Since it was 1 am, they fed us on the plane right away, a western-style meal of chicken with gravy, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, salad and water. This was followed by a "midnight snack" which was in a plastic bag and could be saved for later. After we ate, we went right to sleep. We were exhausted, and this was past our bedtime even in India. We were both able to get a solid 6 hours of sleep, which was quite nice. We woke up and ate our midnight snacks (white cake, a kathi roll, a Five Star Cadbury chocolate bar, and Lay's potato chips) while watching "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". Craig teased me for dozing through most of the movie.
The flight attendants had told us that we could get drinks or snacks at the rear of the plane at any time during the 15-hour flight. After the movie we took a bathroom break, and the flight attendants were all really rude about us being in the back of the plane. Craig stretched his legs and one of the hostile flight attendants said, "If you're looking for a place to do your exercises, this isn't it!!" Craig was infuriated. We have never been treated so rudely on a flight. American Airlines has gone downhill. When the flight attendants were occupied, so I wouldn't have to deal with them, I went to the galley to the self-serve basket and got us some sour cream and onion Lay's chips and a chocolate nut cookie.
On Craig's next trip to the lavatory he met a nice Indian woman named Manjeet who lived in Atlanta. He was gone for quite a while, and I went back there to make sure the flight attendant hadn't been hassling him. Relieved, I said hello to Manjeet and then headed back to the seat and wrote in the journal. Craig opted for the western breakfast (a spinach omelette with roasted tomatoes) and I got the "veg" Indian option. It was delicious! We both had orange juice, bad coffee, water, croissants (with our favorite "udderly butterly delicious" Amul butter), and strawberry yoghurt. Craig had a CranApple as well.
We landed late at Chicago O'Hare, but were through immigration in literally five minutes. Our luggage was fairly quick to show up. We weren't sure if we had to declare the marble lamp and the sapphire ring. We decided to do so just in case, which caused us a little delay at customs, but we were above board, and luckily found out that no duty was necessary because they were considered hand made items. Because of this small delay, when we got to the baggage re-check, we found out that we had just missed our 7:05 flight (it was now 6:45). They immediately re-booked us for an 8:50 flight. The seats weren't the best (Craig had a middle bulkhead seat and I was in the row behind him). For some reason Craig boarded in group 1 and I was group 6. We were so out of it that when Craig went to board he walked right past the woman who was taking the tickets. She laughed and said she felt invisible. By the time I got to board, there was no room for my carry-on luggage (a small backpack and the lamp). At the suggestion of Craig's neighbor, Craig reached around the partition and put my backpack under the last seat in first class. I wrote in the journal, waiting to be busted about my backpack, But nobody cared, and we managed to get back to Boston without incident. We took the Logan Express bus, and Steve picked us up at the station.
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