A journey across time ...rather time zones :-)

Date: 31st July 2010, 10:30 pm IST
Venue: Chennai international Airport

I was waving happily towards my family and friends standing inside a railing with them on the other side. Million waves of emotion swept  pass my heart- the joy of the impending journey was overcome by the sorrow of leaving my dear ones back in India which was intruded by fear and anxiety that resulted from the fact that I am going to land in an unknown world in a day's time. Thanks to the railings that kept me from jumping towards them and raiding back home.

And of course the time came and I waved them for one last time and moved towards the jet air ways counter. The staff seemed so happy to see me come towards her while my parents were filled with sorrow to see me walk away from them.What a conflict of emotions.


Nevertheless I checked in my baggage and completed my immigration check and moved into the waiting hall. Finally I boarded Jet airways 9W226 flight to New York, the city of sky scrapers. The thought of being alone without any attention from my parents struck a blow in my head. But i had to accept the truth, the reality. From there on I was on my own and had to take care of myself. Fortunately there was some one who was accompanying me not only till new york but till Rolla, the city where my university is located. It was none other than Srinivasa Karthik Thandavan Vidhyasekaran (Herein referred to as karthik owing to the unusual length of the name), another mechanical engineering student who got admit in the same university.

My first flight experience was quite a nice one. Karthik and myself didn't get adjacent seats so i had to request a person in his 50's to swap our seats. For no reason i believe the old man felt as if I was asking his eyeballs in exchange of my shoe lace but eventually he gave the seat and we sat side by side looking forward for a good journey. We got seats near the right wing of the plane that gave a spectacular view of the wing and the ground beneath.

The public address system crackled and Captain Rudolph who was supposed to be the chief pilot of the plane welcomed us and requested to fasten our seat belts. The flight made it to the run way when it was 1:30 a.m. and within a swift second the plane thrust forward with enormous power. We were almost inclined 45 deg and I felt a swirl in my stomach and a block in my ears.

Slowly but steadily the flight reached to it horizontal state when we were almost 10,000 ft above sea level. Jet air ways provides good on demand entertainment inside the flight. There were collection of Hollywood and Bollywood movies, music to listen and even live news to watch.

It was a 10 hour flight to Brussels, the capital of Belgium. It was 8.00 am local time when we landed in brussels international airport. we were done with the security and baggage clearance at 8.45 a.m and checked in the same flight at 9.30 am for our journey to New york. By the time the flight was re fueled and cleaned. We saw the flight re fueling procedure with child's awe.

Our new pilot, captain Richardson invited us on board and was quite amused to inform us the flight may be delayed for a hour or so due to some technical flaw. Alas the flight took off at 10.30 local time. karthik and myself chatted about what are back ground and what we are going to do after reaching our destination. We also saw some movies on-board. I saw Sherlock Holmes and The oxford murderer. 9 hours later we were there .. the destination much talked about ... and the place people most read about .. we were in NEW YORK.

We cleared customs and immigration within an hour and entered the huge terminals of the airport. The enormity of the airport made us drop our jaw. Even though the airport was vast it's construction was simple and unique. The roof was made of steel trusses all bolted with steel pins. The girders were so craft fully designed and installed. Seeing it only instilled a sense of pride unique to a mechanical engineer.  

We would have stood there for ages admiring the beauty of its inception but time didn't permit us since we had catch a connecting flight to St.Louis Lambert international airport, Missouri. However we were hungry so we stopped by an eatery and grabbed a chicken sandwich roll and coke. It was my first ever purchase in Dollars but unfortunately the sandwich was awful and frozen. We had no other option so munched the sandwich thing and prepared ourselves for our second air travel experience.

The domestic flight service was provided by American airlines(American Eagle). We thought it would be a massive flight like that of the9W226 but much to our amazement rather than a shock it was a small size air craft capable of carrying meager 45 passengers. We were a bit disappointed but nevertheless it was also unique in its own way. We were given the seats in the last row beside the window. It too gave a bird eye view of the land beneath and a clear view of the planes propeller. What else would have i wished for. I was constantly looking at the propeller and wondering how the hell mankind discovered these machines. My wonderment did not last long as we reached St.Louis within 3 hours.