My Unforgettable Travel Journey

 

Have you sometimes ever felt the universe is against you? For example.When you are waiting at the toll gates and the parallel lines move faster, when your Pongal is the one with all the mustard when the person next to you has all the cashews, or when you have a Pani puri which breaks right when you were about to put it in your mouth, well this was my luck when I was planning a trip to Sweden.

My first ever abroad trip. Sweden, what a wonderful place, filled with beautiful subways and the most artistic train stations, charged with the most lovely people and a pragmatic environment. No denials when it comes to the place, but the journey was a roller coaster. And in the words of ms.Etta James“at last!”.It all started the day the plan on going to Stockholm was disclosed to me. I was on top of the roof, filled with happiness and the thoughts of meeting my uncle, aunt and cousins who had now been there for 8 months. The tickets for me, my younger brother and my mother were printed, and we began with the packing and shopping. When all was going well with the packing, my mother entered the room with one bag which looked like a man was stuffed into it filled with groceries to the top, to lighten the mood even more, my father followed after with another such bag. I was puzzled and looked at them with an agape expression. The bag of groceries was for my uncle’s family there, who couldn't take all the groceries when they travelled due to limitations. So, all that happened was we sat down and packed an entire suitcase filled with groceries. You must be wondering what is so unlucky about this, that is so because I had planned on packing my necessities into that suitcase. This was the point where I started questioning my luck.

Moving on, the Visa! A couple days later my mother and I went for the visa formalities which included biometric verifications, immigration checking and a lot of questioning, not to forget, a ton of paperwork. We spend a total of almost 2 weeks filling in paperwork and yes, you guessed it! It wasn't my lucky day. We got turned back to correct one sheet out of the 200 sheets we filled, so we went the next time and finally the visa was dead and buried. With my cheeks dimpled and the corners of my eyes wrinkled, I happily moved on.

The next evinces of my hapless luck, is the craziest one of all. We had booked tickets on the airlines - “Jet Airways", well just to make my life easier, the airlines shut down causing our tickets to get cancelled. I reacted a way worse then you probably are now. There I was on one side of the room sent into hypothermic shock and on the other there was my mom who was at this moment making a ton of calls. After an extensive session filled with a ton of phone calls which included customer care staff who were on the verge of crying hearing the same voice yelling the same thing again and again, we got through it. We were given rescheduled tickets on the Air-India airlines. After a dragged out time period of continuous preparations, I was spun-out. Just wanted to get on a plane and fly to Sweden. Well, obviously it wasn't going to be that easy. I had a flight from Bangalore of 3 hours to Delhi and then another connective international flight to Germany which I was supposed to board with only a time period of 1 hour in between!! The formalities between these two flights took a minimum of 3 hours, what were we going to do?? And then another 1-hour flight from Germany to the awaited destination “Sweden.”Oof!! Well at this point, you all are also probably debriefing my luck, just as I am. After a series of hectic days, the boarding date arrived.

My father accompanied by my grandmother dropped us at the airport and after an indefinite amount of checking and security, we boarded the flight. Saying all my prayers and preparing for the take off, I sat there. All went well until we landed at the Delhi Airport. The vexations all began with a walk of 5km within the airport. This instant, we all were perspiring through the boarding lines. After a time period of 5 minutes we were all set and boarded the plane. I sat there, wiping my damp skin and proving to the camel that even human can drink a lot of water at once and it was not the only creature, but surely the camel drinks in a more appealing way. 10 minutes passed, soon 1 hour passed and the plane ended up with 3 hours delays of taking off. People started getting restless and it was divulged that there was a plane that caught fire and hence the runways were shut. Well guess what, at this point we had already missed our flight to Germany. We waited for a duration of what seemed like forever, until we were finally switched onto another flight and before you thinking what was the next incident that showed the dignity of my luck, Disclaimer:this time my luck proved otherwise. We ended up at the german airport at midnight instead of 5 pm. We had missed our flight, but to our surprise, our last flight was rescheduled to 5 am the next day. And to make things better we were given a night stay in a german 5-star hotel. The ironic part was we were given the opportunity to stay in such a prestigious place, but only for 3 hours and precisely sleeping hours. Got a good sleep and boarded our morning flight. In the fullness of time,

We finally arrived in Stockholm. Finally! The trip was worth it, even thought it wouldn't have hurt if things were a bit easier. The trip was sublime. Hold on a sec.I didn't tell you about the return right? Well, that is an episode no different from this one. Airline travel is hours of boredom interrupted by moments of stark terror. Thanks to the universe and its malignity, I had an unforgettable trip. This was my unforgettable travel journey!