Sunday, December 10, 2006

I'm home!

Thirteen and a half hours after leaving Heathrow ... I am finally home. And what a wonderful feeling it is. Its all so familiar .. and am feeling so free.

Of course, getting here was not without the usual flight related pains of bad service and crying babies. But I no longer care (can you see my huge grin). One lesson - never fly Lufthansa. We arrived on time at Heathrow.. and the check-in counters opened forty five min late. Slow service would not aptly capture how slow it was.. and how frustrating it was to watch! There was a Japanese couple being made to repack their bags (I suppose weight of each suitcase was above the 32kg limit) ..whatever the reason .. they took over half an hour and the lady in the counter just sat and watched instead of continuing the check-in while they got their stuff sorted. Other such lame examples left only 2 counters really working. Then there were the idiotic passengers who ignored all signs of liquid restrictions and carried every conceivable size of creams, gels and liquids .. not to forget their 250ml of water .. of course none of this in the clear zip lock bags being handed out (and then they fought with the security people.. sadly they were from my country..sigh). Another 15min delay at the security check. And finally the crying, bratty kids .. in the row in front of us. The girl who went on and on and on and on .. for all of the 1.5 hours to Frankfurt. And the mother sat there wit a beatific smile not even bothering to calm her. How I was tempted to whack her with my rolled newspaper. Thankfully, at Frankfurt, they went towards the bus for the Chennai flight ... because I was surely not going to be sitting around peacefully if I had to go through it for another 8 hours of that.


More chaos by Lufthansa in the Frankfurt airport. We were to get seats assigned in Frankfurt.. more inefficiency there. Thankfully the flight to India was peaceful. Again a kid on the row ahead of us .. and one year old at that ... but with parents who took the effort to entertain the child. The kid was also a model child for flying and did not cry except during take off and landing.. which to be fair..must have been quite painful for the kid. The 'arrival' was another story all together. With four counters for Foreigner immigration and one for Indian citizens (which was a longer line than the foreign passport holders) .. its your guess who gets priority here. Of course my luck always holds up and I was literally the last person to clear immigration. . however the baggage handlers ensured that its all levelled out and the luggage started coming out even later .. so finally after one and a half hours we got to go out. And there were my parents waiting at 2:30am..and all the ills of the flight and airport forgotten ..we were finally home!

6 comments:

dick clinch said...

There is nothing like a whining child to put a brother in a foul mood.

Unless, of course, it is poor airline service.

I think we all ought to stay home and never leave.

Mr. J said...

Ahhh, the flight tales back home never cease to amaze me. Thank God for FFP and business class, I don't have to deal with the stupid noisy kids any longer.

But honestly, never had any problems with Lufthansa.

That Girl said...

oooh this is SO exciting!!! reading this i cant wait to LEAVE!!!lol. inspite of all the hiccups!

:D

Anonymous said...

Oh! what fun!

Shionge said...

Oh my....glad you made it dear, I can just imagine the frustration.

sinusoidally said...

Sorry to hear about your travels. Well who said international tarvel was fun? Hope you enjoy your holidays.