Thursday, June 21, 2007

Terminal take 2!!!

Our trip to Delhi involved a short stay at the airport, which I call an abridged version of the terminal- The Tom Hanks movie..where he had to spend a year at the airport...and I had to spend whole 14 HOURS!!!!! So here is a short description of the stay...
We (me and my Friend) reached the Newark airport at 8 am and our flight from here was scheduled at 8.45 PM. So we had like more than 12 hrs in the airport. People generally have a stop over of 6 hrs at the max,.. and we had ours for 12 hrs..and that too at the starting airport! Then we had to figure out ways to spend those 12 hrs. I was very sleepy but didnt feel like sleeping right away , so to kill my time I started writing.
We boarded the bus from State College at around 12.30 am and in about 2 hours felt like sleeping. My friend managed to sleep in the ChinaTown bus, in which I could catch up only 45 mins of sleep. We reached NY and tried to figure our way through the sub to the NJ transit Penn Station. At the Penn station we waited for like an hour to get through the NJT and then we finally landed up in the airport.
People were moving around, sitting and sleeping! I started reading "the prodigal daughter", the plot seemed interesting..so read a little more and then slept. That airport had so many Asians around that it didnt look like an American airport to me...or perhaps the Americans know better than the great Secular and demographic nations as to how absorb everyone in thier own lives... I should return from the philosophical world.
Then a guy approached Gaurav saying that he looked familiar to him. The guy had done his MS in Industrial Engineering from Texas Dallas, and he had the ability to start a conversation, and he started talking about mine, Gaurav's and his own graduate studies (how boring!) But I should admit that i do get very interested in any IE related talk [:)]
After he left us, We watched the "pirates of the carribean: dead man's chest" and that took away three hrs!! then somehow the clock showed 4.30 pm and we decided that we should go for the check in. Finally at 4.45 we started for check in. The queue was not so long and we got our turn soon and then again my great name again was causing problems to let the attendent enter my points in frequent flyer!
Then we happily progressed towards the security clearance where that great security system made us get our shoes, belt off! then we proceeded towards the main teminal. On the way we stopped at the Duty free where Gaurav bought a Chivas ragal and i wandered through the store trying to figure out whether I want to to something or not. Then we sat down at the waiting area where we took pictures of the aircraft and enjoyed a kids excitement. then we shifted, watched people, families and had some fries and float. We were eagerly waiting for the time to be 8...so that the boarding starts. there was a terminal shift for our plane and then there was no plane! Our flight got delayed too!! we were so bored....It finally departed at 11.15 pm from Newark where it was scheduled for 8.45 pm.
We comfortably adjusted in our seats and kept our luggage though our shelf was occupied by a family that carried I dont know how much baggage. We got happy to see the list of movies to be aired and the best one was music and Lyrics. Another good thing was the menu card...that displayed a lot of items, but when it came to us, there was no vegetarian food left. That dismayed us for a while but then we had some salad and stuff. Then another kind steward got us one veggie meal to be split. Then we started watching the TV..various things...and the best one was the flight monitoring system that kept us updated with our location as where we were and at what time, what was the temp outside and how far we were from home! So yes the flight journey can be summarized by a few good sights.....food....sleep.
Once we crossed the meridian, we entered light, blinding brightening light. So we were strongly advised not to open the window shutters. After I woke up I found out two snack packets lying on our tables. when we finished our snacks we were over Russia and about 4.30 hrs away from Delhi...Then the time just went by hour by hour eating and talking. Soon we were hovering over the Delhi airport. Then we got out at the base and were carried in the bus to the terminal. I was out of the terminal in about 30 minutes as we didnt had to undergo any kind of Customs check. And then I met my parents and the good time begun!