For example, Purdue was different not only because I'm a sophomore now but because of the incredible new Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering. Its an awesome building with cool labs that I really cant wait to work in.
What doesn't change is my mishaps with flights. Just for the sake of posterity I've decided I want ot keep a blogospheric record of my travel related mishaps. Be warned this list updates every single time I travel.
So ..... hear goes.../*Deep breath*/
1. 16th August 2006 - My first time travelling between Home (Dubai in this case....sadly) and Purdue. I show up 4 hours early eager to get onto the aircraft that is taking me across two continents only to be told that the flight is overbooked and I was kindly offloaded by Emirates in exchange for a free ticket (that I didn't really get but read on....). So anyway I left by the next days flight, missed my Delta connection in New York (JFK) and made it to Indianapolis via Detroit through and alternative Northwest Airlines flight.
2. 16th December 2006. Whew ! One fantastic semester over and I was eager to get home for a two and a half week break. My flight plan took me from Indianapolis to Minneapolis to Amsterdam to Dubai. With minimal stops in between. So two hours after my last exam I got on the bus from Purdue which arrived at Indy airport and hour before my first flight which turned out to be two hours late thus arriving in Minneapolis 5 min after the scheduled departure of the Amsterdam flight which I was lucky enough to see reversing from the gate as I hurled through that massive airport. Result: I spent the night in a crappy inn in Minneapolis courtesy of Northwest Airlines and arrived in Dubai 40 hours later after an 11 hour gap in Amsterdam.
3. 7th January 2007. On the return leg from Dubai to Amsterdam to Detroit to Indianapolis. Everything was going smoothly until my bags just didn't arrive in Detroit. At Indianapolis as the attendant checked their databases for my bags, I feared the worst. KLM had conveniently left my bags in Amsterdam so they arrived the next day at Purdue at 3:00 AM in the dead of winter with temperatures around -10 C. Brilliant. /* I was so jet lagged that I rushed out of my dorm to receive my bags wearing shorts and sandals.....almost for frostbite that time */
4. 7th May 2007: Probably the best one so far. My ticket was booked a year in advance (return ticket for no 1.). With a flight from Indy to JFK with Delta and onwards to Dubai with Emirates. 12 hours before the flight as I was packing up all my stuff in the dorm I made a perfunctory phone call to check flight status, only to be kept on hold for 40 minutes (my cell phone plan was prepaid.....cost a bomb) and then told that " er.....sir ...you're flight does not exist.....Are you sure its with Delta Airlines ?" ......oh boy...apparently Emirates booked me on a connecting flight that did not exist ....brilliant once again. So I bought a Continental Airlines ticket and flew to JFK via Cleveland and got there just in time to get to Dubai.
5. 15th August 2007. After the most boring summer you can possibly imagine (apart from a trip to India in the middle). I was travelling to JFK by business class courtesy of me almost exploding at Emirates not honoring their promise of a free ticket due to 1. Basically I bought an economy class ticket and got upgraded to Business class. My trip started eventfully as usual....My flight was two hours late from Dubai so I missed my connection (the same Delta flight ...AGAIN !!!!). Luckily I got shifted to the 6:40 PM flight but as my luck would have it...I couldn't get off that easily. A freak thunderstorm delayed flights by 3 hours in JFK and with all the crowd there was no place to sit for 5 hours. I arrived at Indianapolis at 12:30 AM and so missed the last bus from Indy Airport to Purdue by a whopping two hours. Luckily there were three other people like me (one of them was actually a freshman...poor kid) so we hired a bus and got to Purdue at 5:30 AM. That wasn't the end of it for me though. I had to get up at 8:30 AM so that we (roomies and me) could take possession and shift into our apartments. So that totaled to 6 hours of sleep over 48 hours....which makes you feel as if you've been gulping down martinis for that amount of time. I could barely walk straight.
Funny thing is that things are so bad that I expect something to happen when I'm traveling. In case any of you were wondering when to avoid airports then look out for 15th Dec 2007 and 6th Jan 2008. And if you find your flight has been delayed, your luggage is missing, or you've been kicked out of your flight or ...and this is the killer...you're flight doesn't exist....well then just look around a bit.... I'm probably in seat 16K....
That's All Folks !!!
