I just enjoyed a two months vacation in India !! (No im not an American bragging about that, but sadly I am an Indian staying in America from the past one and half year! So yes kind of bragging.. ) N it was time to come back to the US.. Apart from the fact that it is the emotionally worst situation to leave your country (2nd time cause the first time its exciting!) and go to the other end of the world it is also the worst thought of travelling almost 24 hours to get there. So here is the account of my journey which was not almost, but all the more than, 24 hours.
I live in Pune city (which has international airport but you will have to have really rich parents if you want to land in Pune from America or just be stupid! ) so I have to land and take off from the Mumbai International airport. My flight was at 1:45 AM on 1st March, Thursday. The journey from Pune to Mumbai, thanks to the amazing expressway, is just 3 hours but considering the traffic and terrific roads of the city (and not to forget the 'must stop on expressway food stop' "Datta Snacks" for their absolutely delicious sabudana wada n khichdi ! ;)) it might take 5 hours, so we(me, Mom and Dad) left around 5:30 on Wednesday evening. We reached airport at 10:30-11. I was done with my immigration n security at arnd 12 n was waiting near the gate for 2 hours !!! If that was not enough our flight was delayed by half an hour or so, so more wait !!! :( :( n remember there are mosquitoes at the mumbai airport (even at the amsterdam airport, to my surprise!! i almost thought they travelled with us from mumbai.. ;) ) !!! I was so tired and sleepy that I din even realise when the flight took off. I just woke up to see we were reaching Amsterdam!
So my first layover was at Amsterdam n there it was just 1 and half hour or 2 hours of wait or so (which was quite needed after sitting in the flight for 9 hours).. The flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis, my second layover and the port of entry, was around 8 hours too!! I finally watched RA-One in the that flight. Which I don't regret, not because I liked it but because I was as is gonna see it some day( Y? because I like SRK even if he has acted and produced such a stupid movie) so might as well see it on the flight.. Ok moving on, my next and last flight to Dayton was in 40 minutes at 1:40 PM on Thursday afternoon. I knew I just had a 40 mins of layover time on the Minneapolis airport when I had booked the ticket so I knew that it was almost impossible to clear immigration, customs and security in such a short time but I was kind of trying my luck hard.. Believe me I tried very hard! I finished the immigration, within 10 mins (which was great!!) but then, customs (those a*******!!). I had 'gulachi-poli' with me n Pooja(my roommate) had told me to declare all the items I have, so I wrote sweet "bread" for that.. When they saw the word "bread" on the customs form they made all my luggage go through their stupid scanner n that officer opened my check-in bag which did NOT have the 'gulachi-poli' !!!!!! I was like 'U guys r nuts', obviously I cudnt say it loud.. So another 15 mins gone there..
Then I almost ran through security and I LITERALLY ran to the gate which was at the other end of the HUGE and absolutely unorganized airport !! I mean I have been at the Atlanta Airport which is the biggest Airport but it has a fixed train to go to concourses(A,B,C etc..) but here I had to run half a mile to see a concourse and another half to see that a train exists!! I had to miss first train because I somehow (n literally I wonder how!) I figured that its going in the opposite direction, so I walked + ran some more distance to catch the right train. By now I had ran on the sliding walks, escalators, caught a train and finally reached my gate at 1:39 or exact 1:40 !!!! phew.. it's not over.. not a happy ending yet..
So I reach the gate on time n the guy coldly tells me that the flight has left !! I was feeling frustrated, defeated, angry everything... n i was on the verge of crying when he told me that the next flight is at 7:30 in the eve !!! 6 hours !!!! Then after digesting that, I cried !! I was so frustrated with all this ( u guys know me na.. :( ) I cudnt cheer up myself to face my friends who were coming to pick me up at the Dayton Airport.. I knew it would not be right to face them with this frustration but somehow I failed to even calm myself. I was drained out of all the energy, feeling bad, not feeling like talking on phone with anyone(sorry Pooja if I was rude).. hmm.. I was feeling kind of demented.. And how destiny can be cruel sometime, the 7:30 flight left at 7:45 but my 1:40 flight could not even leave at 1:45 !! Anyway everything happens for a (good) reason, which we come to know later.
So I finally sat in the flight to Dayton. And then it was almost miraculous, an old lady came to sit besides me in the plane n she said "you will have to excuse me if I snore" (yes, her pretty much exact words!).. N I was like "huh err ok".. But somehow at that moment I forgot that I was frustrated for some reason (you might be thinking I am stupid but it really happened).. N then she was talking to me very random stuff but it somehow worked !! i completely forgot my unnecessary frustration, anger n I even felt less tired !! I swear I managed to smile when I saw my friends, nicely chit-chatted with them (which an hour ago seemed very difficult) !! :)
I think God has his own ways of saying "everything is going to be fine"!! :) :)
I reached home at arnd 11.. had dinner n slept off.. :) n im sleeping too much after that.. ;)
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