Yes I’m back! Got my internet up and running here after some effort. Had to reinstall my LAN card to get rid of all the old settings (read: settings for iGate in Mumbai). And yeah, the speed is really good although I haven’t tested the actual speed.

I hate international travel. I really do hate it. There’s a million things that need to go just right for the trip to be called a good one. If even one screws up, you could end up having a nightmare of a journey. Starting right from your packing to actually reaching where you intend to spend your next few days - there’s so much that could and does go wrong. Let me bore you guys with my trip details. The possible problem areas are in bold

My flight was to leave August 27, 2005 at 2:50am which meant that I had to leave home at around 10pm on the 26th and get to the aiport by 11pm in order to avoid getting locked out due to overbooking. All went fine and I got to the airport at around 11pm. There weren’t too many people at the Lufthansa desk so I got my boarding pass easily. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my luggage weighed in at 51.7kg - 12.3kg under the limit of 64kg [32+32]!! I went back to my parents and after leaving my hand baggage with them, I went off to get some forex. After that, I waited and waited and waited for the Immigration/Customs check announcement for my flight. The speakers at the airport are terrible. You can never make out what is being announced. The old fashioned board put up there didn’t help either as it never turned to IMMIGRATION/CUSTOMS for my flight. I did confirm with a monitor that it was indeed time. Still, I waited until a few flights took off and mine moved up the list. That was when it finally showed that I could proceed for Immigration. I bid farewell to my parents and went off. I quickly got through customs and went down to the boarding gate. I decided to get done with the security check and then sit and wait for the flight. Drama at the security check. They saw something wrong in my hand bag. It turned out to be my laptop adapter I guess the pins looked kinda sharp!!

So I got through and took a copy of the Hindustan Times. Read that while listening to some music. Then finally came the boarding announcement!! I boarded the flight and got ready to get bored over the next 8 hours en route to Frankfurt. I tried to get some sleep - managed some 3-4 hours. The problem is that if you try to listen to music, the sound of the engines drowns out the weaker sounds in the music

Frankfurt was kinda different this time around. The plane landed in Concourse B of Terminal 1 and my flight to New York was from Concourse A. I had to take an intra-airport sky train to get to A. Then, there was a huge queue for the security check required only for flights to the US. Another drama. Something in my laptop needed to be checked again and after that, they even ran a thermal scan on it. Thankfully, everything was OK. I called up home, used the toilet and then waited to board the plane. I had to go down to take a bus to the plane as it wasn’t standing where the boarding gate was! A lot of passengers came in late, and I thought I might end up with nobody next to me. That was not to be though

I got no sleep on this flight. I watched Robots, listened to some music, and basically got bored the rest of the 8 hours. I must tell you, Lufthansa food is disappointing. I took the Asian Vegetarian Meal and it was, to say the least, weird. The flight was delayed by an hour but we managed to land on time. Then, possibly the biggest of all potential problems - the US Immigrations check. The queues for this check are ALWAYS long and the process itself takes ages to complete. They take fingerprints, a photograph, and check your passport, visa, I-20 [for students], etc. very carefully and match everything with their database. The I-94 form is another pain if you enter any info incorrectly. Then, the penultimate problem - baggage. If all is good, you get your luggage and get through customs. Else, you go to baggage claim. Thankfully, this time, my luggage arrived fine [unlike last time when I got my luggage separately]. Then, finally, you get out and call for a cab. I called home too to let them know I was in NY. All went well after that as I got to my university and got a friend to help me with luggage.

Now that I’ve written all this, I’m thinking why I wrote so much. Most of you will just skip through the crap and come to this sentence. But, what the hell My Blog. My World, My Views. Enjoy!