It seems like a holiday in
US is a dream vacation for a lot of people. Although it was not a dream vacation for me
but I use to always tease Aakaash that I have been to one more continent than
him which was of course North America.
Now I know what people have to go through to get into one of the most
powerful nations in the world. It is like conquering a war.
To begin with, the process
starts of by applying for visa…... the length of the form is like writing a
thesis and after submitting the form, to get a date for the interview – well
there was 3 months waiting period. Finally when the day arrived of the
interview I was nervous coz I had heard so many stories of the visa being
declined without a reason. To make matters worse we saw a few people who were
right in front of us get their Visa rejected within a matter of seconds. As we
have been to a lot of countries so logically it shouldn't have been a problem
still the worry about the Visa getting rejected for some frivolous reason
weighed on my mind and the fact that a good amount of money would go waste was
not a very comforting thought. I knew we were next and right at that moment
nature decided to play Knock Knock with Aananya. Aakaash took her to the
bathroom while I stared at the closed bathroom door willing it to open as
quickly as possible; lo behold I was called. I started with the interview and
finally after a while Aakaash also joined me. Everything went off well and
within 3 days our 10 year multi entry visa was in our hands.
I personally feel that if
you are planning a trip to USA, you should never plan a trip for anything less
than 2 weeks. So we planned a trip for 21 days. This was for the first time
that Aakaash was going to take such a long holiday; even for our honeymoon he
hadn’t taken a holiday this long. Well with lots of persuasion, perseverance,
fights, arguments etc. he agreed and I started working on the finer details of our holiday.
When I plan our holidays, I
like to plan it perfectly and meticulously, nothing left to chance. The budget
factor was also to be taken into account very seriously. I started planning
with 5 and when it increased to 10, I promised Aakaash that we will not go for
any holidays for a whole year and I kept my promise. However by the time we
finished our trip and came back we had exceeded 15 for sure.
Discouraged by a lot of people
we were told not to do east coast and west coast at one go. However we/I felt
differently. I was not sure that we could cough up a huge amount so often and
take so many holidays. Now that Aakaash’s leave was approved, we just decided
to go ahead and do it all. We knew it would be hectic and tiring but what the
heck. Sometimes it’s worth it.
So we booked our ticket
almost a month before from Lagos to New York and back. Now the internal flights
were to be done, so after deciding how much time to be spent where, I came up
with tentative dates and the cheapest flight options, however later we had to
rethink about the flights leaving the best deals and taking into account the
time factor and convenience coz of the kids. I have to admit a lot of planning
went in to execute this trip.
15 days prior to our trip we
sat down to book our internal flight tickets. For some airlines we got to know
that they accept credit cards only from US and not from any other country. This
slowed down our booking process. One desperate call to Aakaash’s friend in US,
Sundeep Dhaliwal, turned things around – he was extremely helpful and shared
his Credit Card details and we proceeded with confirming our bookings.
So till now I was on my A
game- month before international flight tickets done, 15 days before internal
flight tickets done, 7 days before hotel bookings almost finalized. Just then
we realized that there was some glitch happening in the west coast sector
especially when we were trying to figure out our trip to Niagara Falls. When
you Google Niagara Falls you would get that it is in NY. So we thought that we
can cover that in a day since we were landing in New York City. Being our first
time in NYC we didn't realize that Niagara Falls is located in the State of New
York and is nowhere close to New York City. I can’t even begin to describe the
last minute panic that I was struck with. However the years old adage came out
to be true in this case – Whatever happens, happens for the best. While trying
to figure how to get there with the cheapest and best way possible, considering
the time constraint because we had already booked our internal flights, Aakaash
stumbled upon a Bus tour company which was working out perfectly for us. We
were able to cover so many more places because of it and it was a superb, comfortable
and economical as well. We had to make a few changes but it turned out to be
the best decision for us. After finalizing with the tour company, we finalized
our hotels and booked our car for Florida. Now we were completely set and were
just counting days to board our flight.
Well as I have mentioned in
my previous blogs, nothing comes easy to me. There is always a twist or a tale
somewhere in our trips. So all excited, bags packed, kids in place, all
bookings done, printouts neatly kept, empty suitcases packed (lol for shopping
of course; what do you expect), reached airport on time, it was a direct
flight. I despise hopping flights and in 11 hours and 20 mins we would have
been in U S of A.
So we were waiting in our
lounge when we were told that our flight had been delayed indefinitely. That
was of course the first blow. We waited for hours and the kids got impatient by
the minute. Hours passed by and before we knew it the flight got delayed by 11
hours. Meanwhile, Aananya had managed to break the foot rest of her stroller so
we tied her bib and made a make shift foot-board which was actually no good.
Hence it was decided that we would have to go there and first thing buy a
stroller coz it was not possible to carry a 3 year old everywhere.
While we were boarding,
there was a cheer and relieve in the air. After exhausting 24 hours including
reaching airport 3 hours before the time of the flight, delay, the check-in etc.,
we finally touched down at the JFK Airport. We were in a hurry to leave the
airport and carry on with our plan since we had already lost out on 11 hours.
But wait… could we leave that easy… Not just yet… Our bags were out thanks to
the priority tags but we were waiting for the stroller. Waiting … waiting…
waiting…. Wait a minute, the whole airport was almost empty and we were still
waiting. Finally we had to go and ask for assistance since the special baggage
belt was now empty and our stroller was still nowhere to be seen.
We finally got to know that
our stroller had been lost in the transit – we had an option to either waste
our next day to come back for it or the Airline was willing to replace it with
an old stroller which was unclaimed. I was eyeing a beautiful princess stroller
abandoned on the airport. The person in charge came to me and said “Let me see
if I can find a more appropriate stroller”. I immediately asked him with a
little hesitation about the abandoned princess stroller. He said, “Oh I thought
you have a boy, if you want to take it, go ahead”. Aananya had really small
hair then and was fully packed from head to toe with winter clothing to face
the cold weather of New York, hence the confusion. I grabbed the almost new
princess stroller with the price tag still on it and strolled out of the
airport happily. Although we had spent more than an hour in the airport with
the outcome that we had I didn't mind it at the end of it. Finally we stepped
out of the Airport –exhausted and happy as we had finally got victory in a
long unending combat. The fresh cold breeze of New York finally welcomed us.
Early in the morning we headed to the Niagara Falls. I guess
no words can truly do justice to the scenic beauty of the magnificent
waterfall. The sheer size and sound of the waterfall is amazing.The rainbow across the waterfall just added more beauty to our pictures.The
word Niagara originates from the Indian word “Ongniaahra" meaning
"Thunder of Waters". Unfortunately the Maid of Mist was not
operational during that time so after clicking pictures from different view
point we saw a documentary on Niagara and then left for the Corning Glass
factory.
Although we had seen Morano Borano glass factory in Italy, it
was nice to see the demonstration again especially for the kids. You can also
make your own glass in a 40 min class however we couldn't do that due to time
constraint. The museum has a beautiful modern as well as ancient display of art
collection. After travelling the whole day we took refuge in Gaithersburg,
Maryland where we rested for the night. This was the end of day 2 tour.
