The Trip There
Thursday morning, May 29th.
Today is the day that I start my long trip to
India. It will turn out to be the
longest day of my life. After a night of
careful packing, I finally got to bed at 3am. I awoke with anticipation at 9:12, even before
my alarm clock went off at 9:30. I went
downstairs to the smell of pancakes. That would be nice I thought, a good
breakfast before I left. Too bad that my
dad had made all the pancakes for himself; I was left two small bite-size
pancakes. Ah well, I wasn’t that hungry
anyway. I ate the two bites, and grabbed
an apple. I went back upstairs to pack
up my computer and a few other last minute items that I did not get to pack
last night. The time seemed to be moving in fast motion. Before I knew it, it was 11am – the time that
my dad wanted to leave for the airport. Ok, put my two bags in the van, go back inside and say goodbye to my dog
and the next thing I know, we’re driving away from my house. My grandmother wanted to go with me to the
airport, so we went to pick her up at her house. One last visit to the bank to deposit a
check, and we were on the highway towards Philadelphia.
It seemed like such a short drive to the airport,
only an hour and a half. This put me at the airport at 1pm; my flight was not
until 6pm. I had some time to kill. I
went to the front counter to check in, but saw a sign that said check-in was
not until 2:15pm. This made my mom
happy; she was able to spend a few more minutes with me. So, we sat down on a bench and talked. I don’t really know what was said, but the
time just seemed to go right out the window.
The check-in counter opened a little bit early at
1:45pm, so I knew it was time to say good-bye and be on my way. I got up from the bench and started to walk
to my dad, who was still with the van in the unloading zone. My mom and grandmother followed me; they knew
that it was time. I looked at my mom on
the way out the door as we walked towards the van and I noticed that she was
taking it quite well. As I walked up to
the van, my dad stepped out and I saw a tear in his eye. I glanced over and
that’s when I saw a torrent of water flowing from my mom’s eyes. I knew it was
going to be hard on them, I just didn’t know how hard. I hugged them and said my good-byes; it was
time for us to go our separate ways.
I
walked back into the airport, up the escalators
and towards the security check point. I
make my way through security and take notice of which gate my flight is leaving
from. A16. First thing I want to do is go find my gate, then I can wander. It took me 3 seconds to find my gate, my
plane was leaving from the gate closest to the security point. Wow, that’s nice. So, then I decided to check out the rest of
the airport. Heck, I have 4 hours until
my flight takes off, and more than an hour before Matt and Steve arrive.
So, I start walking. I saw a duty-free store, so I went right
in. I wish all stores were that
cheap. They had handles of Captain for
half off! They were2 for $30. But, I couldn’t take them now; I had no room to
hold them. So, I kept walking looking in
the vast array of stores that Philly had to offer. Next was the newsstand and
book store. I looked quickly, for the
new James Bond Novel, but I didn’t see it, so I left. I walked to the end of the terminal, turned
around and got a slice of pizza on my way back. It was a good slice of pizza,
and the first part of my 40 hour long meal. As I was sitting down eating the
pizza, I saw that I still had 3 1/2 hours to go. Well, time to walk the other way. I got up
and started heading down to other end of the terminal. After 10 minutes of walking I turned around
and came back to my gate. Sat down and
decided to pull out my laptop. That is
when I started writing all of this. I
knew I had a lot to write, so instead of typing it all in my blog right away, I
opened a new word doc and started typing away. I got about 3 pages in, and I heard a voice over my shoulder.
Steve and Matt had finally arrived and made it
through security. Well, Matt almost got
completely strip-searched. We decided to
go for a walk and get something to eat. They did not eat anything since their train ride and were feeling
hungry. So, back down the terminal we
went. As we passed the Chinese
restaurant, there was a lady handing out samples. So we took one, and were going
to come back and get some on the way back to the terminal. Until we were walking up to her on our way
back and took the samples away! How dare she! Steve was not very happy, and he
didn’t want to eat there and give them his business. So, we got another slice
of pizza.
After we finished, we decided to head back to the
gate. We were walking and right in front
or the gate, we found Larissa sitting, waiting. Finally, all four of us were
together. We sat down with her and started talking, the next time I looked at
the time, it was already 4:30 – boarding was supposed to start at 5:30.
There was a short delay in boarding the plane, but
we got no quickly and there were no further problems. It was a pretty smooth flight all the way to
Germany, only one bit of minor turbulence in the middle of the flight. On the flight, I had part two and three of my
day long meal. Part two was not too bad;
the dinner was penne pasta, some bread, a salad, and a brownie for desert. Part
three, the breakfast, was interesting. I
had a roll, a piece of cheese that was nearly impossible to open, and ___.
