San Francisco ho!

Luck, it seems likes to play snakes and ladder with me a lot. I still manage to reach the end goal by doing nothing extra-ordinary and just going with the flow, you see the only thing I hate more than people asking me to do something is situations forcing me to do something; I like to follow the laws of nature and remain in the state of rest until driven by a force greater than my weight (which is increasing by the day).

So, lets roll the dice shall we? First roll and I am already on a ladder; I am invited to attend a training in the US and that too in the beautiful state of Colorado. And as Luck would have it, got bitten by snake on the next move; there is no Visa interview dates available for next 3 months!! I am back to where it started and was just going to give up when by some lucky roll of dice landed on a ladder again; suddenly on 20th of the month previous to my scheduled departure I decided to check the visa site and to my disbelief found visa interview date available just five days before my training date, I hurriedly booked it and informed my manager that I finally can make it to the US.

It might seem like the road is all smooth from here on but no, the snakes were still not giving up. Though the visa interview went fine and I was promised that the visa will be delivered to my office address within 2 days time, this however never happened. So here I am ready to leave next day with all my packing, air tickets, hotel reservations done and yet No Visa. Some good luck was still on my side as when I called the visa services office, they told me that there was some "technical difficulties" so they could issue the visa on time but now they have issued it and I could collect it from their office next day.

The next day BTW was the day when I was supposed to leave, one roll of dice should take me to the end goal it seemed no ladder of luck required here right? Well wrong again, I collected the visa alright but there was this snake in form of FOG waiting for me at the airport. I was supposed to catch a flight from Kolkata to Delhi and then after an hour's break the flight to US, Almost all flights from Kolkata to Delhi got cancelled due to heavy fog at Delhi Airport, except IA flight which was the flight I was booked for. Phew!!, managed to dodge this snake. In your face snakiee!.

One thing I totally forgot till this time and was brutally reminded by the snake bite at the last square, ie the check in counter of IA's flight to Delhi - my ticket was booked under waiting status and was still in the same status. I tried explaining that I have a international flight to catch and a very important business trip to make :D, but all seemed to be in vain. I was just rolling my dice in hopelessness when suddenly just 10 minutes before the flight was going to leave I got on to the ladder direct to the goal and my name was announced along with two other names at the check in counter with the message that one seat is available now as one of the passengers did not show up and luckily for me the other two persons whose name were announced before me also did not show up.

From here on it was all smooth, Colorado is a beautiful state and Colorado Springs is a great place to be. The people there are very nice and friendly and the view of mountains is simply amazing. For some of the pics I took there visit this and this.

The trip above was made during Jan this year, and what reminded me of that trip is that I am going to the US again, San Francisco this time. I already have a visa that is valid for next 10 years, I am taking a flight direcly from Kolkata, via Singapore this time no chances of fog at either of these places and have checked that all the flight booking status is confirmed no waiting this time! So lets see what plans luck have got for this time!!