From Heaven to Northglenn

“There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go.” - Tennessee Williams
 

I should consider myself lucky in that case as I have both the reason and a place to go. So that eventual day finally came. Most of the people back home asked me if I would ever return. Some suggested I should never, citing the crisis that loomed over the country.  And some suggested ‘you should call Mamu-Daddy to US as well”… and what not… I did nothing but listened… and that’s the best thing you can do when the suggestions outnumber the people… that is more or less typical Nepali way, listen from one ear and let it pass from the other!

I was running out of time… had hard time getting the tickets... classes were to start on 27th August with orientation on 22nd… Professor Saffer was happy that I was finally coming, so he wrote that I need not worry about the orientation too much… after much ado, finally got my tickets confirmed. August the 18th, Kathmandu – Abu Dhabi – Dublin – Chicago and finally Denver… now it was a 36 hour affair, with transits ranging from 4 to 6 hours, across three continents. I was short of time but made sure I could meet as many friends as I can from both work and college. Then there was shopping. Arguments what to take and what not to… and I was like ‘It is me who is going, I will decide!’… I was imagining having hard time carrying those luggages, so didn’t want to carry much until I felt it was important.

18th August

I remember humming ‘Leaving on a jet plane’ in my head and call it a coincidence or what it matched my situation as well as was written by John Denver who was christened the name Denver after the place where I was heading. Bimla Di joined us to the airport. The best part, no one cried. My SIM expired just a day before, but I was still carrying my phone. Stupid, I was. Checked in. Waited in the lobby… On, on and on. The flight was delayed. Most of the fellow passengers were Nepali heading to the Gulf for work. I took out my camera from my hand carry hoping I could get few snaps. My bad! I left the battery on the luggage. Got one or two snaps from my phone but with too many prying eyes, I felt awkward!

After an hour and half the aircraft finally arrived. I was happy as now I would have less transit in Abu Dhabi due to that delay. Boarded the plane… Asked the guy seating next to me if he could lend me his phone so I could call home. Turned out to be a good fella. Kilo One. Kilo Two. I was done. I won’t say the airhostesses were out of the world but they were mmm… graceful and a bit pretty. You had a limited range of movies to choose from. But I could neither fall asleep nor felt like watching movies. Time and again the air-hostesses passed by, that kept me occupied. Ha ha… just kidding.

Abu Dhabi, UAE

Finally felt relieved to know two fellow Nepali students who were heading to US as well. Bishan heading to Virginia  and Elena heading to Washington, the state not the district. And an elderly couple going to meet their son in Oklahoma. Bishan was heading to US via London and rest of us were on the same route till Chicago. Abu Dhabi International Airport was huge!  And the best part, they have internet kiosk. So there we were busy updating our status in Facebook, sending messages, bla bla bla. That was a good time pass. But then the lobby was so damn cold… I mean the temperature must be something negative… donno if those Emirati were fond of that cold a temperature! Forgot to say, Etihad serves awesome food!

En route to Dublin my eyes were set on the screen that showed our current position. The sun rose when we were flying over Romania. I was matching the places outside with the map on the screen. Danube went winding. Germany. And here we crossed the English Channel. Once we crossed the mainland Britain, the sky turned foggy. Fog. Fog. Fog. Everywhere.

Dublin, Ireland

Dublin, Ireland

I wonder if I am half Irish… but now I feel like…  flying over the cotton clouds, crossing the misty Irish Sea, the aircraft headed to Dublin… I could see some idyllic islands off the Dublin coast… the first my eyes had sighted in real… that felt nostalgic… as of now those islands are still implanted in my memory… they will remain there for eternity, probably. The aircraft hovered around Dublin and my eyes were wide open, felt as if they forgot to wink… mesmerized by the beauty of Dublin that radiated with the early morning sun. Organized settlements, beautiful houses, black-topped smooth roads, green pastures, and white sheeps dwelling in the farm basking the sun… it was surreal… was I dreaming? I don’t know… but it was something like ‘luff at first sight.’

By this time my head made no sense of the time zone… it was entangled somewhere in the meridian… what I always remembered was, I will land in Denver at 5:45 pm Mountain Time… nothing else. At Dublin International Airport we were to check out from Etihad and catch the American Airlines (AA)… as we came out through the tunnel, there was a lady from AA who just marked everyone going to the US and told us to follow her… and we did… but she walked so fast that she disappeared somewhere in between.

