Chapter 01: The Trips – There and Back
I’ll put it this way: if I never again put a foot in a plane, it’ll be too soon! Well, I’m not serious, but traveling by air sure is a lot of trouble and formalisms, not to mention the trip tends to be uncomfortable! I do like, however, the taking off and landing, at least if I am close to the window.
To get to Ananda Village I’d have to take a taxi, two buses and three flights: taxi from Granby to Brommont, buses from Brommont to Montréal and from Montréal to the airport, and flights from Montréal to Calgary, from Calgary to Vancouver, and from Vancouver to Sacramento. I was supposed to arrive to Sacramento at 9:15PM, where someone (Nabha) would be waiting for me to take me to Ananda Village. Everything went nice and smooth until I arrived to Vancouver, where I had the first adventure of my odyssey…
The time between my arrival to Vancouver and my departure was about 35 minutes, which meant that when I got to the gate of my last plane, people were already boarding. I noticed that the board behind the lady who checked the tickets showed two flights going out that gate, but assumed I’d be told if I had to do something special. I gave her my ticket, she watched it and let me pass, making no remark. I went then by the only way I saw until I got into a plane… inside, I wanted to ask the guy at the door whether the plane went to Sacramento, but I only showed him my ticket instead. He nodded, and I got in. After all, I thought, I had seen neither other plane nor gate around, this must be the right flight!
Well, after a while it became evident that something was missing, because airport staff men were coming and going, repositioning people. I wondered what was up but I didn’t suspect it involved me in any way. Finally, one of the staff asks to the passengers to listen to him for a bit, and goes: “We’re gonna be leaving in a couple of minutes. However, before that, I have an announcement to make; I know no one here goes to Sacramento, but they told me to say it anyway, so here it goes: this plane does not go to Sacramento, it goes to Seattle. Sacramento is very nice, too, but if that is your destination, you got the wrong plane, thank you.”
Oooops! I got up at once and walked up to the man. He was surprised to find me here: apparently the airport staff had been looking for me because I was missing in the other plane! (I wonder why they didn’t think to look in the other plane which went by the same gate). In any case, they brought me to the same lady who had let me pass without giving me any direction (I wasn’t told at all that there were two planes going out that door at the same time, and even though I suspected it, I went by the only way I saw), who informed me they had been looking for me everywhere.
She also informed me that my plane had already departed.
This was a bucket of cold water. I felt bad for the lady: I wasn’t angry, but I was acting serious and hard, which put the lady into a really apologetic position; anyway, I had to act energetically, because Nabha would be waiting for me at the Sacramento airport at 9:15PM, and who knows where I would be by then!
Apparently, there had been an error in the airline: two planes going out the same gate at the same time was not supposed to happen, and they should have told me so and where to go. It was also my fault, too, for realizing something fishy was going on, but not wanting to make sure everything’s fine.
The lady informed me that I had two options: either take a plane to San Francisco that left in about forty minutes, or wait until the next day and land on Sacramento at 1PM with the next flight. My immediate concern, however, was to inform Nabha that I wouldn’t be appearing, so I asked the lady to call him. She tried one time, no one answered; I insisted she called again: same result. I asked her then to wait fifteen minutes or so, and only if he didn’t respond that time, I’d make my decision on which plane to take.
I prayed to Yogananda during the waiting, and asked him to let me communicate with Nabha and guide me in what to do. After five minutes or so (the lady had a hard time waiting), she telephoned to the airport in Sacramento and asked them to call for Nabha by the speakers, and also to try calling him to his cell phone. While we waited, the lady told some other man of the airport staff to put my baggage “on wait” so it could get in the same plane as me (for some reason, it didn’t get in the Sacramento plane, either).
After a few minutes, success! The Sacramento airport had been able to contact Nabha, who told them to tell me to take the plane to San Francisco. Grateful (to him for being disposed to add four hours to his car trip for someone he didn’t know, to Yoganandaji for heeding and responding to my prayer, and also to the lady for really caring about getting this issue solved), I embarked into the San Francisco flight.
I arrived there at 10:00PM or so. After getting out of the private part, I bought a phone card (there went my first $20) to call Nabha and tell him I had arrived and where I was; he told me he was still trying to get to the airport, but he would be there soon. The airport was unfamiliar to him, though, and since he couldn’t contact me if he wanted information, I kept calling him to give/receive reports; finally, at about 11:30PM, we met.
I was already really tired: I had gotten up at 5:30AM of the east coast, and 11:30PM of California were, for me, 2:30AM. The car trip was long: we arrived to Ananda Village at 3:30AM, four hours later. By then, not even conversation with Nabha, nor listening to him sing (he sings well!), could keep me awake any longer, and, luckily, I didn’t have to! As soon as we arrived, he left me in Serenity House, showed me my room, gave me my key and I went to bed, falling asleep at once.
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The way back was, fortunately, much more uneventful. This time everything went fine, except I couldn’t sleep at all in the plane (I traveled during the night); so, I slept through most of the Sunday. Nabha took me to the airport (by this time, we were already good friends) and gave me a parting gift. The only remarkable thing that happened during this trip was that I lost all of my boarding passes in the Los Angeles airport! I was saved by someone who found them and turned them in, after which I was called by the loudspeaker. The only words I could understand were my last name and “boarding pass,” so I thought they were asking me to present myself with my boarding pass! That made me fret, because then I realized I didn’t have it. It was only when I stopped looking for it and decided to go and tell them I lost it, that I was at ease again.
My inability to sleep during the night at the plane made the rest of the trip a sort of hell, but that’s a normal thing with flights, I assume. I made up for it at home, as I said, sleeping through most of Sunday!
Nabha and I. My lips were hurt because of the dry climate, so they look bigger and/or dirty.
Next: Chapter 02: The Baggage
