of the McDonalds lawsuit selling hot coffee and reminded the flight attendant we could be burned if it was too hot. She didn’t see the humour.

While sitting next to Jean Luc Picard, I started to ask him philosophy questions. Suffice to say, he offered this piece of advice…. Don’t sweat things in life. Big or small. Nothing is worth stressing over. That led me to question why people stress over things ever…. What is the gain in worrying….? I’m still pondering this.

Hours later we arrived, got our smashed up car rental (yup… Damaged, flat tire indicator on, maintenance light glowing….) and learned Houston has no In and Out Burger… We would have to try Austin. 8 lanes of traffic greeted us leaving the airport and I felt like I was back in Toronto!

The highway should have been named the Hotel California Interstate….for it felt like we drove forever and could never leave ….

However, we did see some very interesting street names… Happy Hollow Road, Kickapoo Road, Squirrel Run and saw a hospital on Slaughter Road. Don’t think that gives many confidence…

We stopped to pee and buy some Powerball Lottery tickets and overwhelmed the clerk with our powerful accents. Lol

We drove by a bridge with homeless tents under it and now wonder what we will see when the sun is up.

We are at our very lovely Air B&B and look forward to our adventures tomorrow!

Grand Prix 

It is 17:27 here in ‘murica and I am sitting on the dry grass in Texas. On the ground, right next to me is a significant ant pile several people in line pointed out before we popped a squat. Probably, we are the nasty ones disturbing their home. 

It is 19oC, clear blue skies and perfect weather.  

Tamara had been up with the birds while I snuggled deep into our Air B&B bed for two hours waiting for me to wake. When it was clear I was going to need some encouragement she played “Get the party started!” by P!NK. I leaped out of bed, pulled on my Canadian Sweetleg tights from Maureen and away we went.  Nothing says breakfast more than In and Out Burger, animal style…. Then it was off to Starbucks for Tamara to add to her collection of coffee cups. 

We parked the rental car downtown where the police park so we should be able to come back to our vehicle still in one piece. Hopping onto the shuttle that took us to the Circuit of the America’s Formula 1 Grand Prix.  The bus was amazing! If Greyhound had buses like these, they likely would still be in business! 

There was a young man, maybe 20?, in the seat behind us who called his girlfriend to check in on her.  She had been drinking quite heavily the night before and apparently was making poor choices. It was really quite an interesting conversation to happen upon, for many reasons. The biggest one was how well this young man handled himself in his communications.  He was clear, direct, polite, said exactly how he was feeling, asking for an apology, spoke with the concept of win-win in mind and at the end, reconfirmed everything was clean in his communication. It was lovely and refreshing to hear a young person so articulate in owning his feelings. In case you wondered, I did. I told him so.  He was pretty down at the end of it, and he needed to know how well he handled it. So I told him. 

Anyhoo, we arrived at the gates after doing the math that showed EACH coach that went to the event was raking in $1400 PER TRIP!!!

The security guard didn’t know what to do with the fact I required a pat down, not a metal detector scan. We finally got in and started to look around.  There were literally hundreds of food and drink vendors, let alone the merchandise vendors. We saw a human cannon all setup, a doggie park area for those who were set up with their fifth wheels. 

Soooo many expensive cars parked next to those driven by Joe Lunchbucket and Suzie Housecoat in the parking lots. 

We weaved our way through all the displays and then asked directions from one of the staff to find where our bleacher seats were.  She told us we were exactly opposite the side where we needed to go. Following her directions, we set off. About 39 minutes of walking later, I said jokingly how funny it would be if we had passed the gate.  I thought perhaps since I had joked about it, we should probably ask. Turns out, the first woman we asked was clearly fresh off her smoke break… Marijuana smoke break likely, as were were NOWHERE NEAR WHERE WE NEEDED TO BE! 

A shuttle was hopped onto and we were brought back to exactly where we started an hour earlier. Ugh. 

OK. Take two.  We went the other way this time, and navigated our way through the infield and over bridges and through tunnels to reach only ½ way where we needed to be. 

Once we finally got to where our bleachers were, the races were over for a while.  They stop and start all day. We decided it would be good to then find where we needed to go for the PINK concert at 730.

Another few HOURS of walking… No exaggeration… and we found it.  Snacks were needed to fortify ourselves after all this. Texas sized corn dogs, lemonade, brisket macaroni and cheese and chicken quesadillas rounded out with a Texas sized donut to boot.  We rolled our way over to watch some of the racing by the fence near turn 9. Turn 4, where our actual seats were, were never actually graced with our bums! Ever!! Lol

Given how long it took us to not only find where we needed to be, but actually get there, we decided to make our way over to where the hordes would be lining up to gain access to the infield for the concert. 

At 17:27 we sat. Near the ants.  And waited. For nearly two hours. Then, the race was on as the gate girls gave the signal.  We ran! And ran! And ran! Luckily we were in the first 12 people on a line of hundreds…. AndAnd so we were the pace setters.  If this was my training for a Spartan race, I think I could do one now. 

Moments before the foot chase started, we had the forethought to link ourselves via Google maps so if we got separated we could find each other easily.  It was perfect. Tamara ran to the bathroom and I ran for where the best spot to stand would be. I gotta say, we both did ourselves proud. In the end we were one row from the fence separating the unwashed masses from the $500-$2500 standing area.  It was perfect!!! 

In the preconcert time we listened to KidCutUp.  He is a DJ who was tremendous with mixing the records to all the 80s top hits and got the crowd dancing.  It was pretty powerful to watch 35,000 people come together over music. 

I’ve been to a lot of concerts in my day and this by far was the best!!  Second was Garth Brooks in 92 when I was second row on the floor in Calgary. 

Her energy, her messages in her music, the showmanship, the Cirque du Soleil she performed herself was beyond any concert I have been to. Absolutely worth the trip.  100%

This day was brought to me though the power of living life on purpose.  Making a plan, seizing the moment and not looking back. It was brought to me by a friend willing to take a chance on a spur of the moment decision and a husband tending the home fires while I satisfy my wanderlust.  It was definitely also sponsored by fit bit and peppermint foot cream!! 

Everytime I do an adventure like this I am reminded of the power in life and how to live it to the fullest.  I encourage you to do the same. We never know what is next, even if we plan the hell out of our days. Do what matters…. What is good for your soul.  The rest of life will take care of itself.