The Homecoming - India visit Dec 05

"There is no place like home " and I could not agree more. I was excited at the prospect of visiting my hometown in Pune this December. It is always a special feeling to be amidst your near and dear ones especially after being away from them for a reasonable length of time. You realise what it means to be a part of the family when you spend some time away from home. I was certainly feeling homesick and was eagerly looking forward to get back to where my heart is.

The countdown had begun but time was passing by rather quickly thanks to some enterprising activities at our residence. "Shop till you drop" and I was definitely living upto it. We rented a car (Mercury Grand Marquis) one way to JFK International Airport from Binghamton. We had four large suitcases with us and doubts started creeping into my mind regarding how they could be accomodated in the trunk. Dheeraj, Raja, Krishnan, Musa helped our cause and we somehow managed to fit everything in the car. Renu and Aishvarya had some difficulty sitting behind but it was just a matter of time. The weather prediction was gloomy with rain and fog to thwart our progress. Conditions did get a little tricky but we smoothly made our way to JFK by 2 pm. Our flight (Swiss Intl LX 154) was scheduled to depart at 6.30 pm. I had to rush to return the car at Avis after offloading the luggage. The rental car return was rather far from the departure terminal but the ride back in the airtrain more than made up for it. It was an amazing experience to watch airplanes at close quarters via the airtrain. We started the baggage check-in procedure at around 3 pm. Things were moving on and within 30 minutes we were done with the routine.

I was peckish. I was surviving on Glucose buiscuits since morning and wanted to have a substantial lunch to help my cause. I relished having a meal (General TSO Chicken, Sweet & Sour Chicken with Fried rice) to satisfy my hunger.

After calling up a few close friends I decided to bid goodbye to United States of America. Our flight took off at 6.30 pm sharp. I made myself comfortable on the seat and anxiously awaited the next move. As the flight soared high over the Atlantic, I was getting irresistably impatient to see my folks. I knew it was not going to be a long wait after all. On board I listened to some melodious tunes from Salaam Namaste and Dus. I sat through a painstaking movie experience with Dukes of Hazzard and a rather crass comedy "40-year old virgin" .. I have this thing of not getting enough sleep while travelling but I did not mind it ... We were served pasta for lunch. After exactly 8 hours we touched down at Zurich International airport. It proved to be a dampener as I could hardly see anything due to snow conditions. We had a transit time of 2 hours for the next flight from Zurich to Mumbai.

I leave this one incomplete for the moment .. More later ..