The Journey Chronicles (Part II)

Part two of the journey was London - New York - Raleigh-Durham (And, don't judge by my posts, there was only 1.5 hrs time between the flights). So again I got into the window seat of a "jumbo-jet" for a cross-atlantic hop to New York. The two adjoining seats were occupied by two french boys. नशीब ***** तो ***** (तबियतदार तज्ञांनी फुल्या भरून घ्याव्यात), so I was sure my whole time was going in watching the in-flight movies.

Now whoever said that in-flight movies are boring are probably in the age where Wright flier was still news. I got Hitch and Valiant, both of them excellent movies. What with the movies, and sleep in between them the flight was very short for me.

But who can imagine that while you are going from London to New York (i.e. heading west), you have sun shining straight at your window, so that you are forced to close the window? Believe me, I kept the window closed for almost the whole time, except when we reached american coast (flying south from Canada, if you can imagine that :o) My voisin requested me to keep the window open, while landing, which was anyway my plan.

So finally, we were flying over the american land, and of course sea. (Believe me, I counted at least 10-15 baseball and football-american version-grounds in 15 minutes). When the plane (finally) reahced New York, we all rushed to the immigration control. (Where was the Statue of Liberty??????) There was a looong (रामाच्या शेंडीपासून सीतेच्या शेपट्यापर्यंत) line for that, luckily containing passengers from only one plane. Finally the procedure was over, I had stamp on my visa, and I was legally allowed to enter American territory as an alien (MIB, here I come...)

Going to collect my bags to transfer them to the domestic flight, I got the good news that one of my bags was not seen from London. I think this is my contract with all airlines that they try to reduce the load I am carrying by sending my baggage later. Next time I am going to carry only cabin baggage and hope that they don't keep that with them too. Anyways, there was no customs check (so that all the chutnis, papads, laddus etc got safely out, except those which were in missing bag), and I gave my bag to the staff at the domestic terminal, and started towards the gate for my flight. I had almost 2 hours before the next flight.

The aircraft for next flight was an embraer which is going to be used by our belived Prime Minister and President. Good choice, Mr. Prime Minister... Anyways, I reached Durham safe and sound (minus one bag, and after getting younger, or maybe older, by some 10 hours). My friend was waiting for me, and we started for his home. The highways reminded me of the Germany. the only difference was that in germany, the taxi needed heater, here we needed cooler in the car. I wasn't feeling any jet-lag and we were conversing very happily, meeting after 2 years.

I got to his room, and told him to continue with his plans for the evening (playing volleyball) while I take bath and watch some TV. I still wasn't feeling tired or jet-lagged. So I took into bath, and sat down to watch TV. In 5 minutes, I was sleeping like a log...