Seattle to Hyderabad - Jan11

Journey to the Airport
10th evening ko bahut snow padi and as a result driving on roads became treacherous ... therefore most people who had to reach the airport on 11th morning or after booked taxis in advance resulting in shortage of cabs! ... so thodi tension hui raat main kyonki jis bhi taxi service ko call kiya wo ya to chal nahin rahe they ya overbooked they ... khair kisi tarah ek mil gayi ... subah uth kar, mast naha dho kar, Adi+Jaya ke paranthey sabzi baandh kar, aur bheemu ko pyar kar hum nikal liye ... pehle Harish ke apt gaye apna saaman uthane ... last baar apne apt ko dekh kar unexpectedly bura laga ... khair Harish se vida le kar airport ke liye rawana ho gaye ... Airport tak ki journey mostly eventless rahi ... both of us were unusually quiet ... grappling with sadness of leaving so many good friends and excitement of finally going back to India ... A couple of times when the cab driver made dangerous cuts to avoid other cars stemmed the flow of thoughts and brought us back to reality!

@the airport
khair airport pahunche to wahan par pata chala ki mere pass stamped visa nahin hai aur na hi naya I-97 hai ... thodi tension hui ... fir Microsoft legal ko anticipation main phone ghumaye ... sabki voice mail par gaya aur kisi ka wapis phone nahin aaya ... khair fortunately kuch dikkat nahin hui Visa ki ... lekin fir checkin bag bhaari nikale ... fir maal re-arrange kiya ... tab tak 1 ghante se kam ka samay tha aur security check bhi nahin hua tha ... fir security check ke liye meeloon lambi line thi ... khair wo bhi hogayi aur jab tak departure gate par pahunche tab tak boarding shuru ho chuki thi ... to bhaavnaaon ko bahar aane ka jyada mauka nahin mila ...

Flight
flight was relatively eventless ... as Raghu & Mahati told us, food was a disaster between Seattle and Amsterdam and pretty good between Amsterdam and Hyderabad ... Met a nice IT guy, B.N.Rao (who is originally from Hyd), in flight from Amsterdam to Hyderabad who confirmed that our decision to move back was indeed a brave one ... I have always felt uneasy when Hyderabad localites say that and I think almost all Hyderabadis have told me that :) .. but as you know I have not been deterred so far ;)

Hyd Airport to Taj Banjara
Flight landing was a little less than normal as the pilot applied heavy brakes for a long time ... BN told me that this was normal since the runway at hyd is on the smaller side ... he mentioned that once a flight had to take off from the runway when it was unable to come to a halt when it was landing ... scary stuff ... actually Pannu had once told me the official name of this touch-n-go procedure but I can't remember it now ... khair ... apart from the fact that we had to wait more than 1 hr for our baggages, things went smooth ...
outside the airport there were two taxis waiting for us ... one sent by MS and the other sent by Taj Banjara ... well we almost took the one sent by the hotel (for which we would have had to pay) but our company taxi driver, Omar Sharif, intercepted in time and saved us some money!
On our way back we saw a couple of flyovers in progress but other than that the city seemed fast asleep ... we had a great customory welcome at Taj and after checking in we were happy to straighten our backs and get some rest ... it was about 4am