Chicago-Milwaukee

Its 5:30pm at terminal3 gate g9. Chicago ohare airport. I have almost lost sense of time. The vanilla latte is what is keeping me awake as i wait for the filght to milwaukee which leaves at 6:45pm.My flight BA295 from heathrow london landed at 2.30pm local time. I noticed that unlike my earlier flight here people were eager to get off the plane just like india. After walking through the single direction corridor i reached the immgration area. There were two lines meandering towards multiple counters. The one with the black color q tape is for visitors. The other blue line for resident americans. lots of british people were in the line and i noticed that the immigration authorities at the counters were handling things with a smile and casual talk. Not the case for others. By others i mean the one holding the white i94 forms. The people from visa exempt countries carry a green i94.i was directed to counter no 64 where an hawaiian looking officer was seated. I gave the passport and waited. Basic questions were asked like why i want to go to milwaukee, who is my employer,etc. I had to push the interview to the point where i would make things clear that my training period would get extended to about 12 weeks.. As my current return ticket was for jun 28. I gave the invitation letter and within two seconds the gloved officer asked calmly but indifferently why the date mentioned on the invite letter was 24th april but my visa was granted on 18th April! How could i explain that IT companies file for pre emptive visas? Some how i managed to say that at that time i had the letter on the wipro letter head.. Now its a formal letter from the clients. This was a catch question as i was travelling for the first time. My answer seemed good enough and as i watched him write 16 aug 08 as the return date.. I heaved a small sigh of relief.
thanked him and went straight to baggage which was on the carousel by then. Fortunately chicago has free trolleys. Got one loaded the bags and headed to the single exit that took me through customs who took my form, one look at my face.. The showed the thumb to move on. I was carrying no raw food and i had indicated this on the form.
Next went directly to AA counter where airline ppl were directing us to the correct counter to hand over our pre checked in bags. After finding out the gate went to get some water. A disinterested coloured girl at the counter directed me to get change for $20. Water cost $1 something. I headed off wondering how they do business and called home. Then pulled out the $1 notes that i had got from home and ended up buying $2 something water. Then i had to go up the escalator to catch the connecting train. More asian support people here.. Reminds me of the movie 'terminal'.
got off the train , crossed the overhead foot bridge and reached terminal 3. Below i say swanky cars zipping away. Terminal 3 looked like 100 years old. Zero furnishings. I saw people were going through security check. Confirmed from the airline desk if i could take any security counter and then also confirmed from a TSA officer if i could carry the water with me. Reply- no. Pl finish it before xray. Aaargh... $2 disappearing down my throat in gulps. Again shoes are to be taken off. Collected my stuff at the other end while i watched a working mum being questioned about the baby's apple juice then her laptop..
inside now terminal 3 looked like a proper airport terminal. Went looking for gate G9. Found it and plopped myself on the waiting seats.
I met Araya the Dba who was on the 5:15pm flight. There he told me that his irritating bengali companion was caugth at the xray carrying potato,okra and onion! What the!!? The gutsy guy didnt feel it was necessaary to declare this in customs.. Technically he tried to be smart. Apparently he even tried to argue that the TSA cannot take away his food! He came through.. Somehow.. Minus the onions. Very proud of his victory.
i bid goodbye to araya and headed back to my gate. Suddenly felt a bout of hunger. avoided the neat looking bar which had americans enthusiastically watching some sport and haded to starbucks. One espresso brownie cake and a vanilla latte. Back to gate G9.
a young mother with a crying baby with a punk center hair cut, old folk, chatting ladies.. And now i calculate..i last slept properly at 3:30am india time yesterday, then just a two hour sleep on the flight to chicago. Almost 24 hrs per india time and no sleep.. A new record! Certain things that are evident are, the asian population is very much a part of the support staff. All forms of it. Along with the people of african-american origin. Makes me wonder if the economic divide still exists?Ok. Now iam typing all this and i notice its 6:20pm and i see people moving to the gate. I too got up but to notice to my horror that the screen next to the gate shows 'albany 6:45'.. I rushed to the girl at the counter and enquired and she informed me that the milwaukee flight was boarding from G14! The good part was it was not too far and was actually just next to the starbucks outlet where i had been to earlier. I reached just in time to join other passengers to get on the flight. It was a tiny aircraft. 50 odd seats..the cockpit door wide open, an old airhostess that resembled 'thelma' from scooby-doo.. I took my seat 12a. Single seat. Window and ailse. Loads of leg room. Again at the emergency door. thelma then came up and asked me and the other passenger whether we could operate the emergency door in case it was necessary.. The small aa eagle flight taxied out and took off. It was to be a 26 min flight only...and the most scariest beating the landing in the 777 by a long way. Apparently it was very windy outside. We were flying quite low and it was really bumpy! I held on to my seat tightly. Only the blond in tiny pants was showing some fear..everyone else was quite calm including thelma who informed that she wouldn't serve anything in this turbulance and anyway we were almost there.
The plane landed in a green looking milwaukee. The airport was near empty but quite unalien. I collected my luggage and followed the signs to information and phones. Called home. Then went over to information who were actually the airport transfer people. Three colored girls were manning the desk. Quite friendly. I paid $13 in cash and waited on the benches for my van to pull in outside the terminal. Now i felt quite vulnerable.. I had not contacted tushar yet.. Nor Divya. Why? I had no 50 cent coins with me! The counter girl annonced that my van would be outside any minute. I pulled my luggage and headed outside. I was to reach the divider in the center to wait. I stopped before crossing and to my surprise all the on coming vehicles stopped seeing me. I hesitated for a second then realised the respect for pedestrians here.
The van driver loaded the luggage in the back. A tough looking guy past 50. I got in and so did one aged lady. We drove in silence..i was half asleep and yet looking outside the window.. It was dusk and the roads were almost empty.Once we reached downtown i could see vehicles parked on both sides of the road. Our driver was very law abiding and stopped for pedestrians, red lights etc unlike a yellow cab that was in a hurry. There was also a 'desi cab'..probably a private company run by indians..
we entered N cass street but missed 1039 by 3 houses. The driver to my surprise didn't either tell me to get down here nor go in reverse. He went around the whole block and dropped me right in front of the buidling.
i took my baggage and headed to the apartment building door. After a moment of struggle the door opened outside and i walked in. Here was another door and a very dimly lit corridor beyond it. I knew i had to buzz the apartment and the occupants would press the button to open the doors to let me in.. But i didnt realise that the white protrusion against '10' was the button and i was fighting with the door. An old man in a guard's dress came from outside and opened the door for me. And i thanked him. He was probably the care taker or a ghost who appeared from nowhere!
i went up to the first floor by a cluastrophobic lift and knocked on door 10. Tushar opened the door. He had put on much more weight than in the full face photo i had seen in wipro employee pages. Kitchen, small drawing room and a bed room. Nice but cluttered. By this time my head felt like a trucks engine piston assembly and i badly needed sleep.
We watched some old 'boogie woogie' show on his laptop. He was laughing heartily at the smallest of javed jafri's jokes and i told myself maybe staying too long in a foreign place makes one appreciate every tiny link to one's homeland and language. We ate chapatis which he made along with some bean curry.
The intertnet at his place was so fast that we were watching 'iron man' the movie streaming! And i was thinking back at the trouble i had to take to use a 128kbps line back in Pune.
i was too tired and i went to sleep halfway through the movie. I slept on a fat matress on the floor. Only to be woken up by the other roommate who came in at 3am. Said hi and i dozed off only to be woken up again when he was mumbling about work in his sleep.