Monday, March 7, 2011

Black Friday

I am always non-superstitious.But sometimes you just feel its not your day! One such day was my last day of my stay in Minneapolis.As I woke up ,as usual late ,I checked the baggage,it was strewn all around.By then it was already 9 am,and i had not even booked the taxi to the airport.Brushed my teeth in a jiffy and took a double quick bath and decided to keep my fast without breaking in the morn.After messing up twice with the taxi guys with respect to the pickup address,i decided to go to the office to drop off my stuff .I needed to say bye to a few folks there and then drop off my laptop and phone.And then i rushed back to my room to clear off all the remaining stuff from the room as was the norm .I was too preoccupied to note that i hadn't weighed my baggage yet.So i rushed down to the front desk of the service apartment to check for a weighing machine.Again none at the office even though it was a week day.As i decided to hang around and then i realized that i came down without the room keys.So i took the lift back and dragged both my bags down after locking my room and then finally found a chick in the front office.I checked the weight and was pleased with to know that i had lots of space for xtra stuff to dump.

After lots of more mishaps i finally found myself in the airport cab at 1.30 pm thought the flight was at 5 pm i thought i might as well as play safe.I reached well ahead in time all along having a healthy conversation with the taxi driver who happened to be from El Salvador.I checked myself in and then after that thought that i might as well take a look around.As i just put my hands into my pocket ,I realized i had the room keys with me.I had two options either to catch the Haiwatha rail back which comes every 20 minutes or so or take a usual taxi.But the problem  was I didn't know either of them where to catch! But i found the nearest taxi as i was fast running out of time .I reached LaSalle,and threw the keys at the front desk and hurried back,pretty sure that this would be last time at least that day that i would need to return back!But since i had already checked in and had the boarding passes till Bangaluru already in hand i was pretty confident.

At around 4 i went through the security check and patiently waited for an hour before the flight took off.Once i landed in Chicago,i waited only to see that an hour later the flight was cancelled.So there goes my itinerary for a  toss.I got the new tickets ,but then i lost 1 whole day,thanks to the cancellation.The cancellation had more to with less travelers than with the official reason of mechanical failure.So there i stay overnight at Chicago(atleast they gave me a hotel room),and next day i catch a flight to London,where i had to sleep overnight there too,this time at the airport.By the time i landed at London the only ones left at the busy Heathrow airport was  a Pakistani housekeeping guy and a Chinese sweeper.When i took the last connecting flight from London next day afternoon,i was pretty tired and then i didn't really care what time/day i reached as long i was i would be there.And did i tell you ,i hardly caught a nap in the London flight thanks to the kicks and screams of the kiddo behind.Well don't blame me for that header now,hmm..waise i am not superstitious u know…

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