I moved back to Finland this week. I had been staying in a hotel in Bangalore since our belongings were moved out so I was pretty eager to leave by the time I was scheduled to go. The last day I was running some remaining errands still managed to remind me of the limitless optimism the 1+ billion people living in this incredible country exhibit in their daily lives.
Flying back was a typical Indian experience as well. I had a 2 bag allowance from Delhi to Helsinki but I could only take one bag from Bangalore to Delhi. I hoped for the best, but got the bad news upon check-in to my Kingfisher flight at 4:30 in the morning. I told them I'll pay whatever is needed, but they'll have to check-in my luggage all the way as the flight change is pretty tight. Long story short, in one hour they managed to come up with how much I have to pay but not who I should pay the amount to. Finally they told me I should pay the ground staff in Delhi. Right. With luggage checked to Helsinki, what was supposed to be my incentive to find the one in a thousand Kingfisher employee in Delhi willing to take my money?
Vijay Mallya, if you're reading I think I can see why your airline is going financially down the drain...
Unsurprisingly, there was no Kingfisher employees in Delhi airport willing to take my money so I boarded my Finnair flight with slight uneasiness about whether my bags would accompany me or not. Luckily my bags came to sunny and freezing cold Helsinki airport the same time I did. The weather turned from pretty cold to bloody freezing almost immediately so commuting with buses rather than being driven to work by my own driver has been an even bigger change than with a little less extreme temperature difference. Nevertheless, the snow blanketed landscape is beautiful and I'm so, so, so stonked to finally be back home.
