The Journey here - II

Day 2… Reached Frankfurt airport at about 7 in the morning. I had heard about it being the biggest airport in the world/Europe depending on how big the narrator wanted to make it seem. But because I could’ve compared it only with airports in the 4 indian metros and Bangalore, I found it incomparably big. As we started walking towards B24, we realized that we were a bit hungry and Sri pleasantly floated the idea of a round of Heinekens at the Goethe bar. I had actually been a little shy to ask the flight attendants for another glass of wine, or something stronger, and hence was more sober than I’d have wanted to. Therefore I agreed. And so we retraced our steps back to central shopping/eating place at the airport. Sri went away to the loo, and I used the time to buy a couple of chocolate gifts. Looking at all the different alcohols made me chide myself all the more for not being myself with the flight attendants. Gods sake, they were not more than ultra-refined sagar waiters, and I deserved all the drinks I could've asked for.

Anyways, so after that I roamed around a little in the other shops in their, including the gift/curio shop which was selling t-shirts and swarowsky. It reminded me of shweta’s rocking chair and smita’s wine bottle. I looked if I could find them there, and see how costlier they were here than in Bangalore, maybe to find how much I saved than if Dadaji were in Hitler’s army… The baniya brain. Then the beer at Goethe Bar, and breakfast of breads, fruits and orange juice. Made myself look foolish once more. After ordering the beer, which was Palmer and not Heineken, I said “And two vegetarian breakfasts please”. The good waiter asked “that’d be with coffee or tea?” Guessing he was trying to thrust another item from the menu at us, I said with a joke’y grin, “With the beer we just ordered!” And he informed us cordially pointing to the menu that the beverage comes with the breakfast. Sheesh!!! Backed off the joke’y grin and put on a sheepish smile. Well, actually beer with that breakfast was an odd combo, cause it brought together beer, tea and orange juice together in my tummy for the first time in my life. And they didn’t like it in there with each other too much. Then we went off to catch the flight.

Then another social hara-kiri… While sitting at the waiting lounge, the 3 drinks reached their final destination in me after running thru the system. Plus I had also to brush my teeth. I realized there were no rest rooms around, and I had to come out of the lounge. So, I handed over the boarding pass back to the girl at the counter and took a quick look at the two doors. One had a woman with ‘Damen’ drawn on it, so I entered the other one, only to realize once in there, that was neither a urinal nor a pot. There was a wash basin though, and I actually thought let me go ahead and brush my teeth. But then something inside me thankfully shouted out, and I came out to find a couple of glances thrown my way. I realized it was a baby loo! I hope I had come out quick enough for people to conjecture my using the wash basin! Went red-faced to another one some distance away with a man ( I double-checked) and ‘Herren’ drawn on it. So, on this flight I made good friends with one of the flight attendants. He was called Mark I guess. Nice pleasant face and cropped hair. Looked cool, and he served me couple of good drinks. Got drunk, finished Peter Colaco and then watched a little of ocean’s twelve and dozed off. Woke up and it was just few more hours to landing. Sri was engrossed in Naipaul’s India – a wounded civilization. Later he said he didn’t like the book much. The thoughts of u-know-what kept me company.

So landed at boston finally at around 1:30, and stayed in the aircraft for another hour, before the ‘U.S. Authorities cleared the plane for disembarkment’. And then the queue at the immigration/customs took another hour! And they say ‘it happens only in India’! Went to hertz to collect our pre-booked car. Now, I was all fired up about driving a car and all, but good sense prevailed and I declined Sri’s suggestion that I drive. Boston to Boxboro is just around 30-40 miles. It took us 2 and half hours to get here. How? Like true software guys, we went with yahoo maps ignoring the common sense and the actual MA map that we got from hertz. And that showed the shortest route, which was also quite cryptic. So, we got lost twice. I did look around at the houses and the old buildings in boston and neaby cities. And they seemed much more appealing than the pictures of San Jose and the bay area with huge buildings. I so can live out my retirement years here. Maybe I will, who knows. So ‘Middle road’ was what we had to take to reach holiday inn, bxb. And it was supposed to be 3.7 miles from exit 43 on RT-2 West. But after 0.9 miles we met with a T junction, guessed one way, and met one more 2 miles later. Came back, took the other one, went straight to RT-2 west again, came back again, took the same one this time, now not in search of the middle road but some gas station with a helpful soul in it. One such chinky soul of a girl offered suggestions even after confirming that she knew nuts about the area by asking ‘Boxboro? Which city?’. But another wizened old man was helpful with good directions and good jokes so we bought a couple of dollars stuff from his station, and finally reached holiday inn.

Went straight to calling bhaiya and smita. Talked for long, then thought of taking a bath before bhaiya came to pick me up. Just thought. Went for a quick drink and dinner with bhaiya and bhabhi. And then on the way back to bhaiya’s home, and then also till 4 in the morning, was talking to bhaiya and bhabhi about the current goings on.