My journey to the US

Wanted to write about the adventure that was my first trip to the US.

I started from India on Dec 16 - my flight was at 1 30 in the morning. Like an idiot, I had taken no foreign currency with me. I only had my credit card on me. Can anyone believe that! So...I had no cash and no way to get any cash, and they announced that my flight was late by 45 minutes. It wud be an understatement to say that I was shaken. I had a connecting flight after a halt of only 1 hour and 30 minutes at JFK, New York. I was sure I was gonna miss this flight, and that is what happened. I was supposed to leave JFK for Seattle at 8 35, but I arrived in JFK at 8 15. I had the immigration to go through, I had to collect my bags, and I had the customs to go through.

Immigration check happened really fast...the officer did not ask me many questions. He seemed to be a happy man, but he was heavily accented. I couldn't understand half of what he was saying. But then he just took my picture, took my finger prints and stamped my I 94. I then went to baggage claim, and to my horror I realised that I had to pay 3 dollars for a luggage trolley. There was no way that I could haul my bags out of there without a trolley. I had no cash...it struck me later as a very bollywoodish kind of a situation. If this were a film, the hero would come to help the heroine out of the trouble, they would fall in love, there would be some trouble in their story, they would overcome it, and then live happily ever after - at least till the audience got out of the theatres. But here I was, standing alone in an alien place, with no cash on me. I suddenly realised that there was a credit card slot. I thanked my lucky stars and whatever, and used my credit card to get a trolley. I suddenly felt Mumbai airport was so much better...there you could get a trolley for free.

Anyways...I collected my bags and went in for the customs. It took me 2 hours to go through that line. When my turn came, I told them that I had missed my connecting flight. They booked me on a flight to Cincinnati and from there to Seattle. So, they said, I should be reaching Seattle at 6 in the evening. What they didn't say, and what I realised much later, was that I was gonna reach Seattle at 6 Pacific Time. That means it would be 9 Eastern Time. I still have no idea and no heart to calculate how many hours i actually grew younger by througout the trip.

So...I went to my terminal...and was very hungry by this time. I had met a really nice guy from India on my flight to the US. We stuck it around. His connecting flight was after mine, but we were together till it was time for me to check in for my flight. It was 11 30 in the afternoon and my flight was at 1 30. We went and asked a lady for a restaurant because we were really hungry. She said we would have to go to another terminal - we would have to take an airbus for that. We realised that would be risky, as I only had an hour to check in. So I abandoned all thoughts and hopes of a snack.

My plane to Cincinnati again took off late by around 15 mins. By this time I was too hassled to bother about any more delays. The plane was worse than a volvo bus back in India. It was a 40-sitter bugger with actually no leg-space at all. As my luck would have it, I was sitting beside a real fat man - he looked at me very apologetically (I think), but then I knew even he couldn't help the lack of space for me. I just endured it for 1 and a half hours, and then we reached Cincinnati. By the way, I had thankfully got a window seat in this plane, and I really enjoyed that!

In Cincinnati, I had to rush to reach the terminal of the flight to Seattle. It was pretty far off and I had to take a bus. But I made it in good time. Again I had a window seat, and I decided to enjoy as much as possible. It was a 6 hour flight, but daylight would help me only for another hour or so. Once it was dark, I promptly went off to sleep. I only woke up when they announced the landing. With all the delays and botherations, I reached seattle at 7 45 in the evening. I was supposed to be here by 11 50 in the morning.

All this time, there was no chance for me to call up Aditya. He didn't have a cell phone, and I could not find his friend's number as well. I knew Aditya would be at his wit's end, but I also knew I couldn't help it. I felt relief all over me when I saw my husband standing there, waiting to receive me. I was actually relieved...that i finally made it, that i finally met him, and most importantly, that he had not gone back home, thinking that I had not boarded the plane in India! (you see, I had a plan in that case...I was going to approach the airport police, tell my case to them, and ask them to escort me home)

As soon as I met Aditya, the first thing that he told me was that they did not have electricity out here for 3 whole days! It all started with a storm, and they were still unable to fix the problem. Out here, even the cooking range is electric. So the bottomline was that we had no warmth, no food, and no lights. At that moment I knew how better off I was back in India. I was living more or less alone with no one to really listen to and no one to bother about. (I have changed my opinion since. I have started enjoying my life out here as well)

I then went to the baggage claim with Aditya after this, and I got only one bag. I had lost (oh horror) one of my bags - the one that I got all the utensils in. We had to go to the baggage claim counter, and register a complaint and all that stuff. We spent another 45 minutes in that. I was lucky though...the man ahead of me had lost ten parcels. We got our bag home-delivered the next day.

We left the airport soon after this. We had tried to have something to eat, but all sandwiches were over. All they had were cookies which looked really miserable. So Aditya just booked a cab and we got out of the airport. That's when the cold hit me like a whip! I had never imagined it would be that cold!! The cab came in around 2 mins, and again I had a bollywood deja vu. The driver was a Delhite, and he had been driving the cab in Seattle for 7 years. At first he was speaking to us in English...but he got a phone call and he started talking in Hindi. That's when Aditya asked him...very bollywoodishly...Aap Hindustan se ho? And boy, did he start talking after that! We spent a very entertaining 50 mins in the cab.

We finally reached home and we rejoiced, because electricity in our area had come back just half an hour before I arrived there.

Well, light and hope go in my wake :)

So this is my long and dramatic story. It is up for sale if anyone wants to direct a film on this. I could suggest many more typicalities that happened. Any producer interested?