Flight to USA

And so my journey began from the Kolkata domestic airport on 6th January 2012 to the Land of opportunities as the people like calling it here . USA. Kolkata to Delhi by Kingfisher was fine except the crappy airlines food. IGI was fine except all the charging points there did not work.

Delhi To Heathrow was awesome. I was upgraded to business class with huge reclining seats. There was a packet with a headset and another something which i instantly pocketed rather bagged (You know the Indianess!) And so i comfortable settled with Twilight, the book determined to hold off sleep as long as possible so that jet lag does not take over me. But eventually dozed off in the comfortable chairs. When i woke up the neck was immensely paining being in the wrong way for hours. I love food which is pretty apparent from my Spherical cute tummy(as my brother calls it... although i vehemently disagree) so the sight of bacon mushroom scrambled eggs bread brownie and juice made me quite happy. Reading my book and trying to sleep every which way so that my neck does not hurt I reached LHR and found that packet contained the inflatable neck pillow. Oh Snap :(

Heathrow was a humungous airport. From the terminal all the passengers took the tube and their respective busses for the next terminal, mine being Terminal 3. I was extremely concerned about my luggage and confirmed that they have safely reached with me. Then i had to go in through a security check to enter the terminal. I have always hated Brits (may be because the ruled us for 200 years or whatever!) and the strip search did not do anything to change my outlook. First they took away my medicated Anti-Dandruff Shampoo and Conditioner :( Then to make make it worse they made me unpack my entire handbag which mom had packed so efficiently to fit in tons of stuff. But then cam the golden words. "Mam, Please step inside and take of your belt and shoes, then went my sweter, tee shirt and finally i came clean with all the pokes around my waist inside my jeans. The terminal had a phone and I desperately wanted to call up Dad as i knew he would be getting tensed since my flight had landed about an hour back. BUT no money :( I went ahead to the the American Express Foreign Exchange to get robbed. The gave me 1.5 pounds in exchange of 1.5 pounds. Called up home and finally heard mom dad bro and boudi.

Nest rushed to the terminal for boarding and found out that there are 62 pieces of luggage that has not yet been handed over by British Airways to American Airlines(the one I was going to board) and both of mine were in that list. The official said that there was still 35 mins to take off and they would probably arrive, but guess what, they did not. The flight was ok. The food was nice. But when I remembered that I needed that neck pillow I also remembered it throwing it back on the seat in the business class from my bag out of frustration of not using. This being just economy class did not have those amenities. Finally Destination arrived after sitting on plane on 10.5 hours. Finally i am on US soil. Standing the conveyer belt and preparing to heave off two 24 kg boulders with red and blue bows, my luggage if you cant make that out already. No they aren't there.

The pretty American Lady on the counter of the Baggage Services went on on and on how disappointed, angry and frustrated with American Airlines since they lost her Bags in spite of buying 2 tickets and my disappointment, anger and frustration was climbing every minute which was totally because of her incessant blabbering. Finally after a 45min wait i walked out with a receipt for my delayed bag. Looking, still searching and now completely panicking, there is no one to receive me at the airport and i cant find a pay phone. A very helpful gentleman let me call from his phone and after another 45 min wait finally I was picked up by Suresh Bhai (ISA) from the Airport and dropped at my temporary accommodation. Oh don't you think that since I said finally my story ends there. There is a lot more, but i guess you have the same kind of headache I had after 28 hours of travel just by reading this, so I will give you some time to have an Aspirin and come back.