London

I do not really have any substantial excuse for why I did not write this post earlier. But today since I am in my part-time writer mode again, I decided to do it soon. One never knows when I turn back to my non-writing lazy persona , lolz😂😂😂.

So the next morning I woke up early at around 6 am , wanted to cherish and enjoy the English morning and watch Brit shows for a while. Did I tell you , that I started writing the prequel to this post while sitting on the bed thinking about the journey. Nope. As most of you know , yours truly was not able to finish her job and had to rush towards the airport.

Image result for girl thanking gif — source:giphy

I packed my hand rucksack , booked a cab ( well the people in Mariott did that for me 😁😁) and reached Heathrow again.

Here’s what you should know the London black cabs are more expensive than other cabs.

Back to airport , since both of my check-in baggages were already moved I just had to go through security, whiiiichhh ….. was not a piece of cake. Common it’s Heathrow I am talking about guys , one of the busiest airports of the world. They had strict restrictions against bottles more than 100ml , deodorants and other stuff ( threw my deodorants 😢😢). I had a different experience while boarding the flight this time because 90% of the passengers were American and British and only few Indians or Asians. The feeling of going far away from home had slowly started to seep in. My co-passenger was a very kind American , who offered to help me anytime I needed him , while being here in the US.

It was a long 8.5 hours flight and as soon as the flight landed , we all moved through the immigration area. This was my third time during the journey , so I knew which documents to pull out and not to feel very nervous. Point -to-be-noted “not very nervous” I was still N.E.R.V.O.U.S. , who would not be standing in front of the Border and Homeland Security. Well, I went through it eventually. The officer was very polite, he asked me the purpose of visit, checked my I-20, VISA and I was asked to move forward. The baggage collection centre was completely thronged with passengers. I was one of the last passengers to get my bags , so imagine this girl who is on her first international trip to US and her bags take almost 20 minutes to come down. I would panic if it would be a few more minutes late, already having taken a round of the baggage collection belt 😂😂😂😂.

The best part though is about to begin , as soon as I start moving with my bags one of cops stopped me and asked me to follow him. I do that and once we are in his office, he informed me that he would check my bags . I was fine with that ….externally, had to maintain the calm facade . Unfortunately I had an uneaten apple from Heathrow and he picked on that, cops and their way of suspection. After he was done I started walking in search of terminal I ,my flight was scheduled there. My baggages were already taken care of land crew members , but I could not find a way to go to the terminal. There were these stairs people were walking through downwards and found that the terminals were all connected through subways . Once in the proper terminal, I moved around for a bit and then started dozing .

The long journey did take a toll on me. For the next few hours I kept myself awake through coffee, but once I was aboard the flight to Arkansas, sleep took over.

Image result for sleepy girl gif — source:K.I.D.

I do not remember anything about the journey, besides it was late at night by the time we reached XNA.

This is where my journey ended , but literally it just began.

NOTE: For those of you , who has not read my previous post on this topic, the link is https://meloheartsite.wordpress.com/2019/08/24/delhi-to-heathrow-london-a-first-timers-experience/ .

Life so far is doing good for me and I hope all of you are well.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I haven’t been writing for a while now, my fault completely. Actually I have been preparing for my travel to Arkansas.

Yes, guys you read it right. So here I am just going to write about my experience of the whole journey, it is going to be in three parts.

My flight to Heathrow was at around 12:20 pm which for some reason got delayed by ten more minutes.

Let me start from the beginning. I am not going to tell you regarding my bathroom habits,No. We had called a cab earlier just to be in time , so by 9:20 am I was there standing with my papa in Indira Gandhi International Airport Terminal 3, laden with 3 heavy bags we were moving towards the gate. Mind you I got an approval of two 23kg check ins and a 10kg hand luggage. And like any other first timer I filled all of them to the brim. Once in the queue towards the Gate , I was pretty nervous . Lots of incidents related to passengers being not allowed to board were hovering over my head. Fortunately nothing happened and I got to check in. Though once in the immigration queue I got a look over by the officer who checked my I-20 and gave me a pass.

Now, I just had to wait in the duty free area and my stomach was growling loud enough for a nearby passenger to turn his head. I wasn’t carrying a huge cash with me, so all I could do was look out for subway. I love their wraps besides they come in cheap. After food business got settled I moved towards the boarding where we had to wait for like 15 minutes before boarding.

As a child my ears had the tendency to ache in an insomniac way during flight hours. So me travelling via air wasn’t taken lightly by my father. He was too worried , really tensed, to the extant of waiting in the airport until the flight took off. Besides it was the first time his only daughter was travelling international with previous experience.

Once seated I noticed that my co-passenger is a Spanish girl. I really enjoyed my flight journey with her. We exchanged lots of anecdotes and stories. It was wonderful, I didn’t want the flight to end. The main reason was something else though. My flight landed there at around 5:35 pm , but the next flight would be next day at 12:50 pm. So I would have to stay in the airport, as I was travelling without a transit VISA.

The immigration queue in Heathrow was a huge one as all international passengers were lined up together. God, I already missed India. When my turn finally came to face the officer, he stared at my face and asked about my next flight . I told him it would be next day. He then granted me a One day transit VISA and told me to immediately book a hotel room. I was naturally overjoyed. Ah! what plans I would have designed had I known it could be possible, probably travel towards London. But it was not to be. I was tired , had to get a new sim from the airport only with 20 pounds.

By the time I was able to get into the hotel it was 9:20pm approximately and I couldn’t fall asleep until mid night. My biological sleeping clock had been disturbed and it was just the beginning dear friends. If calculated in Indian time , I was awake from 6:30 am to 3am the next day without any wink of sleep. Yet I was there in Hounslow and the hotel room had a beautiful view. I could stand there for hours watching the double Decker buses pass by and the wonderful English houses had it not been for my tired eyes.

Source: A bit of drizzle there in Heathrow

P.S.- The most difficult thing during this part of the journey was to carry an almost 9.5kg ruck sack on my back. I am only 5 feet weighing less 49kgs. It made me loony bins at times ,lol.

I apologize to all of my readers, for not posting it earlier and I know that the content could be made brighter using pictures. But the ones I have can hardly be recognized ,with a phone as bad as that it was not easy.