Chennai to Tallahassee via Doha and Miami

Chennai to Tallahassee via Doha and Miami

Sunday, August 28, 2016

Fly to Chennai via Doha

Miami to Doha to Chennai

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

I flew to Chennai (MAA), India from Tallahassee today afternoon. The overall flight was through the One World Alliance partner airlines American Airlines and Qatar Airways. My TLH to MIA flight was through Envoy Air 3462, a subsidiary of American Airlines and left around 4:00 PM and arrived after an hour at Miami.

Then, I had to wait until 7:15 PM for boarding the Qatar Airways flight QR778 to Doha, Qatar and so I had some food at the D-Terminal of the Miami airport as E-Terminal the choices were limited. My next flight was about 13 1/2 hours long.

Travel from Denver to home

Denver to Tallahassee

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

After successfully finishing the 66th Annual Meeting of the American Crystallographic Association at Denver, CO and after giving oral presentation, I left early morning from Denver, CO via Dallas Fort Worth, TX back to Tallahassee, FL.

Unlike the way in where I had plenty of time to take public transit, I had to rent a car to get to the airport since the public transit didn't start until 5:45 AM and I had to be at the airport earlier than 6:30 AM for my 8:00 AM flight.

Then from Dallas-Fort Worth, TX, I took another flight back to Tallahassee, FL.

Travel to Denver, CO

Travel to Denver, CO

Saturday, July 23, 2016

I left this morning to Denver, CO in American Airlines from Tallahassee via Dallas-Fort Worth, TX. My first flight was from Tallahassee International Airport (TLH) to Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. The flight left around 6:40 PM local time and after approximately 2 hours landed in DFW airport at 7:30 AM local time.

DFW airport, Dallas Fort Worth, TX

After a short break I left on my next American Airlines 620 flight from Dallas Fort Worth, Texas airport to Denver, CO airport. This flight was about the same time as the first one and arriving around 9:45 AM at the local time.

DEN airport, Denver, CO

I gathered my luggage and left the airport and bought a 5-day pass for the 2-stage public transport than included the train from airport to my hotel in Englewood, CO.

I then traveled in University of Colorado Line A from Airport to Downtown, Denver, CO. 

Then I took the Mall ride bus and took train E (actually I made a mistake and took the wrong D-train) to Dry Creek Station. 

Visit Ringling Museum

John and Mable Ringling Museums

Sarasota, FL

Friday, May 6, 2016

Bhanu and I visited the John and Mable Ringling Museums in Sarasota (SRQ), Florida. We arrived around 11 AM after driving for about 45 minutes from Clearwater, FL. Since The Ringling Museum is part of the Florida State University and since I am faculty at FSU, I got a special rate while Bhanu paid the full amount.

The Ringling located on a 20 acre property off of the Sarasota Bay on the west coast of Florida peninsula has many individual museums: the circus museum, the Tibbals Learning Center, Mable's Rose Garden, Ca' d'Zan (House of John in Venetian dialect), Banyan Cafe, Center for Asian Art (opening in May 2016), Museum of Art, and Searing Wing.

We saw many of the buildings including the Tibbals, circus museum, the rose garden, the Ca' d'Zan, Asian Art, Museum of Art, and ate at the Banyan Cafe. The weather was perfect and unusually cool and dry (78F) for an early May.

We spent almost 6 hours at the museums and left around 4 PM toward Palm Harbor.

Travel Back to Panama City

Panama City, FL

Dec 17, 2015

We started our journey back home on Thursday morning. We decided to vacate the hotel and go to the South side the island before dropping off the car at the airport in the afternoon. So we packed our bags, returned our towels, and checked out of the resort one hour earlier at 10 AM. However, when I tried to start the car it won't start due probably to a dead battery. That meant we had drop our plans to visit the south side.

Even though the Hertz representative up-sold all amenities (s)he rented me a bad car. Fortunately, it happened on the last day in the resort. We called Hertz and within 20 minutes (that was the good part) a tow-truck came gave us a jump start. We didn't want to take anymore chances of getting stuck in a remote place so we went directly to the airport.

We told the Hertz rental about our problem and went into the airport and the Delta counter was not even open since we were at least 3 hours earlier. So went to 14Bis Restaurant and ate lunch there.

We went through customs and immigration in Aruba itself instead of Atlanta. That meant at least 1 1/2 hours of lines and checking. Finally we left Aruba's Reina Beatrix Airport toward Atlanta. We left at 4:45 PM AST and arrived earlier at 7:10 PM EST in ATL. We didn't eat food during our flight of 3 1/2 hours. We went from Gate 4 to Terminal E Gate 2 (the same gate we left three days earlier)

At Atlanta we went Terminal E food court and had our dinner. Our next flight to Panama City was at least 2 more hours away in Terminal B.

We then waited for our plane which was delayed in arriving from Oklahoma City and left at 10:30 PM EST at Atlanta and reached Panama City 10:40 PM CST. We then collected our luggage and went out to the long-term parking lot. 

We then went to the hotel for overnight stay.

Travel to Aruba

Oranjestad, Aruba
Monday, Dec 14, 2015

We woke up very early in the morning at a hotel in Panama City, Florida and drove to the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport (ECP). We parked our car in the long-term parking lot and took our luggages to fly to Atlanta. We were at Central Standard Time Zone.

Panama City (ECP) airport

Our flight was by Delta Airlines and we checked in early with Zone 1 boarding and headed off to Atlanta. Unlike previous night we could feel the skies were getting cloudy and there was a possibility of rain. However, we arrived in time in Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. We flew an MD-88 and there were no beverage services. We left at ECP Gate 5 and arrived at ATL Gate B11 after an hour. We were at Eastern Standard Time Zone. 

We had plenty of time for our next flight via Delta to Queen Beatrix Airport (Aeropuerto Internacional Renia Beatrix) in Oranjestad, Aruba. So we stopped by the Terminal E food court and had our breakfast. The rain that was delayed in Panama City caught up with us and started to rain. I was lucky to see that our luggages were being loaded into the belly of the airplane. Then we took our flight to AUA around 10:30 AM and arrived at Oranjestad, Aruba late in the afternoon. 

Our luggage (blue bag) being loaded to our flight

As we started to fly the rain stopped and I could see the blue green seas of the Bahamas on our way into Aruba.

On the way to Aruba, the Bahamas can be seen below

During the 3 1/2 hour flight there was no free food but only snacks. We, however, ended by buying some food. We flew on a Boeing 737 with movie entertainment. I watched one movie and some others segments. 

The flight was okay. We left ATL Gate E2 and arrived Gate 6.

We then went through some customs and passport checks. Once outside the airport, the Hertz Car Rental was walking distance. We picked up our car and took full protection and gas tank surcharge (the latter was unnecessary as there were pumps next to the airport).

Queen Beatrix Airport, Oranjestad, Aruba

We then drove few miles to get out destination hotel Tropicana Resort. It turned out there was a big super market for food called Super Food Plaza and Taco Bell fast food just next to our resort. We had dinner at Taco Bell and purchased groceries as our room was a full fledged one-bedroom apartment with separate bedroom,  bathroom, living room, kitchen with stove, fridge, microwave, coffee machine, toaster, plates, cups, knives, pots and pans. We also got local currency (Aruba Florin and cents)

Aruba Florin (Afl or Awg) and cents 

We then went to bed at a new time zone (Atlantic Standard Time)