The Journey To US, Knoxville

Hello friends !!!

As my last post informed you about me reaching US safely. I did not give much details to you about my flight journey. You all will be thinking what is there to tell about my flight journey. But there are many things which I want to share with you about my journey. First of all this was my first international plane journey. Also I have boarded a domestic flight only once that too with a friend of mine called Shion and both of us went to Kolkata from Bangalore. So it was a short journey without us requiring to change the plane. But this time my route was something like this: Kolkata-Mumbai-Newark-Knoxville. And there was a 2 hour stopover at Brussels before getting down at Newark and I needed to change plane in Brussels too. I wrote a letter to my Dad giving him a brief discription of my life in US and my journey. Following is the letter: Check it out ! I welcome your comments :)

Dear Papa,

How are you and how is everybody at home ?

I am good. My classes have started and I am going to the university everyday to attend them.

Currently I have 2 courses in this semester. One is perspectives on communication and information and the other one is statistics. Also I have 2 research projects to work on. I could have taken one more course this semester but I did not want to overburden myself with studies in this first semester as it is a completely different kind of an education system and I am new to it. So I did not take any chances to take more courses. I have also chosen an easy course in statistics so that I can understand how things are taught here and how examinations are conducted, what are the expectations of a professor from a student and many different aspects. Most of my classmates have chosen a difficult level of statistics course here and they were surprised to see me taking a lighter course than them instead of the fact that I come from ISI. So I made them understand my point of taking an easy course at this initial period. I hope I am doing a right thing. What do you say, Papa ? Do you think I should take difficult courses from the first semester itself ? I have to maintain an average GPA of 3.3 per semester which means I have to get two A grades and only one B grade if I take 3 courses which is not a very easy thing to do if I am a new candidate. Here we have this flexibility of taking courses which we want in any semester. So if it is required, I can take the hard course in the next semester too ! That is why I did not take risk and played it safe.

Apart from that everything is good. Not much different as of now from the kind of life I used to lead there in Bangalore. The only difference is I get to see, meet and interact a lot of foreigners here which is a good thing I guess. This weekend I went to the international house which is a student body that organizes many cultural programmes and activities for students to participate and enjoy their time. This time it was a fundraiser program for Pakistan flood relief. So a lot of people were invited to this programme and food and music was arranged to entertain guests. I alongwith many Indians were responsible for cooking food. So I made Biriyani and other people made chicken and aloo gobhi ki sabji and mango lassi. It was a big event and there was also a media coverage of it. I will try and send you some of the photos of the event and of me here in America, so that you can see me.

Now I will tell you about my plane journey from Kolkata to Knoxville. As soon as I left you at the airport, Sanjeev Ranjan jijaji took me to the Gate where the plane was scheduled to come. This helped me understand that there is an unique algorithm to board a plane. I am sharing this with you. It is very easy and it might be of immense help to you if you travel by plane in future. The thing is there are two important points which you need to know and keep in mind. One is whether you are boarding an international flight or whether you are traveling within your own country which is called domestic flight. Most of the airports have both of these terminals (sections) namely Domestic and International. From domestic terminal you catch flights for traveling within your own country and from international terminal you catch flights to go outside your country. Now in each of these terminals you have separate GATES. Gates are the places where people sit and wait for their plane to arrive. Every gate has a unique number. When the plane is ready to have passengers in it, people make announcements about it saying XXX plane is ready and all the passengers are requested to board the plane. So everybody stands in a line and the boarding pass and tickets are checked so that you can enter the plane. So as soon as I went to the gate where my plane was due to arrive, I sat there for few minutes and then there was the announcement for boarding the plane. Now entering into the plane is also a big process. People who have tickets in business class are given more preference. Then people with disability are given more preference and then people having tickets in economy class are called. Passengers are requested to stand in a line on the basis of these criteria to board the plane. They may also announce something like people who have seat number 27- 40 stand in a line, so you need to always keep your ears and eyes open in order to get to know what is happening around. Shion told me this thing and I followed it very carefully. It really helped me very much. Then I entered the flight, took my seat, tied the seat belt, called you up perhaps and then the flight took off.

