T-11 Days until Departure

I thought you would be interested in learning about our journey and our destination. The distance from my comfy living room to our temporary home away from home, Khambhat, is approximately 7,500 miles or 12,000 kilometers. The circumference of the earth is about 24,000 miles or 40,008 kilometers. That is to say, we are going a long way.

Ken and I will start out by boarding an Amtrak train at 12:30 pm on Thursday, January 17th in Lancaster and travel through 30th Street Station in Philadelphia on up to Penn Station, New York City. There we switch to an Air-rail that is supposed to deliver us right to terminal 4 at JFK International Airport around 4:30pm where we will meet our fellow travelers who are traveling by motor coach from Harrisburg to JFK (more about the team later).

There will be plenty of time to re acquaint with old friends and meet new friends as our flight on Etihad Airways does not depart JFK until 10:05pm. At that time we fly for 12 hours and 40 minutes arriving in Abu Dhabi, AE on Friday, 01/18/13 at 7:45pm local time. After a brief layover we expect to leave Abu Dhabi at 11:10pm and make the 2hr and 45min flight to Ahmedabad, India arriving there at the wee hour of 3:25am, Saturday 01/19/13. Now that is definitely some time warp travel! But wait, there's more! We then have a several hour bus drive to Khambhat where undoubtedly we will all be craving a hot shower and some prone position shut eye.

I've attached a few map images for your geographical education here. Khambhat is located in western India in Gujarat state. The city is located at the top of the deep indentation along India's coastline. The weather in Khambhat this week is running a high of low to mid 80's and lows in the mid to upper 50's.

I hope I have whet your appetite to stay with me and read the upcoming posts on my blog. Again, please feel free to share this blog with your friends. Talk to you tomorrow.

--Cheryl