We landed in Frankfurt at 8:30am local time,
2:30am EST. We got off the plane and
made our way through the terminal to the next gate for the next flight which
was scheduled to depart at 12:05pm. There was a security check point, and yet again, Matt set off the
alarms. Afterwards, we were walking
around the Frankfurt Airport and I saw a McDonalds, but it was called the Mc
Café. We didn’t go to the Mc Café;
instead we sat next to it at a bar/restaurant. First things first, I was thirsty, so I got a pint of beer. Yes, at 9am. But hey, I was still on Eastern Time, so it was 2am back home, still a
good time to be drinking. Anyways, it was a pretty good German beer. J
And now, on to the next gate and the next flight.
This was the flight to India, and it was obvious. I already felt like a minority. Not only that, but this end of the terminal
was undergoing repairs, so the AC was off. It was getting hot and uncomfortable. Good thing we were only sitting there for about 30 minutes. Boarding the
plane was a mess, they called pre-boarding, and then business and first class,
but when they called for the rest of the plane; order was an unknown concept.
They tried to start boarding the rear of the plane first. Well, normally that works, but everyone who
was sitting ran to get into the line. It
was chaotic, and since this was a 747, there were a lot of people. I thought
about what I was getting myself into. “Is this what India is like?”
This was it, once I got on this plane, there was
no turning around until I got to India. I had previously thought about this flight, specifically the flight
plan. How were we going to fly? I never
would have thought we would have taken the path we did. Our flight path took us over Baghdad and
Tehran; I was very surprised. Anyways, nothing happened as you can tell, I am
still writing.
Takeoff was uneventful. By this time, I was feeling tired. It was 6am back home and I have been up since
9am, so I started to doze off. But then
I was awoken by the stewardess with the drink cart. Mmm… Apple Juice. Ok, back to sleep. Wait, here she comes
again; I forget what I had to drink this time. But, time to get back to sleep. Less than a half hour later, she was coming again, but with food – part
6 of my day of eating and traveling. I
had chicken curry and rice, some water and a bit of wine. Oh, that wine put me back to sleep. At least for an hour, then I woke up in the
middle of the movie, 27 Dresses, I did not feel like watching this so I fell
right back to sleep. Then I woke up
again at the end of the movie. By this time we had flown over Iraq, and
somewhere over Iran we were getting more food – part 7 which was BBQ pork and
potatoes. I think that was my favorite
meal of all the airplane food. It
actually tasted good. So, as I am
eating that, they start the next movie – Welcome. It was a Bollywood film. Very different from any American film I have
ever seen. And, apparently, like all
other Bollywood movies, it went on for over three hours! And there were
spontaneous dance scenes with a hundred people, overall I couldn’t stop
watching it, I really don’t know why. It
wasn’t even that good of a story, but it entertained me.
Ok, so the movie is over, time to land this plane
and stop travelling. It’s been over 30 hours so far, I am starting to get
tired. Right, a quick run through
customs, a short stop to get our bags, meet the driver, and to the hotel for some
sleep; if only it was that easy. Customs
took almost an hour to get through – there were three flights that landed
within 10 minutes of each other. Why??? ITS 1AM!! Why is everyone
coming in now? There was no flights before or after our either. Ok, so we finally get through customs and we
make it downstairs to the baggage claim. They put two of the same flights on one carrousel! What were they thinking? Not much I can tell
you that. So, not only that, but
remember how I got to the airport so early? Well, since I was the first person
to check in, that meant my bag was the first one on the plane… and then it was
the last one off! Yeah, my bags were one
of the last ones to make it out. So,
that was another hour and a half. I was
worried that our driver was going to get frustrated and leave. Well, I was right- sorta. When everyone finally had all their
respective bags, we left the baggage claim area and went outside to the pickup
point. We started looking for our
driver, “Honeywell” “Penn State” “any of our names”. No, there was no driver to pick us up.
WHAT?!?! Ok, don’t panic, he’s probably just somewhere else, maybe with his car
or at the other end of the sidewalk? Nope, Sandesh was nowhere to be
found.
