Guess what happened when I visited USA for the first time - Part 1

All my friends have been asking for long time to pen down all my travel experiences across the globe and I would always tell them, will write it when I get old. I have visited more than 40 countries in my life and plan to write about all of them. The first one in the list is “My visit to United states of America".

Generally it takes around 20 hours to reach United States from Bangalore (India). It took me forever. Did I finally reach my destination? Crazy circumstances I had to deal with to reach my final destination. How does ignorance play major role in ones travel? Do strangers really help unknown people from other countries? Do cultural differences between eastern and western countries become barrier? To know the answers read my journey blog. I can guarantee one thing. At the end of the reading you will laugh. You might cry and you might also learn some amazing human values.

10th Nov 2006, it was my first international travel. Journey from Bangalore (India) to Denver (US) via London,flying British Airlines. I was getting ready to catch the cab for airport, that’s when I heard breaking news on our local TV channel “Five south Indian airports threatened by some terrorist organization. Bangalore was one of them “.. I thought to myself” what a start to my first international journey”. Reached airport around mid-night, as expected the security was crazyyyy..They were checking every piece of baggage and if you are traveling to United States they would check every item in the bag. I finally managed to complete the security drill after long wait in the queue.

British Airways staffs were nice and courteous. The flight was overbooked so some of the passengers were put on standby this created some confusion but all the issues were sorted out and some of the lucky ones got upgraded to Business class.

Flight took off on scheduled time. I was relieved, I had only one hour of connecting time in London. Moving from one terminal in Heathrow to other would take anywhere between 30-45mins so I had only 15 extra mins. When I boarded the flight I had no clue on all adventures I would end up having in this journey ;).

Journey from Bangalore to London was relatively smooth. The food served by the airlines was good. I was delighted to know that we would reach 10mins ahead of time. We were 5 mins away from landing and there was an announcement from the cockpit “This is your captain speaking, we have a small issue. An UFO has been seen on the run way, we don’t have the permission to land. We will be circling the Heathrow airport till we get a go ahead”. I was all excited to hear this; I had never seen an UFO in my life. I kept on looking out of the window to check if could see any UFO on the runway or anywhere in that area with my Camera to shoot a picture. I could not see any. We were hovering over the Heathrow airport for more than 45mins. I was getting nervous and anxious about my connecting flight. Finally we received go ahead for landing.

It was too late by the time I could get off the flight and get into the airport, my flight to Denver was on the runway. All the passengers who missed their connecting flights were asked to reach out to the customer support team.

When we were waiting at the customer support counter, I checked with other passengers from my flight if they were able to see the UFO. One of the frequent flier said “Any object other than planes on the run way are referred as UFO; it does not mean alien carrier lol”. It was embarrassing but I learnt something new on that day. Customer support confirmed that they don’t have any flights flying to Denver on that day. They gave me choice of waiting one day in London airport or I could take flight to Chicago and from there to Denver. I chose the second option as it would make me reach my destination earlier.

Layover in London airport was 2-3hrs. I was sitting next to a phone booth and an elderly lady was struggling to call India. She dint remember the country code. I offered to help her and dialed the Indian number for her. She came to me after speaking to her friend and said “Thanks for your help; you can call India by using my calling card”. I was very thankful to her as I could tell my parents that I have missed my flight and would take longer to reach Denver. I was delighted to hear, the elderly lady was also traveling from Bangalore to Denver.

We boarded the flight to Chicago. The flight time was approximately 10Hrs. The flight was relatively calm when we took off from London but all of it changed when we over the Atlantic Ocean, we had some crazy bouts of turbulence. We were asked to tie the seat belt. The lady sitting next to me kept on shouting “Jesus Christ save us” and the funniest question she asked me “do you know how to swim?” I said, “yes, I know swimming but don’t worry we will be fine”. After few hours of turbulence it settled down and the flight was normal. We were just 4 miles away from Chicago airport and flight attendants were preparing for landing in next five to six minutes, all of a sudden captain voice echoed in cabin. He said in a very serious tone “…..”
I will continue it in my next blog “Guess what happened when I visited USA for the first time - Part 2”

Please share your comments; this is my first attempt at blogging. Any constructive feedback is most welcome.
Try to guess:)

1. What announcement did captain make?
2. Did we land in Chicago?
3. Was I able to reach United States or no?