I set out to San Diego on 8th May 2009 to join as a summer research intern at Qualcomm. I had to travel all across the world from Mumbai-Delhi-Chicago-San Diego. It turned out to be a quite a journey with unexpected twists and turns.
The first problem occured right at the Mumbai Domestic airport. While checking in I was told that I had just been given a travel itinery and no ticket number by the travel agent in San Diego who booked my ticket. They told me that they couldnt check me in. The perfect thing to happen on my first trip abroad alone.. I rushed to the reservations counter- then they contacted american airlines- and after 15 tensed minutes they printed out a ticket for me.. Phew!!..
My flight was scheduled to leave Mumbai at 7:30pm and reach Delhi at 9:30pm. Then the conencting flight from Delhi to Chicago was at 12:20am. So, after I got checked-in nicely with my baggage tagged for all the flights to San Diego, I find out that my flight to Delhi has been delayed by half an hour!!! And thats not all. Because of the heavy rush of flights at Mumbai, by the time it got off the runway it was already 8:30. My heart just sank.. I looked at my watch every 10secs on the entire flight..
Finally I reached Delhi at 10:45pm and found out that I had to collect all my baggage and recheck in it at the delhi international terminal. And whats more, the internal shuttle between the Delhi domestic and international airports. I managed to get a pre-paid taxi, stuffed all my lugguage in and finally reached the international airport at 11:30pm.
Thankfully the Jet airways folks had informed American airlines about the delay and they had already kept our boarding passes ready. After the immigration was done, I reached security checkin only to find a huge queue in front of it..
I panicked completely. I looked at it in despair with my passport and boarding pass clutched in my trembling hands. Left with no other choice I shouted at the top of my voice 'My flight is leaving!! Please let me go ahead..'. Thankfully the people let me go ahead. Then the security officer told me that I didnt have a tag on my backpack. I had dropped it somewhere while running from the immigration to security check. Seeing my panicstricken face, a lady in the queue (God bless her) took pity on me and gave me an extra cabin baggage tag she had.
I heaved a huge sigh of relief when I reached the boarding gate just on time when my flight had already started boarding.. The other Qualcomm interns were already in the line..I called my parents and told them the good news. My mom had got high BP then and my dad had already started checking for later flights for me to board.
I was through the ordeal finally ( atleast I thought I was). On reaching Chicago I found that all the other interns were booked on a flight to San Diego 2 hrs before mine and I had to make that journey alone. I couldnt even reschedule my ticket to the earlier flight because my bags were already tagged for the later one. And after reaching San Diego, my bags never showed up on the baggage belt!! After fruitlessly looking for them for about 15mins I went to the American airlines counter only to find out that they had sent my bags on the earlier flight (with the other interns) . Finally I found by bags safely tied away at the counter.
My Qualcomm teammate Vinay and his wife had come to pick me up at the airport. I safely reached my apartment in La Jolla, San Diego at 3:00pm, 30 hours after I had left Mumbai. It was the most adrenaline-packed journey I have ever had.. :)
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