Missing a flight and that too an International one is the worst thing that can happen to any one. I realized it the hard way when I missed my 10:05 a.m flight just because I reached the check out counter 5 minutes late. Then I had to rebook my flight for the evening which came at an expensive price tag of 222 pounds or the Indian rupee equivalent of 18,200 bucks.

Of course the mistake was completely mine as I miscalculated the distance to the Heathrow airport. Here I need to specially thank the pakistani cab driver Zafar who shaved off about approximately an hour of commuting. The only problem was the traffic hold-ups in between. However in the end it all counted for nothing. Imagine waiting for the whole day in the airport as you're next flight is only at @ 21:05 hours. The only relief was I had some good co-passengers for company.

The security @ the Heathrow airport was so stringent that even water kept in the bottle was disallowed. One has to empty the contents of the bottle. I walked in through the metal detector and it triggered an alarm. This made the plain clothes officer suspicious and he told me to unbuckle my belt. He put his hands around my waist and checked me thoroughly from head to toe probably looking for some concealed explosives :)

Also we had to take our shoes for being x-rayed. I guess it's the John Reid effect. That's the man who wanted to trigger an explosion aboard the plane with explosives planted in his shoes.

Now I am back home atlast and looking forward to the long weekend before the hard grind ahead...yeah I am talking about getting back to work from Monday :)