May gets me trippin!

May 18th, the longest day of my life! Literally! It was 36 and a half hours long.
We reached the airport on time. There was a light drizzle and cool breeze all the time. You know it has rained every single time I've gone to the new airport! Bangalore just doesn't want me to leave!
We checked in easily (although amma panicked a little when she thought she had left the air tickets at home) and filled up the immigration forms. The guy there read my name and immediately asked if I was a Mandyam Iyengar. After a nice little chat with us he retunred our passports and we entered Gate 20 and waited by our terminal. In there, they have constructed a miniature mall. It has every damn thing you would want! As soon as you enter, you'll find every bloody brand of booze! I was delighted looking at this one thing called Absolut Vodka. Looked very inviting. :P I went there to buy chewing gum. I hadn't bought any because my brainy sister told me they'll give it on the plane or that I could buy it at the airport! So I asked the guy there for a pack of gum. He showed me the way to the chocolate and gum section and gave me a choice of two. The chewing gum was 7 dollars!! I said "Thanks but I have no cash" and walked away. I bought Pepsi for 50 bucks and sat reading my book. I was reading Airport by Arthur Hailey sitting at the airport! :P By the time I read the first page the guy sitting next to me dropped my Pepsi. Grr! Curse him! I noticed a 12-13 year old wearing a Manu shirt and gave him a stare. He saw my Arsenal bag too and we kept giving each other stares till we reached San Francisco. Heh..

Soon we were called to board our flights. We went quickly to the door and entered a tube which connected us to the plane. I was very fascinated with everything because it was my first international flight. A couple of airhostesses invited us inside and directed us to our seats. We went by Lufthansa and everything was written in German. "Schwimmwester unter Ihrem Sitz" is the first thing I read and understood. I watched the small guidance movie they showed and listened to the audio in German. I didn't understand a single word! The take off was without much turbulance. The flight was like riding in a bus on a smooth road. I stayed up till 4:30 am, had dinner and drank some vodka that was from Finland. It was sleep inducing. I slept till 6am and we reached Frankfurt at around 7:30 where we had to board our connecting flight, which was at 10. I got a glimpse of Frankfurt from the airport. So now I can show off that I've been to Germany too. :P

After sitting in my seat, a huge guy who had a body like Lincoln Burrows (from Prison Break) sat down next to me. So we were pretty cramped in there. I was bored of checking out the German airhostesses. They all are so tall and rather sturdy I would say. I ate, listened to music, ate, watched Slumdog Millionaire and Marley and Me (cried hiding my face under the pillow when Markey died), read, ate more and drank a lot of juice. I didn't get a wink of sleep through out the day while my mum slept for 10 hours continuously and my aunt just got bored. We reached San Francisco without much turnulance while landing. The Immigration queue was a long one and luckily we walked quite fast and didn't have to wait much. All the officers there were Non-American. We were called upon by a lady (Maybe Asian) for the interview. She was pretty friendly. While talking to her this security guy came into the cube and my stomach literally did a flip! He looked so good! He was Black but looked just like Walcott! He is the best looking guy I have seen in America so far. We picked up our luggage (none of it got lost! Woohoo!) and saw my uncle and aunt waiting outside for us. This trip had been planned so many times and cancelled before that they both seemed real thrilled that it finally happened! We went to the parking lot, only to find that each and every car is an awesome car! I saw a Bentley and around four Audi's as soon as I entered the car park. You'll see the same number of BMWs here as the number of 800s in Bangalore. We drove a good 50 miles in half an hour on the freeway. The drive was great! Our minimum speed was 100kmph I think. People hardly use two wheelers here. I spotted only one. California is so green and full of nature. It's such a pleasure to drive and everything is so organised. I'm very impressed by all of it! We reached home in Los Gatos. The whole town is like a resort. Very pretty houses with nice big gardens. My uncle's house is very well kept and has an attractive swimmimg pool in the backyard. I picked up my cousins from their schools and took a good look at school life that I usually see only on tv. Kids with skate boards, sleazy vynils on cars they drive, etc etc. After I came home I was extremely sleepy and didn't do much. I took a shower, ate and enjoyed a deep slumber after that. Was a great long day! :) Cheers!