Jamie is currently en route to Delhi right now, via London (eat some salted cashews for all of us, J!) Unfortunately, thanks to a canceled United flight (with no notice), I’m still in rainy San Fran (BOO!).

When I arrived at the airport this morning they informed me that I couldn’t fly to Delhi via Beijing without a Chinese visa because my itinerary said I was staying in Beijing for over 24 hours. What?! A 28-hour layover? That was definitely NOT in my original plans. But apparently United/Air China canceled my original Beijing to Delhi flight and without telling me, booked me on a flight that left the following day (moral of the story: think twice before flying United).

Rather than camp out in the Beijing airport and risk deportation due to lack of a visa, I’m just flying to Beijing/Delhi tomorrow morning…certainly not my ideal situation. The good news is, while this sets me back a day, it doesn’t interrupt too much of our itinerary. As soon as I get to Delhi, we’ll hop a train to Jaipur to meet up with the Ruth clan.

Just hoping that Jamie can survive a day in Delhi left to his own devices We shall see…

Merry Christmas from Heathrow, where I’m joined by all my fellow heathens. I got something even better than pub food on my overnight flight: mincemeat pie — one of only a few British culinary creations worth blogging about. Props to Cedric, who half-jokingly predicted this most favorite pie of mine might appear on my tray table. For the record, there is no meat in said pie.

I’m bummed I won’t get to spend the first day exploring Delhi with Ramya, but I’ve promised not to have too much fun on my own (Supreme Court of India Museum, here we come)!