From Chennai to St.Louis

My experiences in travelling from Chennai airport to St.Louis, that is to say my first trip abroad

Take-off
We reached Chennai airport at around 1:15am. My mom and dad accompanied me. I asked them to wait in the visitor’s area and went straight to the place where they see the weight of the baggage. They had said that the maximum allowed weight was 23kg per each luggage. I thought mine would be more. So, I was curious to finish checking the weight fast, so that I can rearrange or remove some of the things and give it to my parents. The weight of both the luggage was same – 25 point something. I checked with the lady of British Airways about the maximum weight allowed. She said I can carry up to 32kg in each. So, I was relieved. But when I checked the size of my cabin luggage (the one we carry in hand), the size was a bit bigger. They said that there is no weight limit for the cabin luggage, but its size should be lesser. So, I took the luggage to the place where my parents were standing and did some rearrangements to reduce the size.

Then I went to the ticket counter and waited for a very long time before getting the boarding pass and checking-in my baggage. After that I had to go to customs check. I won’t be able to come back to the visitor’s area after that. So, I went to the visitor’s area to bid adieu to my parents. Then, after a brief customs check, I stood in a very long queue for the security check. The people who stood behind me kept on talking some crap in “peter” English. It was so irritating. At one place, the queue split into two. We can take any one of them. I made sure that I was not in the same queue as the peters. The security check was very brief. Then I went to the gate meant for my flight. I had to walk for some distance through a narrow path. After that, a lady asked for my boarding pass and showed me the direction. I was thinking that I was inside some room and only when I turned to the direction the lady showed, I realized that I was already inside the flight.

I found my seat and sat there. It was an aisle seat. Our seat was just behind the wings of the air plane and I could see the wing through the window. There was a head-phone and a small TV in front of every seat and we can change the channels we want. A Tamil girl came and sat in the window seat. It seems she is working for TCS and was going to Arizona. A bald-headed, fat guy sat in the middle seat. He was drunk. Around 4:15am, the flight took-off. And I looked outside through the window. The sparkling lights from the buildings and the moving ones from the traffic were such a stunning sight. It was like seeing the sky on a Diwali night. I never realized that Chennai could be that beautiful.

From Chennai to St.Louis
I was reading the magazines kept and was changing the TV channels when the airhostess gave me a box. “What is that”, I asked. “Breakfast”, she said. I looked at my watch. It was 5:30am. There was pongal and masal dosa inside the box. After finishing my earliest breakfast ever, I fell asleep. Got up after some three or four hours. There were some English movies shown in the TV and after sometime I realized that they are playing the same movies again and again. It started to get boring. As they had closed all the windows, I could not look outside too. I realized the mistake of not bringing any of my books. Tried to watch the movies for sometime as I had nothing else to do. I had juice now and then, finished my lunch also sometime before we arrived in London. Then we landed on the famous Heathrow airport in London, some eight hours after I boarded in Chennai. I realized that I have to travel at least seventeen more hours to reach St.Louis. I changed my watch time to that of London so that I won’t miss my connection flight.

It was a long walk in the London airport to reach our terminal. There was security check again, and it was stricter than the one we had in Chennai airport. We even had to remove our shoes. When it was time, I went to the gate for my flight. Again walked through a narrow path and there was a lady asking for my boarding pass. And this time I knew that I was inside my flight.

It was an aisle seat this time too. There was an old American couple who sat next to me. They were both professors in Texas University. The old man said that there was a big computer company in Texas and as a result there was a huge Indian population. He said he is a professor of philosophy and economics. I admitted to him that I did not know anything about both.

After sometime, the airhostess gave me a box. “What is that”, I asked. “Breakfast”, she said. My God! Then what is it that I had in Chennai? I looked at my watch. It was 10:00 am. I wondered whether I would be having my second lunch for the day too. And sometime later, I did. There was this “maps and directions” which was shown in one of the channels of the TV. It interested me to know the altitude of our flight, the air temperature outside, the direction of our flight and where we were at the moment. It also showed the present time in the source and destination locations and the time left for landing. After checking the time left for landing for, say some hundred times, it was actually time for landing in Chicago. I changed my watch time to that of US Central timing. It was when I looked outside the window, that I witnessed one of the most beautiful sights of my life. I could only see pure, white, thick blanket of snow in every direction that I turned. I was looking at it in awe and wonder with my eyes so wide open that the old, gentleman sitting next to me asked me, “Is this the first time you are seeing snow?” I smiled gently and nodded my head in agreement. “There was this friend of mine who was also from India, who told me that the first time he saw snow was when he went for honeymoon with his wife to Kashmir. But he described about the snow in a better way than I do.”

Chicago Airport was so big that I had to go in something like our electric train to reach my terminal, thus getting a glimpse of Chicago city. After Immigration check and another round of security check, I reached the gate where my flight departs, thinking how to spend the one hour left before the scheduled departure. But, when I reached the gate, I came to know that I should be planning for a longer duration. They said that the flight was delayed by an hour due to bad weather. I was already feeling very tired and decided to sleep for the remaining couple of hours. Even though I was very tired, I kept checking the time frequently. It was already getting late and the last thing I wanted was to miss my flight sleeping. The flight arrived later than the announced time and it took such a long time to depart. When I looked out of the window and saw the weather, I realized why. Hardly anything was visible. Everybody had doubts whether we would reach St.Louis - which was just over an hour’s journey - that night. But at last, after much confusion, we landed in St.Louis.

The Not-so-warm welcome
The weather was so bad. I wasn’t sure whether my friend who was supposed to pick me up would come there in that weather. But, as soon as I came out, he was waiting for me. We went to collect my luggage. All the luggage from that flight was going around in rounds in a conveyor belt but I couldn’t find mine. We waited for a long time to find mine but in vain. Then went to the airline authorities and complained about the missing baggage and came outside the airport to catch a taxi. When we came out I realized how cold it was. And my friend said that it was the worst snow of the season so far and he found it too difficult to reach the airport. When we checked, no driver was ready to come in that snow. At last, we and two other people who were going in the same direction got into a single taxi that we got. After struggling to find the address amidst the heavy blanket of snow that was seen in every direction that we turned, I reached my apartment. But, I can very well say that United States did not give me a warm welcome, at least literally.