United States of America---- the dream was finally becoming a reality.
On April 08th 2004 Me, Anju and Rajiv( who was supposed to join Mycom along with me) started from Nedumbassery airport on our first ever trip outside the country to the dreamland .
We took the Jet Airlines to Mumbai and then the Swiss Air to Switzerland and American Airlines to Dallas. I personally requested the airline personall allotting our seats (who was an indian) to give us seats with sufficient leg space to which he agreed. But once we entered the airline we realised that our seats had no sufficient leg space.Food in Swiss Air was great. We reached Zurich at 6am local time. The next flight was at 10am local time. We wandered around the airport. It was great to see the outside view through the window.
We were hungry but decided to wait till we get in the flight thinking they will serve wonderful food. The flight took off around 11am and there was no food for another 2-3hours. Finally they started serving food, it was some kind of a chicken and cheese... We were never used to eating chicken without proper masala and the food never felt tasty, but had to eat it because of the hunger. The inside temperature was set to American standards and it was too cold as per Indian standards. Me and Anju had throat pain by the time we arrived in US. The journey was so boring and tiring. I tried sleeping and slept most of the time.
We reached US on 8th April 2004( as we save a day coming from India to US and lose one on the other way). Dallas International airport was huge. We reached the immigration where they took our fingerprint and photos. Then we proceeded to the customs where they opened our bags. We had two bags of Masala's. The officer didnt touch the packed stuff and threw the plantain which amma had given to give to Manju(who reached Dallas in March 2004 along with Bejoy) for making "Ethaykkappam".Rajiv proved to be a big help during the entire trip and was our only relief during this journey. He proved to be very helpful throughout the first year we were together.
After collecting all our luggages we 3 came out expecting that Mycom guys will be there in the airport to receive us with a card. Unfortunately there was no-one from MYCOM and we had no clue what to do next. Rajiv called our manager with no response. We finally took a cab and gave him the address. We stepped into the cab and started our journey through Dallas. It was like going through a desert with no trees and it was hot outside.
We reached HOMESTEAD STUDIO SUITES in around 40mts. Fortunately the receptionist had our details and told that the room is upstairs and there is no one to carry the luggages up. We changed our room to downstairs and checked in. I decided not to sleep till night and made anju also to stay awake. Rajiv checked into the adjascent room.
Evening me and Rajiv went out to nearby Arbys and bought couple of sandwiches for dinner.We had tough time ordering food as they were not able to understand a word we says. Anju didnt like it at all and she just ate the bread. I was in a complete upset mood, due to the place and the jetlag and tons of other things. But we managed to reach my dreamland and slept my first night in USA.
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