Across the seas

It has been more than 4 months since I landed in US. Got busy with setting up things and with work. I have been trying really hard to get back to active blogging off late. Hopefully this post will kick things off once again :) .
I started on 25th July from Bangalore. I will never forget that day neither will Bangalore. One of my friend commented after I landed here that I left Bangalore with bursting of crackers. :) . Bangalore's Tryst with Terror was unfortunately that day. I got to know the news from one of my friend from Chandigarh when busy stuffing things into my check in luggage. I managed to book a taxi to Airport and arrive 4 hours ahead of schedule to the airport. My itinerary was from Bangalore -> Paris -> Newyork -> Minneapolis . I was flying for the first time, infact entering an airport for the first time . I walked towards boarding the flight after waiting overnight since it was delayed by 5 hours. Flight captain and an air hostess wished us ' bon jour , have a nice flight ! ' with a nice smile . Since it was dark , I was not able to figure out when the Air France flight had come to the runway. It started to seem like an eternity and all of a sudden flight jerked and gained an insane speed and I was pushed back to my seat. I could hear the whirring of the wheels under me and in no time we had taken off and I could see the lights below. And few minutes later I could see the clouds floating in the dark sky underneath. Temperature reading on the display panel infront of me was going down. I was awake for most part of the journey and I could see the landscape below me ; the rivers , mountains ,villages , fields . I kept wondering if I could pause here for a moment and zoom in on the lives of the people there . It indeed seemed like time was going faster on the plane when I looked at the almost still earth below. Eintstein could not have gone wrong.!!
I saw snow capped montains which I thought were the Alps and consoled myself. :) . As the flight approached Paris, still pictures below , started come to life and gave an impression that time has started moving there. I could see speeding trucks on highways. The fields were all immaculately arranged one adjacent to the other in all colours. All this resembled a complex geometrical structure who's area we had to find dividing the whole area into simpler geometries, back in high school.
Flight touched down at Charles de Gaulle at 1:00 PM local time. And I caught the next flight to New york at 3:00 PM. This was a boring journey and all I could see was the vast ocean below.
My port of entry formalities at New york took some time. There were long queues but everyone welcoming people with smile and patience. Quite unusual to someone from India who has been the target of bad attitudes in public service. A banner on one of the pillars read ' Let us welcome everyone to our country but not compromising the safety of the great nation of ours' . I knew Americans are really proud of their nation. This was one glimpse of it.
In all this I managed to miss my custom check . I do not know how I sneaked through. Infact I forgot completely that I need to go to custom check once I collect my check-in luggage. :) . I had to go to domestic terminal to catch the next flight to Minneapolis. And as I stepped out of the international airport , I could feel this crisp warm gush of air sweeping across the whole place. Yeah I was in the US of A and there was something different here! . Fortunately I did not have any problem in checking in my luggage into the next flight . No one seemed to bother about the custom check and the forgetful me ! 3 more hours of flying across the US and I was in Minneapolis. My friends were waiting there at the baggage section looking for me as I descended down the escalators. Seeing familiar faces after 14 long hours was good. ! They hugged me and said , ' Welcome to America! , how was your flight ? : ) ' .