2nd Post from Reading

It just took about 30 mins for me to get all the clearance and the luggage. Soon got the luggage, checked-in the luggage to the connecting flight. My itinerary is as followed

Trip 1) Hyderabad to Dubai. The wait time at Dubai is about 4 Hrs

Trip 2) Dubai to New York. The wait time at NY is about 6 hrs

Trip 3) New York to Philadelphia. No scheduled wait time, but ..

After checked-in the luggage to the Philly trip, realized that there is about 6 hrs of waiting time for me. The first thing that I did after this is purchased a calling card and conveyed every one that am available at NY and every thing is going as per the plan.

While calling every one from a public phone booth, all the local cab drivers surrounded me to make business out of my free-time. To my surprise, one cab driver even went to an extent of asking me to cancel the flight ticket and pay him the money, so that he can drop me at Philly. Am kept quite and listening to them to recommend me. Finally, one after the other started fighting with each as am their customer. It is just an irritating experience, just like auto drivers at Hyderabad rly station or bus station. Every one asked for about 200USD to take me around New York and bring me back.

Meanwhile, I’ve learned that there are some train services that would take me to Manhattan and other places. So, finally decided to visit New York for the time that i would be spending at Airport, instead of waiting and wasting. One of my colleague discouraged me for the thought of visiting NY. Well, I took chance to visit on my own risk.  Thus, an adventure to New York city started.

My trip to NY started from AirTrain from JFK to Manhattan. Soon am out of the local station of Manhattan. As just got out of the station, found a local city tour bus. The person who is collecting the visitors, sold the idea of having a full trip of NY for just USD44. It didn’t gave me another thought. Thus, got into the city tour bus and started exploring the city by occupying the front seat on the top of the bus. My journey in NY saw places like Empire State building, Ground Zero, New York Stock exchange, China Town, NewYork Bridge, Baltimore bridge and many more..

Finally, as am getting late for my flight at JFK, decided to stop exploring and found the way back to Subway. From there again back to JFK. By the time am back at JFK it is almost 3pm and am very late for check-in. Anyhow, found a place in the plane. Unfortunately, the flight got delayed by about 6hrs due to bad weather at Philadelphia. Finally took of from NY to Philly after a long wait sitting within the charted flight.

The cab driver at Philly left the airport thinking that the flight got cancelled and he is expecting my call from NY. After having a small talk over the phone, finally he came and took me to Reading by around 12midnight. Thus reached the hotel. More about Reading in the next post. Till then .. keep blogging and keep reading ..