Adventures Galore …

My adventures for the day did not end with the take-off of the flight – which was uneventful however. On landing into Leon, as I handed over my passport to the officials – he gave me a suspicious look. I had known that there’d be trouble ever since they announced that they were diverting the flight to Leon, being well aware that Leon was in France and I did not have a Schengen Visa. But I had decided to play it – after all it was the air company’s headache, not mine – they were diverting the flight and planning to ply us by road to Geneva.

So, this official curiously scrutinized my passport and then a list – which I suppose would be the list of countries whose nationals were allowed entry into France without a Visa. Had he known English, I would have spared him all the hard work by telling him that he will not find India in it; I had read about all these trespassing privileges just the day before (and out of curiosity looked for India as well in those lists of ‘allowed nationals’) while researching on the Schengen. But he wasn’t lucky enough – he was a true blue French – No Englis – he said.
So a couple of phone calls later – he took me to the Easy Jet officer and explained the situation. She told me that he was asking me to be deported to Geneva; but since anyway all passengers would be going to Geneva by Taxi – the situation was dissolved. However, technically I was being deported! That felt exciting – interesting things like being deported don’t happen to uninteresting people like consultants.

After reaching Geneva airport, it wasn’t easy to figure out (completely based on sign language as no one seems to speak English here) where the railway station was. The problem with European countries is that there are so few people that there’s no one to get directions from at this unearthly hour. In India if ever stranded like this, one always finds not one but a couple of people to at least misguide if not guide you! However, the discovery of the railway station turned out to be a non-starter as the trains start only at 5.40 and it was still 3.30 then. Fortunately my cell is working on roaming; each call does cost me a fortune, but it’s a bare minimum one needs in such times. So, here I am at the Geneva airport, waiting for Hemant to pick me up while I write this text to be posted on my blog ASAP!

In conclusion, the Europe trip (which I have decided to kick off with Switzerland) has started like a real adventure so to say – finally I feel like having come out of India – London felt just like back home – with so many Indians around and everyone speaking the language you know. On a sarcastic note – Europe could not have given me a worse welcome! India rocks!

Postscript: As I sit right in front of the gate of the Geneva airport terminal and see early morning visitors coming, there are two chains of thoughts in my mind. First, the background score of the Tom Hanks movie ‘The Terminal’; and second – Switzerland is a country of pretty females.

My adventures with European airlines continued even after I returned to India. Read about that here: https://www.nikhilkulkarni.in/2006/12/ordeal-on-european-skies.html