My travels....continued...
So,where was I at the end of my last post? Lemme check...
Ok, I was just starting to tell you about my trips to various places.
Hmmm...where to start? There is so much to tell, so many trips to choose from, so many minor details.
Perhaps I had better start with the trips freshest in my mind, i.e., the trips I made since I came to the US.
In fact,now that I think of it, my trip to Austin was pretty interesting...so lots to talk about. :)
Well,it all starts with me scouring the internet for the cheapest possible tickets to Austin from Detroit, in my usual miserly way. Much to my chagrin, I soon find that tickets from Detroit are particularly expensive. And I get really indignant when I find that tickets from Chicago to Austin are $100 cheaper than tickets from Detroit to Austin. And Chicago being my next-door neighbor! How dare these airline people try to con me like this?? The audacity!
And then, a brilliant idea occurs to me(as usual). I decide that I will not succumb to the pressure of this capitalist economy and will try to find a way out of this.
I calculate that a train ticket from Ann Arbor to Chicago will cost me $26 each way. Also, a taxi to the Detroit airport costs me $20 each way. So,if I go through Detroit, I will spend $300+$40=$340. If I go through Chicago, I will spend $200+$52=$252. So, I can save a cool 88 bucks if I am willing to go through Chicago. I congratulate myself on the brilliance of my plan and feel delighted that I have outsmarted these greedy,money-sucking airline people.
All well and good till now.
But, as you have no doubt guessed, things went wrong. I was soon to find out that there is a big difference between planning a trip in theory and actually executing it. :(
My flight from Chicago was at 8 PM. There are two possible trains I could take from Ann Arbor to Chicago. One left at 8 in the morning and reached at 12:30. The other left at 12 and reached at 4:30. Now,anyone who knows me knows that the 8 o'clock one was out of the question. If I wake up at that time, it spoils my entire day(Hello! Are any of my Prof.s listening? If you want me to be at my brilliant self, I suggest that you do not keep classes before 11 in the morning..)
So, I decided to take the 12:00 train. Since it only took 20 mins. to get from the train station to the airport, I had left myself with a cool margin of 3 hours. And having full confidence in the efficiency of the much vaunted US transport system, I was actually looking forward to spending an hour roaming the streets of Chicago.
How wrong I was. When the train finally rolled into the Chicago Amtrak station(on a side note-it's a beautiful and amazing station and has a long role in the climax of the movie Untouchables), it was 7:30 PM.
Well,folks, sorry to interrupt the story at this cliff-hanger, but me off to sleep. Come back for more breath-taking tomorrow.
Goodnite, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whatever, depening on the place you are.
Or maybe, just bye.
Bye.
So,where was I at the end of my last post? Lemme check...
Ok, I was just starting to tell you about my trips to various places.
Hmmm...where to start? There is so much to tell, so many trips to choose from, so many minor details.
Perhaps I had better start with the trips freshest in my mind, i.e., the trips I made since I came to the US.
In fact,now that I think of it, my trip to Austin was pretty interesting...so lots to talk about. :)
Well,it all starts with me scouring the internet for the cheapest possible tickets to Austin from Detroit, in my usual miserly way. Much to my chagrin, I soon find that tickets from Detroit are particularly expensive. And I get really indignant when I find that tickets from Chicago to Austin are $100 cheaper than tickets from Detroit to Austin. And Chicago being my next-door neighbor! How dare these airline people try to con me like this?? The audacity!
And then, a brilliant idea occurs to me(as usual). I decide that I will not succumb to the pressure of this capitalist economy and will try to find a way out of this.
I calculate that a train ticket from Ann Arbor to Chicago will cost me $26 each way. Also, a taxi to the Detroit airport costs me $20 each way. So,if I go through Detroit, I will spend $300+$40=$340. If I go through Chicago, I will spend $200+$52=$252. So, I can save a cool 88 bucks if I am willing to go through Chicago. I congratulate myself on the brilliance of my plan and feel delighted that I have outsmarted these greedy,money-sucking airline people.
All well and good till now.
But, as you have no doubt guessed, things went wrong. I was soon to find out that there is a big difference between planning a trip in theory and actually executing it. :(
My flight from Chicago was at 8 PM. There are two possible trains I could take from Ann Arbor to Chicago. One left at 8 in the morning and reached at 12:30. The other left at 12 and reached at 4:30. Now,anyone who knows me knows that the 8 o'clock one was out of the question. If I wake up at that time, it spoils my entire day(Hello! Are any of my Prof.s listening? If you want me to be at my brilliant self, I suggest that you do not keep classes before 11 in the morning..)
So, I decided to take the 12:00 train. Since it only took 20 mins. to get from the train station to the airport, I had left myself with a cool margin of 3 hours. And having full confidence in the efficiency of the much vaunted US transport system, I was actually looking forward to spending an hour roaming the streets of Chicago.
How wrong I was. When the train finally rolled into the Chicago Amtrak station(on a side note-it's a beautiful and amazing station and has a long role in the climax of the movie Untouchables), it was 7:30 PM.
Well,folks, sorry to interrupt the story at this cliff-hanger, but me off to sleep. Come back for more breath-taking tomorrow.
Goodnite, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whatever, depening on the place you are.
Or maybe, just bye.
Bye.
posted by Akshat Jain at 10:38 PM
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