Friday, May 30, 2008

A visit to Uncle Sam's place

I am a cunctator. Me posting this aricle is the very proof of my aforesaid statement.I have visited the United States Of America twice. The first trip happened in June-July 07("YES! I am a procrastinator") and the second one in spine chilling winters of Nov-Dec07.
I visited the city of Champaign, situated in Illinois state. Oops! I forgot to mention that both the trips were work related and not junkets.
I flew from Mumbai to Champaign via London,Chicago. The last flight, the one from Chicago to Champaign, was merely of 30 minutes duration.Also, the commuters on the path were few.So, the aircraft was also as per the need. The Brobdingnagian aircraft made a lasting impression on me.The machine was so huge that one could touch the extreme ends of the aircraft if one could extend one's arms a little wide.
After about thirty minutes of take-off, the aircraft began to descend. I COINCIDENTALLY had a window-seat(the sitting layout of the aircraft was- one seat, the aisle and a pair of seats).As i looked down, I could see a large barren land with very less but weird kind of grass.I thought the aircraft is taking an emergency landing(Because America did not have barren lands- as assumed by a lot of unacquainted indians like me) but as I am always wrong, this was indeed Champaign.I was let down.
I can explain the champaign airport in terms of any indian railway station . Though most of the readers would be thinking how can I do this.The Champaign airport was almost like a railway station of a small Indian city or I must say a village, like champaner.Although the airport was far more embellished than the railway station but the flight and the traffic volume was easily comparable to that of an Indian village railway station.
Finally I took a taxi and went to my hotel. The journey was tiring and I did not experience a Jet Lag.Here, I would like to mention that I have never experienced things at the first-go. I did not get high when i drank for the first time. So I stopped drinking and started guzzling. Even guzzling did not help.
My hotel room was beautiful with all the basic amenities. I unpacked my bags and realised that I was thirsty.I looked up in the refrigerator. There was no sign of any water bottle out there. I called up the front desk. "Hi! I was looking for some water", I said. "Come Again!", was the reply. "I can not find drinking water in my room"."Oh ! you mean Waateyhr(read WATER)". "Yes", I said."Come down to the ground floor and get some from the vending machine".I went down and was looking for a glass and soon i found it. Though an indian will always think of it as a tumbler(because of its size), but people out there call it a glass -that too of an XLsize.
I filled up my glass and quenched my thirst.
(To be continued ...)

2 comments:

Mulling Over My Thoughts said...

i would've loved to have been there with you...
:)
looking forward to reading about the rest of the trip...
keep at it...
:)

Raja said...

Dude..!!! Looks like ur CAT prepn is getting u do all this..!! Good one to start with...!