Travelling Plans & Narations ….

Damn … i’m again en-route to US. Somehow i wasn’t able to get a ticket from Lahore to Washington or NY …weired ; seems like summer holidays are making too many people flee from Posh Areas.

OK so here’s the story – I’m currently writing these words from Doha (well i planned that i have some time to kill before my flight and so i’ll update this blog)

i left from yesterday around 7 PM – reached Airport around 7:45 PM; flight to Karachi was scheduled at 9:30; After the Flight Drama (which i’ll tell below) – we took off around 10:45 and reached Karachi around 12 AM.  Again as usual (as discussed with Danish couple of hours ago) that Pakistani Airline flights are good for getting Gunah maaf; and it went exactly like that Bad Weather – some poor attitude people and the media fiasco ended up in my worst ever faced turbulance. It was quite quite horrible and plan was shaking like peas in a pot.

ok long story short – plan was stopped by CAA due to poor weather while we all were seated but after 1 hour – a guy (uncle actually) got angrey and started shouting to make the plan run and flight reached geo/ajj etc.. ect.. after couple of minutes CAA allowed for takeoff but when it reached up the guy who was shouting to bring it up was holding his seat together and he was cursed by everyone in plane that he is a stupid jerk ! going to get us all killed

At karachi, i just gave my self some internet shock – worked on hacked insecure internet and took a flight around 6 AM to reach here around 8:30 AM PKST ….

would be leaving around 12 PM PKST towards Washington ; i guess i won’t be able to write off from DC as i have to catch a flight to Philadelphia and i’m gonna be dead tired till that – not sure if anyone else but i’m kind of a guy who doesn’t get much sleep while traveling.

will update later hopefully….some pictures are already uploaded on facebook , i’ll send more soon.

adios

- shakeel

Pittsburgh & my new apartment

 

So here i am sitting at my apartment typing these lines

Pittsburgh is a nice place, peaceful, friendly people (with a warning from some Afro-Americans ) , its a hilly area, many ups and down – downtown of Pittsburgh have a beautifull skyline – I’ve tried to cook myself few things i know like egg, Potato Cutlus – got stuck with the Cutlus and had to call Abeer and home to get them fixed and finally they can be called a curry of Mashed potatos

Today, its been raining all day long, weather gets cold at night and its been the same all day
long – Day starts at around 6 AM and Maghrib is around 9 PM , i would be fasting in Ramadan in Pitts and i wonder how will i manage this larger fasting – i guess i should prepare for it from now

Mera Safarnama Part II: USA

So I left from Lahore on 11th for USA with short stays in Abu-Dhabi and London..

Abu-Dhabi was a nice but dirty place, nice as a metro city dirty as being an Islamic state, i still feel PK is much much better than many arabic states, Alcohol was openly being used, dance parties, party girls etc.. was amazed to see this happening .. After a hectic flight reached London where temperature was shockingly 16c and i forgot to bring any of my upper etc… tried to keep it warm by rubbing my arms , then took a long long flight to Washington and entered the USA by *not as bad as known* immigration & security process. I had a muscle pull in my neck which lasted for next 6 days and i was shockingly screaming at night due to pain. Finally one of my US friend brought me some good medicine and feeling much better now..

My Advice: never never in your life try to travel on long flights without neck pillow..

About Security process: It was all the same every where and for every one – had to remove shoes etc.. almost at every airport of the world and it was for all, no shame in that – only thing is pinching me till now is the security process at UK – heathrow. Those guys are realy pathetic and the process in which you are separated into another line after being known as a Pakistani, believe me you are escorted to another section, process where they try to fully prove you are a terrorist – it was the worst & disgraceful part of my whole travel life, even in USA, they don’t do this, you are gracefully asked to register yourself with INS. So what i feel is UK still feels like they were the emperor of the world, just as bad as terrorism itself.

Next time i would try to travel via France instead of UK – we need to avoid the bastards as much as we can.

Mera Safarnama: Bahrain, Kuwait

ah, so i got enough of the time space to get back on  blog. i would start with few of the recent places i’ve been through – new places, new expereince

i was enjoying a slightly better (as compared to Lahore) weather on Sunday in Islamabad with my cute little bhanja & family when i got a call from tawasul to get back to Lahore and i was supposed to fly monday morning … so packed up my stuff & Arsal and finaly managed to get a Daewoo back to home around mid night. Reached at Airport around 6 AM and took the Gulf Air flight to Bahrain & then to Kuwait.

Bahrain Airport: it was a nice airport and quite big Air operations were going on – as being the home base for Gulf Air; most of the Gulf flights were transiting from this small country.

First thing i wonder was the way these people were running the operations and its comparison to our PIA which absolutely doesn’t makes any sense. Even though Karachi is on a prime location for being a transit airport but who cares; all our Govt. cares about is its existence in govt. & its employee cares about the ways they can earn kickbacks and enjoy their lives.

Kuwait: Its quite a dry & hot country – i earned a gift headache being abrubtly in cold & hot enviornment which was there untill i came back to Lahore. How is it being like in Hot ? don’t ask don’t tell – our summer in PK is lot lot better than what it was in Kuwait – it was like there are few days in winter when the cold wave hits your bones, same goes for  the heat up there, it hits your inside and dries you out of water in few moments; and the heat wave goes over midnight; so there’s no time when you are feel its better.

First Warnning: Please please always keep water bottel whenever you go outside on foot or something…

My experience of Kuwait’s Infrastructure, roads, schools, police system every thing was shockingly pleasent -Taxi services was quite good, motoways/free ways were every where -downtown skyline was cool like as some euorpean country and last but not least, there were too many foreigners working and living in their own style in the country. No factors of racism or exterimism was there. And more over, every one was following the rules and traffic laws which ashamed me a bit too as being a Pakistani and a bit more when my indian driver asked me about Lal Masjid and Mullahs

So i enjoyed my stay for 2 nights and left for back for Lahore and after 2 days landed in Lahore around 8 AM and finally back to home around 10 AM; fortunate enough to take some rest and take my flights to USA next day….

Overall it was a nice but hectic trip, liked the indian cousine and the hotel i was staying with, quite much flight delays, sitting on the floor of waiting loundges at Airport, some stealing of Internet, some high bills of Roaming charges but not bad at the end of the day.

Destination – United States of America

Longitute: 38° 51′ N

Lattitude: 77° 2′ W

So finally i am packing up, State dept. was so kind to issue my my visa in just 15 days. ***************************************************************************

enough of jokes history, so i would be moving on to the US office, plan is to visit Washington DC office, then to Pennsylvania, to Pittsburgh. My major stay would be at Pittsburgh due to the fact i would be leading a data center movement within the city of Aliquippa.

 This time my stay would be around 2/3 months, my plans are to visit PK back before choti Eid & go to US permanently after badhi Eid. Its a big move and finally i got approval from my family Wish me all the luck folks, i gotta take the flight in next 15 days

Destination – Kuwait

Latitude: 29.230278 ( North 29° 13′ 49″ )
Longitude: 47.975277 ( East 47° 58′ 30″ )

so after a long hectic travelling to KHI/LHE & ISB, finally i am on my way to Kuwait city…would be my first visit to Gulf & Kuwait – lets hope for best and a peacefull journey – i’ll update blog once i come back from the tour.

… CHAO