Returning home- part 2

Ugh! This computer at home is so unbearably slow that I long for my black beauty (which is sadly sitting, all packed, in a cold, dark store room!). Ahem, by black beauty I mean my black n ‘khewl’ computer in Singapore. I miss you, dear! (yeah, these will be things I miss, and you may have to get used to me missing such things!) I miss that awesome optical mouse and that sleek Logitech keyboard. I miss those amazing controls on the keyboard- one button to open winamp and one to open IE. This comp at home is no match to mine! ;) This one takes 5 minutes for startup and I wonder how the computer itself can be so conked up. Giving me random messages every 2 minutes asking me to connect to the internet and so on….whew!
With my sis gone elsewhere for work, I am so irritated that none of the plans we had made (hmm…maybe what I had made!) worked. All we did was to go to temples and visit some relatives. Tsk tsk!
Hey, so the computer is entirely my own now! So all those who had come to Anu’s blog, maybe you have serious things to be concerned about now! Well, maybe you should know that we blogged just once individually in those 4 days we were here. ;)
Ohh, I forgot the returning home part…here goes!
So after that huge hungama the day before I had to leave, I slept at 1 a.m. and got up at a freaking 5:15 a.m. With just a bare four hours of sleep! I was so depressed that I had to get up this early. But hey, I am going home! In another 9 hours, I would be home, in my dear Chennai!!!!!
This thought was enough to spur me into action and I quickly got ready. I was having my roommate’s door key and she was not on campus so we had made an arrangement that I would leave her key in our room mailbox so she could take it when she comes back. After getting all ready, I went down to the area where all the block mailboxes were. It was pitch dark.
I groped around in the dark and found my room mailbox. Just as I was about to slip the key in, somebody switched on the tube light there. I was pleased. Somebody was so concerned!
Just as the tube light came on, I heard a huge bolt of thunder that shook me out of my wits (well, almost!). It was then that I realised that the tube light was actually lightening. Boy, that was a really powerful one!
This was bulb number one for the day.
I went out and waited another half an hour for the first bus to come to campus. Responsible me, I was taking the metro train there to the airport and saving money! :) Finally reached the point where I had to switch trains to go to the airport. I got down in the station and reached the other platform where the train to go to the airport would come. One came, but the announcer said that this train would not go to the airport. So that train came, stood in the station for a few seconds and left.
Another one came soon and enthusiastically I pulled my luggage and stood near its doors, waiting for them to swing open. I kept standing there with some other people. But the doors never opened. And this train left too, without picking any of us up!
Bulb number two.
All these were nothing compared to the one coming up.
Finally the train came and I was in the airport.
I was so tired with the two train journeys that I lazily was dragging along my luggage. I reached the skytrain to take me to the other terminal where I would have to board the flight. When I reached the other terminal, I looked at the departure electronic board. My flight number was seen, but it said Mumbai and the time was 1900. Whaaaaaaaaaatttt!!!!! Where was my flight???? Some thinking led me to the fact that my flight stopped in Kuala Lumpur, then Chennai, and the final stop was Mumbai. But 1900??? Well, maybe a mistake.
I went to collect my boarding pass. Horrors!! The flight was actually delayed! To 1900 evening, when it was supposed to leave at 0925 in the morning! The chapta in the boarding pass counter stuck a red sticker in my arm and asked me to wait with the other people having the sticker. He said that we would be taken to a hotel and would be picked up from there in time for the flight departure.
This was bulb number 3!!! A terrible one!!!!
So we went to this hotel Paramount. It was an awesome hotel. I got a single room. All for myself, because I was travelling alone. Wow! I would never have been able to live in such a room in the near five years at least! When we went to the hotel, we were informed that our flight was further delayed to 2115. I was fed up of getting disappointed so I chose to enjoy the stay! Yaayyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!The breakfast and lunch they gave in the hotel were so bad that I felt really bovine eating all those leaves (umm, read lettuce) as salad. Very few vegetarian options! Topping that was green bean soup and I felt I was sick.
I guess keys and I don’t have much of a good relationship. At least for about the last week or so, this is what I think is true.
This hotel did not give us keys, but a card with a magnetic strip, which had to be put in in the door knob every time I wanted to get in. Worse, my room would have electricity only if I left that card in another slit having the A/C controls. I slept most of the time figuring out how to use the card in various places. It had to be used in the elevator to go to different floors. And using it in the different places had different procedures. I was making a complete fool of myself in front of people of various nationalities (!). A white couple heartily laughed and helped me as I struggled with the card in the elevator. Another Briton couple also helped me out in the elevator (kill me, I still didn’t learn from the first white couple!) and I cursed the card in front of the Britons and they had a good laugh too. :( woe is me!!!
I did not learn from my previous day locker key disaster too. I left the key in the electricity control board and locked the room and went inside. So I had to go down all the way to the reception and sheepishly give a stupid smile, explain and get another card.
I slept through most of the time I spent in the hotel. And for the first time in my life, out of dire hunger and laziness to go out to eat and stupid vows not to eat the leaves they gave for dinner, I drank “tea bag” tea (that dip-dip one!).
Wow! Finally someone called my room phone to say that I had to report down at 7 p.m. There were taking us to the airport. I leapt up and down with joy.
Ooppps! This is long! Thanks for coming till here. J
Will be continued. ;)