When I landed in Mumbai, I was a bit scared and nervous as I did not know where to go and what to do because unlike other planes this particular plane by which I traveled from Kolkata to Mumbai landed far away from the airport on a ground where there were lots of aeroplanes around standing at a distance. So here I was standing in the middle of the ground and not knowing where to go. Then I talked to the Jet Staff standing about the fact that I need to go to the international terminal. So he told me to wait there for sometime as there will be a bus coming from the airport which will take me to the domestic terminal and from there I will get another bus for going to international terminal. So I waited and then boarded a bus which came after 5 minutes and went to the domestic terminal of Mumbai airport. There I showed my ticket and they asked me to stand in a line to board a bus which will take me to the international terminal. Then again I boarded a bus full of passengers going to the Mumbai international terminal. It was quite far away from the domestic one. Must be about 30 minutes by bus. Then the bus persons told us the gate numbers from where we need to catch our flights. For JET Airways there was a different gate number, for Thai Airways it was a different gate number and so on. At the entrance of my gate, my passport was checked, then I entered the international terminal of Mumbai airport. The personnel over there had a list of all the passengers boarding a JET Airways flight, so he made a tick near to my name in the list and asked me to go and fill up a immigration form and submit it at the immigration counter. I enquired about verifying my luggage but the JET people told me that I need not do this as my next flight was also JET Airways so it would be automatically loaded. Then I submitted the form at the immigration counter. The person checked my i-20 and asked me to proceed. Then again I went through the process of body checking and the bag checking which I was carrying. Then I moved to the gate where my plane was to arrive. I saw the MUMBAI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT and you won't believe it unless you see it. It is just so beautiful and big. It is like a city in itself. Just beyond words. I bought sandwich there and ate and called you up. Then boarded the flight. Again everybody's entire luggage and footwear were checked before boarding the flight. I was sitting in the middle of a student who was going to Texas for his masters and a person from UP who was going to Arkansas for his job. We had personal computer screens there having music, movies, Hindi and English serials for our entertainment. Then we were given hot towels to rub on our faces to get refreshed. We also were able to see a video showing where we were geographically i.e we could see a map of India and our place Mumbai from where the plane was about to take off. And later as the plane flew and the positions of the plane changed we were able to see that on the screen. So if we were crossing say Paris we could see that on the screen that our plane is over Paris or some other country or where we presently are. This is the best part of the entire journey which I liked. Then I got food and saw a video before getting down at Brussels about what to do in Brussels. Where to go and all..I followed them. Again there was a lot of checking. They also asked me to take out my belts of the jeans and shoes which was very embarassing. But then they were asking everybody to do this so it did not really matter. Then I messaged you. I again boarded the flight for Newark and got down at Newark. Newark was the first point of entry to US so I had to go through immigration here once again. Before getting down in Newark we were also given some documents to fill up called i-94 form which had details about where we are going to stay in US, why are we coming here and declaration about me not carrying any illegal stuff etc. Then I went through the immigration process once again. The officer asked me if it was my first time in US. I said yes. Then he asked for my i-20 and the forms which I filled in the plane, took my finger-prints and stamped my i-20 and gave it back to me. He asked me to proceed. My immigration in US got cleared. Now I needed to take my luggage and take it to the counter from where it will be loaded to the Knoxville plane. I went and bought a trolley for $5 and took my luggage and boarded the domestic terminal. I needed to have a new boarding pass because this was a flight of different airlines. Then I went to the continental airlines counter. A person standing there was loading all the luggage going to Knoxville in the plane. He asked me when is my flight to Knoxville ? I replied at 8:00 pm. He took my luggage and transferred it to the required plane. Then I took a local train to go to the domestic terminal of continental airlines. Just imagine Papa how big is the airport that people have trains to go from one location to other.

Then I went to the required terminal but could not understand where exactly to go for the boarding pass. I tried asking people. But some people here speak with a different accent which is difficult to understand. So even though they were saying something in response to my question, I was not able to comprehend that. I really got nervous. I tried finding that UP person but people in the immigration took him to the interrogation for 2 hours, so he was also not there and I was all alone and nervous and ill and having no idea of what to do next. For a few moments I felt like crying on the airport. Then I decided to be strong and calm myself a bit and ask someone whose English I can understand. Then I asked a lady police officer and she directed me to a right place. I got the boarding pass, took a local train again to come back to the place from where I needed to board the plane for Knoxville. Again checking was done. By this time I was hungry, I wanted to talk to you and inform you about myself, I wanted to go to bathroom. So I bought water and got some change and tried calling you. Luckily it worked. I got a bengali girl at the Newark airport who told me how to use a booth in US so it helped a lot. Then I went to bathroom and got freshen up. I did not eat anything as I could not understand what to eat because everything looked here so different and big so I decided to eat in Knoxville. Then I slept there for 2-3 hours and woke-up and got-into the next flight. Then I reached Knoxville. Met the people from Indian students association, took my luggage and went to Anuradha's place.

I hope now you have a detailed description of how my journey was. It was really tiring and I kept sleeping for entire week because I was very ill and I had jet-lag.

Now everything is fine. I will be in touch. You take care. Pranam.

Mona (My nickname)