25th Dec - Christmas Eve.....
I bought my ticket from priceline.com.... they gave me an 'electronic' ticket - no paper based ticket... the concept was a new to me.... I was a bit worried about NOT having anything in-hand to prove that I have paid for a ticket to New York... I wanted to reach the airport before 2PM (even though the flight was at 3.15), so that I could finish all the check-in formalities. Detroit is about 2hrs drive from Lansing.... there were predictions that the weather would be bad + I was gonna travel in a friend's car which was not ment for long distance journey... fortunately things went by just as planned...
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At the Airport, some runways were shutdown due to the snow.... many flights were delayed... lucky me, my flight to DC took off on time. |
Reached Washington DC (Dullus Airport) on time... but due to bad weather, my connecting flight to New York was delayed by half-an-hr... good for me... atleast I didn't have to get out of one plane & rush towards the other :-))
By 6.15, my plane to New York was taxied to the runway... as the plane waited for its turn (to fly) on the runway, in came an announcement from the pilot.... LaGaurdia (NY's Airport) was facing strong gusty winds & so had shut all its runways & we were not given permission to fly. For one and a half hr, we were made to stand on the runway... too boring.... had no other time-pass but to see other planes land & takeoff... then started listening to the different music radio channels... but soon found that boring too..... then I stumbled upon channel 9 - the channel where I could listen to the communication between the control tower & all the aircrafts in the vicinity of the Dullus... that kept me busy for rest of the waiting period.... At about 8, we were giving clearance to leave DC... the journey from Dullus to LaGuardia is just 55min... but the funny part is, we were made to wait for about 2hrs at Dullus itself...
Once over NY skies, we were not given Celanese to land (again due to bad weather)... I can never forget what I saw in the next half-an-hr as the plane circled over NY city.... entire Manhattan night skyline... top view of Empire State Building... World Trade Center... Chrysler Building... Statue of Liberty... too cool.... just wish I had not kept my camera in the bag.... it was aaaa----meee---zing... Finally, at 9.30, we were back on ground.
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Once at Unnati's place, I was GLAD to have ghar-ka-khana... was missing it for the last 5 months... Chatted for sometime.. chalked-out plans for the next few days, watched a movies & then went to bed.... Felt really nice to be with apna ppl... family life... no worries.. no tension of studies or work....:-)) |
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