Once the taxi drivers learned that we did not have
a driver and that we needed a ride, we were chased down by 30 of them at once –
they all wanted the dumb Americans to ride in their taxi and overcharge us by a
ridiculous amount. So I took out the
emergency cell issued by Honeywell and called Sandesh’s cell number. “We’re sorry, but the number you are calling
has been disconnected.” Seriously? Disconnected? Where is our driver? Ok, now what do we do. Idea!, let’s call Lori. I know her office number, so I try
calling. “We’re sorry, that number does
not exist.” Darn it, how do you dial out of the country? As we are all trying
to figure that out, my phone rings! Who is calling me? No one even knows this
number. So, I answer the phone, it’s my mom. What great timing she had. So, I
tell her to call Lori in the office because then I don’t have to figure how to
dial the number. After I hang up, I
realize that it
is 5:30pm EST, so Lori had already left for the
day. NOO!!! Now what? Hmm, time to call Honeywell Global Security Team. I call
them up, and they were notified the four of us were going to be travelling, so
I did not have to explain too much to them. But, I was trying to get someone to talk to that knew something about
what we should do. We were originally
told by security not to take a taxi from the airport to the hotel as it would
be too costly and too dangerous without a local person. So one of the first
things that I asked security to do was to contact Lori for me. I give her name and he tells me she is out of
the office, well duh, I knew that. Does
she have a cell number that I can reach her at? The guy says no. Then I told him, wait, yes she does. I have
the number on my laptop. But, it’s her personal cell, so that’s why the number
is not in the database. Ok, that’s not
bad. I told him I’ll turn on my laptop,
find her number, straighten things out, and give him a call back.
I pull my laptop out of my bag and hit the button,
nothing. Oh no, my battery is dead. Now
comes the fun part. Trying to find a
plug to turn on my laptop – there were ten massive pillars along the sidewalk
and they all had what seemed like electrical outlets near the base of
them. But, as we checked out all of
them, they were either plugged up, closed, broken, or just not working. It looks like it was all done on purpose
too. Well, there’s gotta be something
back inside the airport. I wanted to go
back in, but on my way in, I was stopped by security guards. I was not allowed back into the airport
through the exit. It was a one way
only. I tried to plead my case and they
told me to go in the entrance. Off to
the other end I go. When I get there,
the security guards said I needed papers to get in. I showed my old boarding passes, but they
were no good. I was going to go crazy! I
just needed to plug in my laptop for a minute to find Lori’s cell number. Now what do I do? ARGH!!
So, I had a crazy idea to go ask the nice people
at subway if I could use their electricity. Now mind you, this is not a normal subway. It was about 80 square feet total, about 30
square feet of standing room for the customers, 20 square feet for the counter,
and the rest for the employees (somehow they had 5 people standing back there…)
So, I am standing in the corner of this tiny subway at 3AM with my power cord
running over the counter and down into whatever power outlet was back there
trying to find a cell phone number. Success! I found it and a few minutes later after thanking the people at
subway for saving us, I found the others who had stayed up near the departures
gate so the taxi drivers would leave us alone. I get Lori on the phone and explain the situation. She says that she will call and find out
what’s up. So, then I call HGST back and
explain that I have gotten Lori, our American supervisor on the line and that
we will determine what to do. First we
try to have the hotel send us a taxi. They tell us that it will take almost two hours for their driver to come
get us. None of us wanted to wait that long. So, that idea was gone. After a few more negotiations and such, we
were finally told to take a taxi from the airport. The hotel said that they were going to pay
for it so that we would not get ripped off by a greedy taxi driver. It wasn’t until just before 4am, that we
finally left the airport. Then we had
quite the adventurous ride to the hotel – not all of the road had been finished
yet, so there were massive pot holes and construction areas going on.
We finally got to our hotel around 5am and after
checking in and settling everything with the taxi driver and hotel manager, we
got to our rooms at 5:30am. As tempting as that bed was, we were all quite
hungry and breakfast was served at 7. We
decided that we would grab some food before we slept the day away. So, I went
up to my room, took a shower and lay down in my bed. I went downstairs and ate
some traditional Indian food for breakfast. I had something that I would describe as spicy ramen noodles with a
piece of onion and chive flat bread. It
was delicious! But needless to say, I was tired. So, after breakfast, I went up
to my room and slept. I slept until 8pm. After 3 hours of typing this blog, I was tired again. So, I went back to bed until 7 the next
morning, just in time for breakfast.
Shopping!
Today (Sunday, June 1st) we went to the
Forum. We were accompanied by Sandesh
and Tanurima. Their job is basically to
babysit the four of us interns. They
have a real job – university recruitment and scouting for potential new hires. But, I really like them hanging out with us,
and they like us too. So, they take us
around and make sure we don’t get in to trouble. They are also really young, Sandesh is 25 and
Tanu is around that age too, so they are just like another friend hanging out
with us as we go around the city. We all
get along so well too, it is like we have know each other for such a long time,
but we have all just met.
Anyways, the forum is a massive mall – bigger than
any mall I have been in at home. The
place is 5 levels high, and has countless stores in it, and a 12 screen movie
theater too! I was amazed at the number
of people that were at the mall. I have
never seen so many people in a store at one time. When I go shopping at home, it is usually
laid back and at a slow pace. Not here,
everyone was running, and buying something! We went into one store that I can
only describe as a cross between Wal-Mart and TJ Max. It had everything you could ever want, and
for extremely cheap too! And everyone
was buying something!
