Visiting the US of A - March 2011

Notes taken at random during trip to USA in March

I don't like the red eye flights. I don't like waking up before dawn and going to the airport. This is despite the fact that I often wake up at the crack of dawn to go to the gym. It must be because going to the gym is almost a leisurely way of waking up, whereas going to the airport is very time sensitive. Sometimes I don't sleep well before an early morning flight. But one has to do what one has to do. 

Fortunately, there is a certain predictability in going through Zürich airport, specially if one takes the train. No surprises, just smooth sailing, so to say. Following the advice of my better half, I did take the earlier train; and that was the right call. 

Frankfurt airport (never one of my favourite airports in Europe) was another story. Not that I had any problems, but it seemed like I was going to walk to Houston. It was about 35-40 minutes of constant movement (mostly walking) to gate C15 from the gate I landed at in terminal A. It was faaar. And the whole system of getting to gate C15 appeared to be really complicated. In the end, I needed all the transit time available to me for, oh well, transiting. 

A Boeing 747! Been a long time since I have been on one of these. I recall Swissair used to fly them and business class was upstairs with storage space by the window that you could also use to put up your feet. Then there was a KLM flight to Calcutta via New Delhi where I sat in the nose of the plane. Less comfortable than Swissair. Lufthansa is not quite Emirates or SQ, but having the seat next to me empty helps. Some of the other industry types were sitting in the nose, but I was a few rows back. 

(By the way, the stewardesses are doing well in remembering my name. LX or LH is normally not great at this, unlike EK and SQ)

It's gonna be a long day. I woke up at 4:45 AM CET and am scheduled to land at 9:00 PM CET (3 pm local time). That's 16 hours already and I have most of the day in Houston still ahead of me. Ah well. Maybe I will meet an old friend. 

(P.S. Video on demand sucks. Selection is ok. Screen quality is only good for tv shows)

So I had a little run-in with Hertz since they didn't have a satnav for the Yukon they gave me. I didn't want to wait and neither did I have a ladder to climb in, so I swapped it for a Mazda 5. The problem came later when Richard called it a Smart car and forced me to swap it back to a bigger one. Guess what? Hertz screwed it up again, and just didn't have my reservation! So we got a Ford Flex from Avis, which was big enough for His Majesty, but the booking agent screwed up the return location and I did not have the energy to fight the $50 extra charge they slapped on me. In other words, this trip was rental car hell. 

I don't know if it was this or the pre-occupation with meetings, but it did not even occur to me to run by 31 Meadowridge Place, while I was at The Woodlands. To be frank, I think I would have skipped it even if it had occurred to me. 

Socially, it was a strange NPRA. It felt like I had a lot of meetings, yet it felt that I did not meet anybody. I guess it was because I did not go to any of the parties or hang out in the lobby of the MRC. Actually, I had no meetings at the MRC at all, which must have been the first time ever!

(I have restarted writing this after a month's break, just being busy with stuff. So the memory fades ...)

The next part of my trip was eventful. The flights were from San Antonio to DC and then to La Guardia. As I boarded at DC, I thought that something was amiss. Wracking my brains for a few minutes, I realized that I had left my suit bag at the Starbucks in SA airport! 2 jackets and 2 ties in it. I am almost more upset at losing the ties ... I can't think what to do, so all I do is email Lois and Smita to tell them what happened. Then I fall into conversation with the person sitting next to me. He turns out to be a cop in Central Park, as well as a hobby-ist jazz musician. We spend a very enjoyable hour talking of all kinds of things: we both know at some level of consciousness that we will never meet again, or remember the things we talked about. 

Three days at work in Darien and New York, and I am headed home in time to see the World Cup Final. India v. Sri Lanka. Would be fun.