A vacation gone wrong

VegaJethani                                                                                                                             Mr. Snyder
Language Arts, Period 3
5 November 2014

A Vacation Gone Wrong!

             A memorable vacation I went to was to my trip to India, but not for all the good reasons. My "amazing" vacation started off a day earlier, Friday, the day before our flight was departing. At my elementary school, Faria, they ask you to complete a stack of work if you miss two consecutive weeks of school.Also, if you do not return the finished packet of work, the school district has the right to withdraw you from the school. My brother, who was attending kindergarten at Faria, accidently forgot to bring his packet back home. So now, his mandatory turn-in and fill-in packet was lying in his desk, at school.  And guess when he remembered? At home, after school ended, and his classroom door was locked. My family panicked because if he did not turn in this packet, his admission in Faria would be in jeopardy! But quickly thinking, we drove back to Faria, in hopes of his teacher being in the classroom. We traveled back to Faria at the speed of lightning, and ran to his classroom door, rattling and pulling on the door knob. No luck. His teacher was not inside. You may not believe in miracles, but I certainly do after this! One of the office secretaries who knew us quite well was still on campus. We quickly explained to her the situation, and after being a little hesitant, she opened the door. My brother picked up his missing packet, and that was that. We went home, relieved, though angry at my brother for putting us through all this misery! After this, I thought nothing more worse could go wrong in this vacation, but boy, was I wrong!
The next day, Saturday, at the airport, when we were checking in, we were told that our airlines, Korean Airlines, just had established a new policy of needing a certain document.  We checked, and we had it for everyone in the family. . . except me. So, we had to drive all the way back home from San Francisco Airport, get that document, and drive all the way back in less than two hours! When we were coming back, I could literally feel my heart thumping, and the adrenaline pumping to my throat! I kept checking the time, nervously, and praying we would reach on time. When the traffic cleared up on the way back, my dad pushed the gas pedal and we literally flew in the air at ninety miles per hour! Finally, we arrived back at the airport, looking like a frenzy. My mom, dad, brother, and I zipped to the airport, trying to avoid baggage and other passengers, but not doing a very good job. We raced back to the Korean Airlines counter, and as soon as we arrived they had just closed the boarding. Oh no! We were just one minute late! Our disappoint soon turned into anger and frustration towards Korean Airlines, who had started this mad house frenzy in the first place! My dad told them how it was there fault for missing our flight, and luckily they were able to get all of us- my mom, dad, brother, and me, on another flight to India in only a few hours. Since we had loads of time, we checked in five hours early, just to make sure we had all of our documents. I learned that you can never be too careful!
    Before I knew it, we had somehow managed to safely land in India, despise our bad luck. But our troubles were not over just yet! We were taking a really long train ride for twelve hours from a major city called Bombay, to my mom's hometown called Amravati. After we had finished a stress free eleven hours of the journey, the conductor came to verify our tickets, and to make sure that we were not sneaking in on the train without paying the ticket cost. The conductor came over, and speaking an Indian language, he had asked for our tickets and proof of ID. We had our tickets . . . but no proof of ID because of the large number of thieves who could steal your passports. My uncle who was traveling with us told him the situation. The conductor replied, saying that without proof of ID we would have to face the consequence of being kicked off the train. And in India, if they need to, they will stop the train at any cost, and leave us out in the middle of nowhere. My parents, not wanting any more hassle after what we had just experienced, decided to let my uncle bribe the conductor into letting us stay on the train. In America, bribing could lead you to jail, but in India, it is really common, especially with the police. It's a normal thing, and you see it everyday. Anyways, my uncle bribed the conductor one hundred thousand rupees, which is about five thousand US dollars. The conductor peered over his soldier to make sure nobody was watching, and then very quickly grabbed the money, and stuffed it into his coat pocket without saying a word. He did a turn on his heel, and walked the other way. Then only ten minutes later, we reached our stop! That means that the conductor swindled us out five thousand bucks! And if we had just gotten down where he told us to, we would only be about fifteen minutes away from the train stop! Even though we were angry about paying so much money, we were in joy to see my mom's entire family of cousins, aunts, and uncles! Now, I was positive that after what I had just been through, nothing worse could happen. But once again, I was proven to be wrong!
    Since our cousins still had school even though it was a vacation for us, most of the time we were stuck doing the work the school had assigned us, and watching TV,  and believe me, TV can get boring after awhile, so our family planned for all of us to go to a really nice big mall for an entire day. Finally, that day came, and we were all ready to go. We hopped in the autos, which is like a smaller taxi, but a little less posh. My mom's family is huge. We have over forty first cousins, and its easy to forget someone. So we were leaving home, and we all we all managed to fit in the little auto. Soon, we were on the way. When we reached, we did a head count, and found out that one person was missing. Where was Janu? Janu, my little three year old cousin was left at home, about forty minutes away, all by herself! We all had  assumed that someone else had her in another auto. My aunt, also her mom, went back to go get her. Unbelievably, she was happily playing with her doll on the bed. She had not even noticed that we had left and forgotten her! By the time, my aunt came back, this time with Janu, all the kids wanted to go inside in the arcade area. Since it was really crowded in there, my mom had all of us promise to stay with one another. We recently agreed, in excitement of finally doing something fun. She gave us one hour. Pretty soon, fifty-five minutes were over, and we had to start finding my mom. My older cousin who was twenty-six did a head count, and this time it was not Janu who was missing, it was my brother. I immediately panicked because my brother did not know any Indian language, so how could he tell somebody that he was lost?!? We thought he might still be around, and because we had five more minutes, we decided to look for him. No luck, and soon five minutes were over. We saw my mom and ran up to her explaining the situation, and guess who came out behind her? My brother! She had explained to us that since nobody was watching him, he had wandered into an elevator, going up one floor. When he got off the elevator, he saw my mom, and went running to her. My mom was pretty angry, but when we reminded her of the train and bribery story, she was ok, as she was reminded of her own mistake. However, we did manage to have the rest of the day trouble free and not forget anyone!                                                                                                                                          For the rest of the trip, we had no problems, but we still ran into one more on the way back home. Luckily, we were able to solve it quickly. Whenever we go to India, we get a lot back from there. We usually have eight large suitcases, four hand carries, and four smaller bags. So in total, sixteen bags for only the four of us! Because of all our luggage, even my brother needed to help out with the smaller bags. We had given him a backpack and a carry on, while the rest of us carried the bigger ones. We were walking in the airport, and my brother said he need to go the bathroom. We sent him in, and when he came back, he did not have the backpack or the carry on with him! And we had trusted him with the most important bag- the one with the passports, tickets, and money, a mistake that we should not have done, especially after the forgotten homework papers situation. But now was no time to lecture him on his forgetfulness! He raced back to the bathroom, and luckily they were still where he left them, untouched. Nobody had stolen anything. Even though that was a large obstacle we had to overcome, we did have a good flight back home!
    This certainly was not the most stress free vacation, but it was absolutely, surely, the most memorable! I definitely had loads of fun on this trip, but I was more than happy to return to school, with both, my brother and my finished packet of homework, and have this vacation over with!