Hyderabad Day 0: We made it!!!

After an hour delay on a 14.5 hour flight from Dallas to Dubai on which we flew through the airspaces of Canada, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Iran before landing in the UAE, rushing through the Dubai airport to make our 3.5 hour connecting flight taking us to Hyderabad, we landed safe and sound at the Rajiv Ghandi International Airport (albeit tired and feeling the lack of sleep). Making it through immigration was a breeze. I started to get a little tense after it took much longer than I was expecting to claim my luggage, but my bags were finally spotted and we made our way out with all our belongings accounted for.

There might be a tendency for me to talk about food (I’m a big fan), so with that disclaimer made, the first food place I saw was Subway! The menu looked a little different, but there it was! Not shortly after I spotted KFC and McDonalds! Those last 2 are on the docket to try and see the differences between the locations back in the Colonies and here, but not yet.

After seeing the currency conversion place was closed for the night, we went out to the pickup area and quickly spotted Puji and her family. It is so nice to finally be able to meet her parents in person, they were very excited to meet my Dad and I, and we’re very much looking forward to spending the next couple weeks with them.

After a quick introduction to India traffic (which is a topic for another upcoming post) we made it to the Swagath Residency (couldn’t find a website) hotel to get showered and have some biryani and a mint chicken dish of which I don’t remember the name. Both were extremely flavorful with lots more spices than what I’ve tried in St. Louis. I suppose it is worth mentioning that on the wikipedia page for the dish of Biryani, the picture is of “Hyderabad chicken dum biryani,” so we are in the right place to try it. If you haven’t ever tried Indian cuisine, I would recommend starting with biryani and maybe a chicken tikka masala. Some of the ingredients in biryani (according to the recipe I found online) are basmati rice, mint, coriander leaves, onions, ginger and garlic paste, chili powder, turmeric powder, saffron, and some others. All baked together to make a spicy and flavorful dish with flavors you don’t normally get together in American main course cooking.

Tomorrow (actually today as I’m typing this) we are going to do some shopping for wedding attire and to see some of the city. I’ll put up some pictures and links to where we visit as I get a chance to. Looking forward to telling all about our adventure!