Saturday, February 25

From Bangalore to Austin

I am back in Austin. I left Bangalore at 7 PM on Sunday, and landed in Austin at 10:30 PM on Wednesday. Almost 90 hours in transit. In these 90 hours, I changed 6 planes, saw 7 airports in 4 countries, and saw three cities. Phew…

When the captain in the flight from Hyderabad to Amsterdam announced that there was an engine failure, I was, for once, really excited that maybe, just maybe, he would land in the sea or something – am sure very few people can boast of an experience like that. Unfortunately, we landed safely in Athens. Pretty landscape, I must say, Athens has.

What bothered me in Athens was the treatment meted out to people with passports from different countries. American and European passports were allowed to go out of the airport, while Indian passports had to stay in a restricted area in the airport.

Similarly in Amsterdam, Americans and Europeans got their visa within minutes, while Indians had to wait for almost 3 hours. By the time I got my visa, it was close to midnight, so I really didn’t get to see much of the city. And I had to be at the airport early morning, so I just walked a little around the airport. Amsterdam also seemed pretty. Interesting were the water bodies all over the place. Also interesting were the full-page advertisements on female companions for business executives – something like the IBM on-demand ad. The oldest profession never had such polish – even in Vegas!!

The flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis was a noon flight – as in, it was noon all through. We started at 11 AM in Amsterdam, and landed in Minneapolis at 12:30 PM. The sun was almost exactly at the same place throughout the 8-hour flight. Also, pretty was the white landscape of Northern Canada, and partly Greenland, that the plane flew over. I was happy to get a window seat for this part of the journey.

Landed to a nice minus 8 degree, sunny weather in Minneapolis – and was all set working. Surprisingly, this time around, jet lag din’t seem to bother me. Maybe because I slept in Amsterdam.

Lots of interesting stuff I noted on my journey – will keep posting as and when I get time. For now, back to work. Ohhh before I forget, I am driving a brand new blood red Ford Fusion in Austin – one cool car it is – and yes, this time I don’t even have an original license – or whatever I had! :-)

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

dost, its time for us Indians to be a little adjusting and dont feel bad about that. After all we are doing something more difficult than them :)

February 25, 2006 5:05 AM  

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