Kochi to Boise – The first one directly from Bini
I think this is the first time I am making a post in this blog and this may be the right time to write something about Naico family or about some of the team members.
Two of our colleagues at Naico (Bini & Jibin) took off from India for US (Boise, ID) last week (8/1/2009) for a two months onsite assignment. Personally, I feel a little sad at times to realize that they are far away from us and they don’t have anyone to help them other than our counterparts at the client side. Really I feel sad when I talked to them a few minutes back, chatting for the first time after they left for US. It may be because, they were used to be here the whole day with us in our office, but for two months their seats would be empty without them.
Anyway, this must be a wonderful opportunity for both them from a professional as well as a personal aspect and I wish both of them a nice time. Following is the first email we received from one of them after they landed in US. I hope the reader can visualize everything as they read through the following email from her. We are expecting more and more travel journals from them time to time as they get time to write. Interesting events must be awaiting them… lets hope so… and now start reading…
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Hi all,
First of all, sorry for the delay in sending this mail…The reason is that as we reached here on weekend, we got laptop only today.
If I start from the very beginning, everything went fine in Nedumbassery airport and we reached Mumbai around 11 PM, Thursday. We had to wait in the airport till next day morning, as our next flight to Chicago was at 8 AM in the morning. Anyway that was not a big deal as we got some nice seats to sit and sleep for a while.
Air India, as always, departure from Mumbai was late by 2.5 hours. In the flight, we were a little bit tensed about the next flight even though the time gap between the two flights was around 4 hours. As we feared, it reached Chicago only at 7.45 PM, where our flight to Boise was exactly at 8.05. We were sure that we will miss the flight. Still, after collecting the luggage and completing other procedures, we ran to the next US Airways’s terminal without losing the hope(that was the first and the most worst mistake we did during our journey). If we were alone without luggage, that would have been fine. But taking all the luggage and moving from terminal to terminal was really a difficult task. Finally we reached US airwyas terminal, but nobody was there, as their last flight has already been taken off.
Then somebody told us to go back to Air India’s terminal and they would be arranging the next trip and accommodation. We are still not sure how many times we entered into lift and train in Chicago airport. Finally we could reach Air India’s arriving terminal when one person came out through the door.
When we entered inside, one or two persons were in the queue for the same reason. We just relaxed then for a moment, and suddenly thought that Kelly would be waiting for us in the Boise airport. The next issue was informing naazim or Kelly about the delay. In the airport, we could see only coin boxes where only local calls are allowed, ie only in the state. Finally someone told us to take a phone card, but every shops were closed by that time. (it was around 10 PM then.).
For God’s sake, one of the persons in the queue, who was near to our seat in the flight, allowed me to have a call from his mobile to US number. I thought of calling Kelly then, but I didn’t get her then. I called Vince then told him that we will be reaching there next day only. That was a moment of relaxing after a long time.:)
Then we got the tickets and hotel details by 11 PM and waited near the entrance, for the hotel cab to come. Like us, there were around 30 people and by the time we reached the entrance, we were only just 4. We couldn’t get into the first cab as that already had several luggage inside. And they told we four to wait for 10 more minutes. But we had to wait around 1 hour there. That place was full of snow and as we were a little bit relaxed, we could take some photos while waiting for the hotel’s cab.:)
So finally we reached the hotel at 12.30 and the dinner time was already over. So we missed Air India’s allowance for dinner.(Anyway we managed it by having a nice breakfast there). Then had a nice sleep and went to airport in the morning to get into the Boise flight at 10.00 AM. We called Vince and informed him that we will be reaching there at 12.30. Catching the terminal or flight was not a big deal for us then, as we were already familiar with Chicago airport’s each and every floors, trains, lifts and terminals. 😀
We reached Boise at 1.00 PM and Kelly was there to receive us. I was expecting her with a placard saying ‘Jibin and Bini’. But she was able to identify us at a glance. Later when I asked her how could u identify us so soon, she told me that just before leaving house, she checked my skype profile photo.
Then the final issue(not that big issue as naazim had told us about it in advance) was missing one of the bugs of mine. Kelly went to the baggage claim counter and gave her address to reach the luggage at her door.
This was all about the journey and I’ll definitely update u with the other details including Boise, apartment and Balihoo office.
Wait till then and Keep in touch,
Bini.
