My embarrassing travel story

Hi Reader!

Can you believe it's November already? It's starting to get chilly here in the San Francisco suburbs!

A workshop prompt recently led me to think about an embarrassing travel story, and I wanted to share mine with you!

If you have read my About Me page on my blog, you might know that I grew up in India, and my parents were not the traveling kind nor they had the extra money for it.

I had never sat on an airplane for the first 21 years of my life. Flights were a luxury in India 25 years ago, and trains were the primary mode of transport in the country. India has a very extensive train system if you are wondering! The trains are not fancy, but they will get you to whatever city, town, or village you want.

My very first flight was through my IT job for a consulting project. It was an international flight from Mumbai, India, to New York. I had never even been on a domestic flight before, and the 21-year-old me was very nervous.

At the terminal, clutching my passport and ticket folder in my hand, I stepped into a phone booth (this was the year 2000, and cell phones were a rare luxury) to call my mom that I had reached the airport and had checked in.

I stepped out, and there was a line of people waiting for their turn at the booth. I started walking towards my gate. I heard someone running behind me, and I turned around to see this guy holding my passport and ticket folder.

Apparently, I had set my folder in the booth to make the call and forgot it there! The guy who went inside after saw it and came running to return it to me.

I thanked him profusely for his kind gesture. I was so embarrassed and horrified. What if the kind person had not come to return it? I would have missed my very first flight and, even worse, lost my passport! At that moment, I felt I would not survive in a foreign country by myself, let alone for a three-month-long assignment.

Anyway, all was well, and I had a great time in Connecticut during that short stay. I had some great roommates from work, and we explored New York (which was just an hour away) every chance we got.