Monday, January 18, 2010

Day 1: Off to NY and then India...we thought...

Day 1 Jan 14-


Got to New York around 3pm and after some delay getting my bag, met up with Mark and headed to the practice facility in Brooklyn. Their facility is a converted Army Air Base field and hangar. It was really neat and had a TON of things to do there: a nice fitness center, two smaller indoor soccer fields, two ice rinks, a climbing wall, two volleyball/basketball courts, two aereobics rooms, and a huge gymnastics room. Add that to the football and soccer fields outside and that was one really big complex. Mark said that the owbner of the NY ISlanders offered tio renovate the property with the understanding that if the US ever went to war again and it was needed it could be converted back with in a few days. Still really cool.

So after a couple of good practices and a good workout, we headed to the airport and this is where the adventure began. We got the counter ready to check in and were told we couldn't check in because we didn't have the visas on us. After explaining the situation and finally getting a hold of Martin, we were told by the airlines that we be stopped at customs in Chennai and forced to fly back because we didn't have visas, even though Martin would be picking us up.

Sooooo, we got to spend the night in New York at Mark's house and applied for emergency visas online filling out paperwork. After getting all of our paperwork done that night and moer than several conversations with Martin and his nephew George and a letter of invitation from the Indian Volleyball Federation, we needed to head to Manhattan to the Indian Consulate to apply for emergency visas.

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