Reaching NY!!

Almost all of them, to whom I have talked after reaching NY, have asked me the question... "How do you feel here?". Now, thats difficult question to answer... why... because I feel differently ... when I am at places... like I feel almost defenseless when I reach WTC station and I see the site of World Trade Center being constructed... where as few lanes ahead... when I reach Wall Street ... I feel excited as well as nervous... as this is the place where anything related to finances which will impact whole world happens. Anyways... answer is its good and place is well organized and disciplined.

After leaving Pune-Airport at around 11:30 AM IST (3rd Apr), I boarded Indigo Airlines to reach Ahmedabad at 2:30 AM IST. To my astonishment, I found international terminal of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Airport as locked. After enquiring a bit around there, I learnt that I dont have any place to dump my 49 Kgs of luggage. Hence, I just kept waiting for 30 mins infront of domestic terminal. In that span of time, near about 30 cab-drivers approached me and I said to everyone that I dont want to go. Finally, one more cab-driver came to me and as it is truly said that business is a gujrati's religion, he some how convinced me to book a hotel room upto evening. If I compare to this cab-driver in Gujrat to a cab-driver in Pune, there is a hell lot of difference. This man kept helping me in carrying luggage. He took me to nice hotel and took my luggage properly till room. It was so nice, that I got a feeling like this is a crooked plan to take away my belongings :)

Anyways after a sleepy day at Ahmedabad I finally checked-out from hotel room at 10:30 PM and reached international terminal, which to my delight was open and allowed me to check-in. I checked-in my luggage and kept waiting for Immigration check to take place. Police men over the security check looked to me and gave me a look like ... "shit.. first timers !! .. so many questions". Due to that I did not try to ask him any question and went ahead to board flight AI-191. AI-191 was comfortably good. Best part was on a three seat, they just allotted two seats. I was too happy to see that... it was not over-crowded and happily dumped my extra baggage on middle seat :) I postmortem the screen ahead of and remote in my seat :D and tried to watch every movie on the go. Till Frankfurt, I did not even realize, half of the journey was done. Food was ok types. They did not include chapatti and just replaced it with bread every time. Substitute works but does not gives satisfaction :P

After a thorough check of me(shoes, jacket, watch and belt) and my hand baggage, they finally allowed me to board my own flight. I did not understand the whole purpose of that check as we were supposed to be on same flight.

When we left Frankfurt, it was already 09:35 AM local time and we were already more than an hour late due to traffic (Runways are more crowded than roadways)

Now, Pilot has started playing a lot of videos about New York, culture, process and commutation. Mean while I received I-94 form which I filled and started watching my 3^rd movie in a row. After hour or so cabin-crew announced that we will be reaching Newark airport in few minutes. Every one started collecting their things. We locked our seat-belts. And nearly after 30 minutes we finally landed on Liberty International Airport, Newark. We were directed to visitors line to get immigration clearance. Now, here tragedy happened, moment I reached officer, he told me that I have not filled departure form and asked me to fill it and come again. I filled that form and again stood in that line. By the time my number came, the officer over the window went away. Again I had to jump to some other line. In between, all this, 3 more flights landed and queue was already quite long.

It took around 1 hour to get that thing over and finally I went to collect my luggage. Then in 2 mins I was out of the Airport... standing free… feeling the cold breeze of NY !!