I am finally feeling settled here at home. And it is time to write my first blog entry of this trip. The travel from Chicago to Mumbai was uneventful except for a few things before I actually took off!
3:00 am Shopping for a Christmas tree
My mom put in a last minute request for a Christmas tree. Well the last minute was 3:00 am and so I draged myself to Wal-Mart to pick up a small Christmas tree. Here is what I learnt best time to shop is during early hours of morning like 3:30 am – the entire store is yours and there is absolutely no line at the register!
10:00 am Server scare
I had a checklist of things to be done before I boarded the bus that took me to the airport. I got up early to start the finishing of the things on the checklist. After running a last minute errands I reach my apartment at 10:00 am and receive a phone call from the office describing what could be a potential problem with our production database server. I quickly try to troubleshoot from home but I was not able to do much – so rush to office and find out the problem was with network connectivity! Reconnected the network cables and restarted the server – all is well! But that was close.
11:20 am Just in time cab
In the morning I had asked for a cab to pick me up from my home to the bus stop. The bus comes at 11:30 am so I asked the cab to pick me up at 11:00 am. 11:10 am and there is no sign of the cab! I make a frantic call to cab and the cab finally shows up at 11:22 am – needless to say we reached the bus stop just in time to see the bus to pull into the bus stop.
12:30 pm The bus that was full
So it turns out a lot more people were going to the airport that day and there was not enough space in the bus’s cargo hold for all the passenger luggage! So we wait for a van to show up that would carry the remaining pieces of passenger luggages. The bus that was to reach the airport at 2:05 pm but reached at 4:00 pm. Needless to say a few people on board the bus missed their flights. As for me my flight was not until 7:00 pm so I was okay.
6:50 pm The wrong gate
I check my luggage and collect my boarding pass. The lady at the counter reminds me that my gate # is 8. I thank her and go stand in the huge security line. I had never seen such a huge line. Long line must be because of the holiday rush. After some 40 minutes it is my turn to walk through the ‘oracle’ – stripped of my sweatshirt, belt, shoes, etc. I make my way to gate #8 only to find the place completely deserted. I decided to hang around the place since I had more than an hour to board the flight. Now almost 15 minutes left to board the flight I decided to walk to the gate #8 and to my shock I find details of a different flight listed at the counter. That was the time I realized something is really wrong. I check my boarding pass – check the date, time and flight number. They all looked okay. I glance at my watch and there is only 10 minutes for flight to take off! So I rush to the information desk and on my way I stop to read the flight information listed on one of those wall mounted displays! My flight was boarding from another gate! Gate #16. Gate #16 was on the other side of the building – I ran dragging my carry-on luggage. I reached just in time to be one of the last persons to board the flight. I finally made it to my seat – heave a sigh of relief and make a few phone calls before switching off the cell phone. With minutes left for the flight to take off – the pilot announces that due to security related issue a few passengers were not allowed to board the flight and so their luggage have to be removed from the plane. So after a delay of an hour we are final off the ground. I start the timer on my wrist watch and stop it only after I met my parents at Mumbai airport. Total time in flight – 18hrs and 33 minutes!