Plane Buddies

Walking through the Dulles Airport in Washington at 7:00 am, I asked myself the age-old question, "Man, what should I eat?" Except this time, I would have to live with the answer to that question for another two weeks while abroad in India. I strolled through the different airport gates imagining different restaurants being my last meal. Ideally, a cook-out tray would have been great (Yes, I'm willing to eat cook-out even at 7 am in the morning) but I settled for a good ol' bagel from Dunkin' Doughnuts and walked over the plane departure area. When I arrived to the plane area I realized that I had not accounted for one thing...this flight was going to be 12.5 hours long: I NEEDED A PLANE BUDDY! I quickly surveyed the departure seating area for someone interesting and my eyes fell upon a pretty girl taking notes in a book. Smart + pretty usually equals interesting to me so I sauntered over there. Luckily for me there was one seat empty on her left side from which I dropped the smoothest line of our teenage generation, "Do you know the Wi-fi?" She looked up from her book and said that she had no idea but wish she knew as well--Mina was an 18yr old persian with long black hair, sparkling eyes, and a sharp stereotypical middle-eastern nose. She also happened to be a powerlifter. Realizing that Mina was an ideal plane buddy and could double as a bodyguard with her powerlifting skills, I invited her to sit next to me on the long flight. With twelve hours ahead of us, we started talking about everything. We made lists about what we would miss from America, what we were looking forward to seeing in our countries, I told her about the time I rode an elephant, talked prom, college, airplane food, books, and watched loads of crappy movies together on the airplane entertainment system. Honestly, time really did fly (no pun intended :) but it works) with a good friend to share it with and before we knew it the pilot announced "WE HAVE NOW REACHED IN DUBAI!" Mina and I exchanged WhatsApp and Viber....(a couple asian communication apps) and then parted ways. I stayed in Dubai for a day then caught my next flight that night to head for India. I was sad to split paths with my plane buddy, but I knew there were many more friends to come :D All in all it was a great plane ride and I am now here in India!

-Reuben Chemmanam



P.S.   Sorry it took a couple days to start up the blog, there were some internet issues at my India house! But now everything is good and I hope you all stayed tuned for more adventures abroad!!