Goodbye North America! We Had a Truly Brilliant Time!

Monday, September 16, 2024

New Jersey-New York-London-Bombay

Goodbye North America! We Had a Truly Brilliant Time!

We awoke for the last time in the USA, on this trip, at 2.00 am. Although we had said goodbye and thank-you to our hosts, the Masuds, both Imran and Ghazala had set their alarms too and were awake when we were leaving their home, to see us off safely. We dressed super quickly and, on schedule, at 2.30 am, we drove out into the pitch-darkness of the night with Llew at the wheel.

Arrival at JFK Airport and a Disaster:

We didn’t really have much difficulty getting to JFK airport as we used our GPS and there was very light traffic on the highways—although a large number of trucks. I guess at that hour of the night, it is mainly truckers who use the highways. We did have a near-disaster, however, just after we arrived at our Terminal for our British Airways flight back to Bombay (via London). Our flight was departing at 8.00 am and so we scheduled our arrival at the check-in counter for 5.00 am (3 hours before a departing international flight). Our plan was to drive our rented car to the terminal, unload our baggage, I would stay with all of it while Llew drove to the Budget Car Rental place at Federal Circle to return the car. He would then take the Air Train and come back to the terminal at which point, we would both check-in together.

Well, when we arrived at the Terminal, we unloaded our baggage together and he went to the end of the terminal to pick up two Smart Carts to allow us to take our baggage into the Terminal. I stepped out of our rented car and was standing right beside it on the pavement alongside our baggage. In just a few minutes, Llew returned bringing both Smart Carts back with him. My back was turned and I did not realize that a tow truck had arrived and, almost within seconds, had just about hooked our rented car to its rear in order to tow it away. It was only Llew’s presence of mind that enabled him to spot what had happened. He then spent the next twenty minutes arguing with the driver that we had not left our car “unattended”—that his wife (I) was standing right beside it as we had only just unloaded our baggage from the car. We explained that it was a rented car and that as soon as the baggage was loaded on to the Smart Carts, he would be leaving me inside the Terminal while he drove the car to the Rental office to return it.

Meanwhile, as this nightmare was unfolding outside, I was storming heaven hoping our car would not be towed away. Imagine the sort of catastrophe we’d have been in if our car had been towed away! I do not even want to imagine what the repercussions would have been. Just as I was praying, I noticed that the tow truck drove away and I saw Llew get into our car and drive off to the rental place. It took him a good half hour to return to where I was standing—so that instead of reaching the check-in counter (as we had expected) at 5.00 am, it was almost 6.00 am by the time we were ready to deposit our baggage, get our boarding passes and breathe easy. Later, Llew told me that he paid the driver $50 which, no doubt, went straight into his pocket, as there was no receipt given and the driver had informed him that $50 was the charge he’d have had to pay to release the car from the towing company (had it been towed away).

So, our final departure from the USA was far from pleasant. It was only once we had the boarding passes in our hands and were making our way towards the gate, past all the duty free shops, that the chill in my stomach abated and I felt the lump of anxiety ease.

With just two hours ahead of us to clear Security and Immigration, we did not have much time to do any fun stuff such as duty free shopping or anything. We just got straight to our gate and sat down, calmly, to await the boarding announcement. And so we said goodbye to the USA as we were airborne into a still-dark sky at 6.00 am en route to London.

Two Comfortable Flights--To London and Then to Bombay:

As it was daylight, it was not long before breakfast (an FEB—Full English Breakfast) was served on our flight. We were both starving by them and did it justice. Both of us tried to get a bit of a nap and I think we did. When we awoke, I watched a full movie (‘A Quiet Place’ with John Krazinsky and Emily Blunt) by the time we were ready to land at Heathrow Airport in London. It was 7.45 pm London time when we touched down. We had less than a two hour layover in London on this flight pattern (as opposed to the seven hour layover we’d had on our way in). This left us with just a little time to buy a couple of duty free items at Boots (Rimmel lipstick) and at W.H. Smith (souvenir tins of British biscuits) before we had to race off to our gate for our connecting flight to Bombay.

This flight departed on schedule at 9.15 pm. There was nothing much to see outside our window and so we were off. Drinks and dinner were served and we were quite happy to bed down for the night after what had been a really hectic six weeks. Yes, there was a Harvest Moon in the sky outside and it followed us throughout our flight all the way across Europe. I watched two more films: ‘The Lesson’ with Richard E. Grant, and was almost done with ‘Freud’s Last Session’ with Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode, by which time our landing announcement was being made. We were served a light breakfast/snack before we landed.

We realized, as we touched down, that it was already Tuesday, September 17, 2024, in Bombay. We had been airborne for more than 24 hours and were really happy to be back on Indian terra firma again.

Until tomorrow…cheerio.