04/23 -- 9.00 pm EST


Sitting at the Dulles airport, waiting for the second leg of my flight to kick off... 


The luggage checkin at RDU was surprisingly good... You go to the airport and weigh your baggage and both the bags weigh 49.5 pounds each... How often does this happen? Isnt it wonderful... But do you know what is better? Well it happened to me!!! 


Inspite of weighing my bags again and again during packing, my bags weighed 53 and 53.5 on the airline scale... With the stringent guidelines that the airlines follow nowadays, I would have ended up paying $50 each for each overweight bag... So, reluctantly, I opened both the bags to see where I could "lose" some weight... This whole act of opening the bags in front of everyone to remove some excess baggage is more embarassing than disappointing... It is a testament of carelessness and lack of planning... For someone like me, who loves to plan his stuff well ahead of time, this is akin to getting slapped in public... 


So, while I was being slapped in public, I removed 1 giant shampoo bottle from each bag and now the bags weighed 51 and 50.5... Anxiously, I placed them for checkin and was hoping that I would not be charged for the excess baggage... The lady there did not charge me... So, with a sheepish grin, I asked her if I can add both the shampoo bottles to my bags... The weight jumped to the original 53 and 53.5... Looking at her grim reaction, I said -- "Nevermind, I'll take it off"... Her answer was, "Dont worry abt it... You need shampoo to clean your hair"... She let me take additional weight, without any charge... 


Isnt it better than the 49.5 thing mentioned above... This act of her was really sweet... Nothing can make an Indian happier than the word -- FREE... 


After the checkin, came the most difficult moment... The moment of separation was hard but very quick... S and I were chatting when a friend called to invite S for dinner along with them... They were planning to go to a new concept called Dosa Truck -- a moving van which serves fresh Dosa and Samosa... S jumped on the opportunity to make me jealous and took off after a long hug and a few tears... 


Do you know the most expensive part of virtual real estate? Leg room in an airline... United Airlines is selling extra 5 inches of legroom for $149... So, the rental of 5*12 inches for 14 hours is $149. This comes out to be $600 per sqft per day... Isnt it amazing... Naturally, I declined it... 


The best part of travelling alone is that you are really alone... You can sleep when you want, read when you want, eat when you want and no one cares... There might be some smiles shared with fellow passengers, but nothing more... This is a loner's dream... Give me my laptop, an internet connection and a power outlet and I am in heaven... 


Sadly, I do not have a wi-fi connection, so I have a offline heaven... But a game of chess can make it good enough... So, my almost-heavenly journey continues in a few minutes on the next leg of my flight -- Dulles--> Dubai... 14 hours.... Until I grab my laptop again for the next chapter of this blog...