This was the trip, which was long due. I had called Srinivas (Vasu) for the first time in November'99 after my marriage was fixed. He was my wife's cousin and was in the USA so obviously my in-laws wanted me to talk to him. Meeting a person for the first time in life after keeping in touch with him for the past 10 months is itself a big get-together. So the emotions were running high…

Theoretically it takes 30 Minutes to go from Schaumburg to O'Hare Airport. But on a Friday evening it takes around 90 Minutes for the same distance. Our flight was at 10 PM. We started at 7.30 PM as we had to park our car in the long-term parking and then take a ride to the Terminal. Surprisingly there was no traffic and we reached the parking lot at 8 PM. We reached the gate at 8.45 PM. So we had a good 1-hour time before we could board the flight. The flight was on time but we had to wait for 1 hour on the runway due to the traffic. We reached Kansas City International (KCI) Airport at 12 AM. KCI serves both Kansas City, which is in Missouri State and Overland Park, which is in Kansas State as they are adjacent to each other. Vasu, Aruna and Srikanth were there to receive us at the airport. Their place was 30-Minute drive from the airport.

We reached their home at 12.45 AM and chatted up to 2.30 AM and called it a day. Earlier we had planned to drive down to St. Louis, Missouri, which is 4 hours drive from their place but dropped the plan and decided to go around Overland Park instead.

 The next day we were ready by 10 AM and set off to a mall nearby. We did some window-shopping and some serious shopping up to 2 PM.

Then we went for lunch to an Indian restaurant "Ruchi". The food for a change was good after the experiences we had in Chicago Indian Restaurants.

Then we went to the I-Max theatre located beside the famous Kansas City Zoo. There we saw the Michael Jordan Movie "Jordan to the Max". First of all it is a unique experience to watch a movie in an I-Max theatre and if one is watching Michael Jordan performing he is on top of the world. Being a basketball fan and also a fan of Michael Jordan this was the best movie I could ever see. After the movie we drove back to home and rested for sometime. Then we had a chance to taste the culinary skills of Aruna. We had a very good dinner.

At 9 PM we started again and went to the Down Town of Kansas City. This city is also known as the "City of Fountains". During Thanks Giving and other holiday weekends the entire downtown is lit up and all the fountains are in full swing and obviously the streets are full with visitors. We parked the car and went round for sometime in the streets and then started off to the unique experience of my life "Bowling".

We reached the Bowling lanes at 10.30 PM. We had booked our slot from 11.30 PM through 1.30 AM. I call it an unique experience since I was "Bowling" for the first time in my life and I always wanted to try this but could not go as nobody was there to accompany me - somebody should be there to acknowledge our performance… The play started at 11.30 PM and ended at 1.30 AM. I was feeling a bit sleepy when we were going to the Bowling lanes but everything vanished after we went inside. The Lights, Music and ofcourse the players added to the festivities and it was a time well spent. It was 2 AM by the time we reached home.

Then we watched "Hello Brother" movie almost till the end but called it a day at 3.30 AM.

Next day we woke up at 10 AM. Obviously everybody was tired after the hectic activity all day the previous day. We watched Football for some time and Cricket for some time and had lunch at 1.30 PM. We did some shopping at Michaels Store.

Then came the time which I hate the most - "Goodbye Time". We reached the KCI Airport at 5.30 PM. Our flight was at 6.10 PM. The flight was on time but we had to wait on the runway up to 7 PM as there was traffic in Chicago and the ATC was delaying the flights coming in to Chicago. There was lot of turbulence while we were landing "Windy City". We reached Chicago at 8.05 PM.

As I mentioned earlier this was the trip I have been waiting for a long time - it did not disappoint us. We had the most wonderful time. I am happy we were able to spend our weekend like this and the most important thing is meeting Vasu/Aruna/Srikanth. From the first time I talked with Vasu we had many things in common which are needed to bring two people closer and when I met him I found in him a good friend for life. And most important to mention is I have got another sister for life. I did not talk much with Srikanth earlier but now that I have met him I do have another friend in the making…