The Eire Fiasco

It was a clear sunny morning in Dublin… had three hour long transit and I was hoping it to pass smoothly… but maybe God had some other plans on store, again… the old couple checked in and entered the lobby of American Airlines, just when I was about to check-in, the staff told Elena that she needs to get her boarding-pass first. I had all four boarding passes of mine but she got only two from the staff at TIA… so since there was enough time and trying to be a Good Samaritan, I decided to help her out and didn’t check-in…

US Custom Official, Ireland

Running here and there, being in line, time and again… cleared the immigration. STAMPED. I literally checked out at Dublin Airport. Tell you what? Ireland was AWESOME! Even that caps lock fails to tell how impressed I was with Dublin… feels like I can recognize an Irish anywhere around the globe, any day… their eyes, their hairs… that is something distinct… maybe that’s how they differentiate themselves with the English!

Finally Elena got her boarding pass… but by then a lot of time had passed… we were not sure about the time… thought we had little, so we hurried… take off your shoes, get your hand carry checked and check in again… we were running out of time… ran to the Terminal 2… but damn I too needed to follow the due diligence and fill up the form since I checked out… told the officer we were late for the flight, he helped us breach the line… filled up all the forms, security checks and all that in haste… Oops! Now they had another stricter one... face verification, finger prints and all that… I was worried, literally… ‘From the frying pan into the fire!’… And here we ran again… as the flight was already announced…

Another cross examination before boarding… looking at my passport the officer enquired – why did I leave the airport, did I meet anyone outside and all that almost got me a mini heart attack… I regretted helping the fellow passenger… I was like “is there anything wrong Officer?’… he was like – “we are cross verifying in the system” and all… stapled few papers on my passport… finally I was done… almost 15 minutes… that was nightmare… when I tried to head towards the craft, they told me to sit in the lobby… ‘The flight has just landed, there will be announcement for boarding after a while”… I was relieved, finally… and there they were the elderly couple, in the lobby waiting as well… I survived.

Dublin to Chicago

Aerial view of Greenland

Turned out that long due diligence was conducted by US Preclearance facility, as we were boarding on an American Airline from Dublin and the facility was in operation to reduce the workload in airports located in mainland America… took a long breathe after I was finally seated in the plane… but what… the Aircraft was no match to Etihad, smaller, less spacious, older air hostess/host… but I was happy to be boarding… I was not lucky to have a seat by the window… phew stuck in the middle… so finally bade farewell to Eire!

Clear morning blue sky… the craft headed west over the Atlantic… I tried to fall asleep, but couldn’t… the lady next to me was busy with her Sudoku… she was amazing… she finished them off as if she was flipping it… I tried to trace some out, that was difficult… she was mind-blowing! There were few children seated by the window who were going back home after their vacation in Ireland… lucky them… and then came the time, my first encounter with the American food… awww… cultural shock! The taste, the aroma…

After flying for some hour, there was a buzz… everyone was looking outside… Greenland! We were flying over Greenland!!! … I don’t know who came up with the name of that largest island on earth… there was snow everywhere… and yea could see some polar bears on their long march to the North Pole, probably… but not a single trace of life or color green… Finally, here came Chicago… bustling city, the craft hovered over the city for sometimes, maybe waiting for the runway to clear…. Dang! Here we landed…

Chicago, Illinois

O'Hare Airport, Chicago, IL

O’Hare Airport was huge! Cafeterias all around, with that American aroma, huge crowd… and that aisle with flags from countries all around the world… that aroma almost made me puke! Before we all headed to our destination we went to collect our baggage… waited for a while, but it never came… other fellow passengers got their baggage but ours was nowhere to be seen… after little enquiry, we were told that we only have to collect our luggage in the final destination… the elderly couple’s flight to Oklahoma was after 3 hours, mine was 2 hours and Elena’s was one and a half or so… so we went looking for our terminal… got them traced out… we bade farewell… and from then it was all down to me, alone.

In the final moment there was change in the terminal… rushed to the different one at the other corner… people were busy using the free WiFi on the floor, I was enjoying that… time passed by… finally headed to the aircraft for my final destination, Denver. The craft was way too small… I can’t expect a domestic craft to be as big as an international one and it does depend a lot on the destinations as well… how big the city is and all that… so here it was a craft with around 30 people to accommodate… I was damn tired… hadn’t slept for more than 2 hours in two days… the duration of the flight to Denver was two hours… and most of the passengers were lads this time… ten minutes or so after the flight took off, I was off to my dream… I don’t have any idea what went in between… finally got up fifteen minutes or so before the plane finally landed in Denver International Airport… looked like it was bigger than O’Hare…

Denver, Colorado

I was expecting mountains but turned out Colorado was one flat land… too huge a valley with mountains on its periphery… Switzerland of the US? Didn’t know where to head after I landed in DIA… took the elevator… wasn’t worried about my luggage getting lost at all… everyone took the train, so I followed… when I got out! There she was! My Sister! Had waited too long for that moment! Left Kathmandu on 18th at 6:00 pm and here I was in Denver at 5:45 pm (Mountain Time) on the 19th. Finally got the luggage and we headed to Northglenn!

From Heaven to Northglenn!