Last Day in India - June 7

            I didn't think there would be too much to do since I had already packed all of our suitcases the day before but I was worried that everything was overweight so I repacked all the suitcases and took things out and put them into a separate bag that I could carry in my hands hoping that I could check everything in without a problem. My grandma and grandpa from Palani left after breakfast in the morning and right after they left my mom's best friend, Chitra Amma showed up with her niece Dhanu. My grandma had an appointment with an Ayurveda doctor to help with her leg pain. It was basically a very different and unique foot/leg massage. Chitra Amma and I ended up getting foot massages as well and it felt very weird. He used some tools to knead the sole of the foot and then also used them to press on certain "points" on the leg which were painful. I was kind of glad when the massage was over because I didn't really care for it that much but apparently it helps my grandma and she's been doing it every week for the past 5 weeks.
            Geetha akka (she's renting the back room from us) was dog-sitting Julie again today so her son Rahul, Dhanu and I played with the dog for awhile. She's so pretty and adorable.

 

              Geetha Akka and Rahul w/ Julie                    Myself and Rahul  

  

              Julie with a bindi               Rahul loves climbing over the gate

 Dhanu with Julie

            After eating lunch we cleaned up the house a little more and took everything that was in the front hall and put it in the back bedroom so that we could lock that bedroom before leaving. Pretty soon the rooms were bare and we just lounged around waiting for 6pm so that we could pack the car and leave. However, we got a surprise when Suresh Mama and Baby Athai showed up with the kids. We thought they were just going to be meeting us at the airport but they actually came to our house a few hours early so that we could spend some more time together. They brought their two kids, Dhyanesh and Jarshini and also Varshini, Suresh Mama's younger brother's (Yogesh) daughter. They have rhyming names in their family. Varshini is the cutest little kid ever though. Her and Jarshini are only a year apart so they are very close and can cause a lot of trouble whenever they are together. What started out as a relatively quite morning got very noisy and loud by the time we left. My aunt (Selvi athai) and cousin (Siva Shankar) also came over. The family that rents our back room was also home and hanging out with us. It was a nice send-off and a great ending to my trip.

 

 

  I had so much fun with these two: (Varshini on the top left, Jarshini on the top right) 

 

Playing in the park across the street

 

Little troublemakers

My grandma with Dhanu and Chitra Amma

Our send off gang

 

   Siva Shankar (bigger troublemaker) and I      Suresh Mama with his girls

 

Their family

 

                Grandma and Selvi Athai                 Varshini, Jarshini, Grandma, 

                                                                      Selvi Athai, Dhyanesh & Dhanu

              We dropped Chitra Amma and Dhanu off on our way to the airport and Suresh Mama and his family came to the airport to send us off. We had about 40 minutes to kill and boy did the girls have fun climbing all over me. I didn't have a problem checking in all the luggage in Coimbatore but Bangalore was a pain. I had requested wheelchair assistance for grandma so she didn't have to walk everywhere which was extremely helpful. We got to bypass all the lines and got to be the first ones to board.

 

The two had fun using me as a play toy

              Our flight from Coimbatore to Bangalore was only an hour long but we had a four hour layover in Bangalore before our flight to Paris at 2am. Additionally I had to get all of our luggage and recheck everything at the Air France counter. This is usually where they are very strict about the weight limits. And lo and behold all but one of the suitcases were over the allotted 23 kg by 1 kg. Only 1 kg but the counter lady wouldn't let it pass.  This meant taking things out and trying to cram it into my carry on suitcase which was overweight to begin with but oh well. I spent the next half hour taking random things out to try and get the weight down which was tricky because all the heavy stuff was grocery items that had to be checked and couldn't be in my carry on. Somehow I managed to get everything packed so that they all weighed only 23 kg. They ticket counter lady asked me if I had any carry-on suitcases and I told her I didn't just so she wouldn't make me weigh those as well which would not have gone well. We made it through immigration and security without any problems and were about to board the flight to Paris when one of the airline attendants saw our carry on luggage and made us check one of them in which I didn't really care about since they didn't charge us anything. One less suitcase for me to carry. After that, it was smooth sailing. Ten hour flight ahead of us.....