Going to California - II

Part I here.

Security wasn't a problem, those were the days when you could board a flight with bottles emanating a soft blue glow. The first flight went off without hitch, apart from the minor confusion due to my neighbor strapping part of my seatbelt for some reason. I reached Bangkok at 3 AM or some such unearthly hour by my body clock. I was greeted by this extremely pretty girl at the checkin counter whose expression got more incredulous by the minute. Of course, her looks had nothing to do with the fact that I opened my cabin baggage so awkwardly everyone closeby knew what underwear I was planning to wear in the near future and that I secretly read picture books. With pop-ups. More confusion, and I was asked to present "that paper". I had my passport, I-20, all kinds of certificates, immunization records, but no govt. official or doctor had issued a "that paper" in triplicate. Soon the matter was escalated to an equally confused sleepy dude, who called his boss, finally going all the way up to the "chief security officer". WTF is up with international airports and bad english? The security officer explained, in midst of bouts of some Asian language, that all Indian students carried their papers in a "brown envolope" issued by the US consulate and I'd used some other file. Egad. After apologizing to her for using aesthetic filing supplies and convincing her that my entry into the US had nothing to do with the said choice, I was allowed to board.

Japan was uneventful since I spoke with no one. Good luck finding english speakers there. Thereafter I realized there was a meal mix-up and briefly contemplated eating that suspicious looking dead bird. Thankfully, the air hostess felt guilty and gave me unlimited beer for the flight. 8 hours of beer and lettuce. Not a bad flight after all. For some reason, the passenger next to me kept changing since it was a family determined to cycle time together on-board. Which meant that each time woke up for a fresh beer a different Japanese face peered at me. I lost track after the 6th can.

LA was uneventful (I see black people! I see morbidly obese people!!), and Denver was, well, mid-western. I was subjected to random pat-down searches in both the American airports, and my color had obviously nothing to do with it.

I thought an international flight couldn't have been worse. I was wrong. Next time, I flew through Paris.