Here I am in Pittsburgh CMU and I must say its a nice city . Looks more so, if you are coming from Rolla :D. The downtown is beautiful, and if you believe people here the view is second to none in US. Travelling from Rolla to Pittsburgh was quite interesting I decided to catch a greyhound to St. Louis (big mistake), woke up a little too early on Sunday morning, and reached the bus stop on time only to find that the bus was late. Finally the bus arrived and just as I picked my bag up, the driver opens the door and speaks in a Mexican accent, sorry sir, the bus is full. It took me a while to comprehend what he said, because not even in my most pathetic dream, I could have imagined that. Sorry, sir the bus is full, please take the next bus, at 7.10in the evening. In the next few seconds, my brain processed all my options and the result of what could happen if I missed the bus. "But I have a flight to catch in the afternoon; I can't possibly wait till evening." "Well, then sir, if you don't mind standing, I can take you to St. Louis." I had no other option, so I covered the 2 hour greyhound ride from Rolla to St. Louis standing, and the DTC experience back in Delhi came in handy. Since I wanted the receipt of the ticket, the driver drove me to downtown from where I had to take a Metro, back to the airport. While I was waiting at the station for the metro to arrive, a "shady" character came up (you know what I mean here) and started asking for money. Not knowing what to do, I searched my pockets and found a quarter and a dime, I gave that to him saying thats all I had. Thankfully, apart from a little confusion at the airport nothing else happened, rest of the day. I arrived at Pittsburgh in the evening and thanks to Shreyas, didn't have to wander around much. Found the dorm room pretty easily and so far so good. :) . Will come back with more updates later.
btw ... do leave your comments ;)
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Monday, August 11, 2008
Kalkaji to Rolla
It was not until a couple of days before my flight that I realised I was going so far away from home, and many a times I felt like chucking it all and going back, but I was at a point of no return and decided that I should go ahead with what I was planning from more than 3 years.
Even after maintaining all the lists and packing my stuff in advance there were things coming up every now and then and before I could know it was the afternoon of Saturday the 2nd. Before leaving for the airport I decided to take a short nap. I reached the airport at around 7, met with rubal and karan, bid good bye to my family and went inside at 8.Although we reached there 3 and half hour in advance but still couldn't manage to find adjacent seats for the three of us.
Checked in the bags and cleared the customs, and here I was ready to embark on the journey.
We boarded the plane at around 10 30 and fortunately managed to find adjacent seats once inside the plane. The flight to Chicago was a long tiring one, and for the whole duration of the journey i kept checking the small screen in front of me to know how much time was left for deplaning. We three chatted for a while and then I started checking out the screen, There were movies, songs, TV shows and Kidstuff, after a while I settled for Peace Music. Dinner arrived after about an hour of take off, obviously I opted for Indian Veg and the quality was a harbinger of the kind of food i'll be getting in the US. The Airhostesses at American Airlines were hot, or at least as hot as one can be when on the wrong side of forty. Period. As I had already taken an afternoon nap, I wasn't feeling that sleepy so I decided to check what everybody else was doing.
The gentleman next to me was a software engineer from Cognizant and was going to Florida ,Just behind me on the isle was an oversized kid reading some novel. Most of the people were dozing off, trying hard to fit in their quilt. Its a cascading effect that when everyone around you is sleeping , you also tend to feel sleepy, so I decided to sleep too, checked the screen
we were flying somewhere over North Pakistan.
I woke up 2 hours later, people were still sleeping and I decided to watch a movie, picked up "What happened at Las Vegas", this cycle of sleeping, waking, watching movies ,listening to songs continued and a snack and a breakfast later we were hovering over Chicago, The night view of Chicago from the window was breathtaking and it looked like a Diwali night celebration of lights. Soon we landed at the O'Hare Airport at Chicago and before long we cleared the Immigartion and the customs. The Airport was huge and we had to take a train, to reach the Domestic Airport. Our next flight to St. Louis was 3 hours later so we decided to rest and soak in all the change slowly. Everything had become so different in a span of some 15 hours.We boarded our next plane at 8 in the morning, and soon after I started feeling airsick, luckily it was a short flight and we landed at St. Louis in an hour. It took us a while to figure out the baggage carousel, found it finally and took our luggage. We had contacted the India Association at the university in advance and they had a shuttle ready for us. The final part of the journey started, US was so different from India. we travelled the last 100 miles to Rolla in about an hour and half, although tired it felt good to finally be at the destination.
That was the journey, I'll be back with my first few days in Rolla in some time.
Even after maintaining all the lists and packing my stuff in advance there were things coming up every now and then and before I could know it was the afternoon of Saturday the 2nd. Before leaving for the airport I decided to take a short nap. I reached the airport at around 7, met with rubal and karan, bid good bye to my family and went inside at 8.Although we reached there 3 and half hour in advance but still couldn't manage to find adjacent seats for the three of us.
Checked in the bags and cleared the customs, and here I was ready to embark on the journey.
We boarded the plane at around 10 30 and fortunately managed to find adjacent seats once inside the plane. The flight to Chicago was a long tiring one, and for the whole duration of the journey i kept checking the small screen in front of me to know how much time was left for deplaning. We three chatted for a while and then I started checking out the screen, There were movies, songs, TV shows and Kidstuff, after a while I settled for Peace Music. Dinner arrived after about an hour of take off, obviously I opted for Indian Veg and the quality was a harbinger of the kind of food i'll be getting in the US. The Airhostesses at American Airlines were hot, or at least as hot as one can be when on the wrong side of forty. Period. As I had already taken an afternoon nap, I wasn't feeling that sleepy so I decided to check what everybody else was doing.
The gentleman next to me was a software engineer from Cognizant and was going to Florida ,Just behind me on the isle was an oversized kid reading some novel. Most of the people were dozing off, trying hard to fit in their quilt. Its a cascading effect that when everyone around you is sleeping , you also tend to feel sleepy, so I decided to sleep too, checked the screen
we were flying somewhere over North Pakistan.
I woke up 2 hours later, people were still sleeping and I decided to watch a movie, picked up "What happened at Las Vegas", this cycle of sleeping, waking, watching movies ,listening to songs continued and a snack and a breakfast later we were hovering over Chicago, The night view of Chicago from the window was breathtaking and it looked like a Diwali night celebration of lights. Soon we landed at the O'Hare Airport at Chicago and before long we cleared the Immigartion and the customs. The Airport was huge and we had to take a train, to reach the Domestic Airport. Our next flight to St. Louis was 3 hours later so we decided to rest and soak in all the change slowly. Everything had become so different in a span of some 15 hours.We boarded our next plane at 8 in the morning, and soon after I started feeling airsick, luckily it was a short flight and we landed at St. Louis in an hour. It took us a while to figure out the baggage carousel, found it finally and took our luggage. We had contacted the India Association at the university in advance and they had a shuttle ready for us. The final part of the journey started, US was so different from India. we travelled the last 100 miles to Rolla in about an hour and half, although tired it felt good to finally be at the destination.
That was the journey, I'll be back with my first few days in Rolla in some time.
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