Travel Procedures
Check list
It is advisable that you plan your flights destined to St.Louis provided you do not have any other travel plans. Immigration check would be completed at your port of entry in the US.
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About Baggage
Check with your airline the total weight of the baggage that is allowed on board. You may also carry a piece of hand baggage with you on flight. Confirm all baggage specifications (dimensions) with your airline / travel agent. Carry all important documents such as I-20, passport, tickets etc. on person or in your hand baggage. Make a copy of all important documents and leave them in each of your suitcases. Attach plenty of identification tags and labels. Such measures will help easy recovery if baggage is lost or misplaced during transit.
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Port of Entry Procedures
Port of entry is the first place of landing in the US. Some common ports of entry are Detroit (KLM-nothwest), Chicago(united airlines, British airways), Washington DC(delta,united airlines) etc.
Some time before landing at your port of entry in the US, you will be distributed customs declaration forms and immigration forms by the flight attendant. Fill them out on flight. You will be required to turn them in to the proper authorities on landing. Seek the flight attendant's help if necessary. On the customs form, most students indicate that they have nothing to declare and the total value of all items in their baggage do not exceed $100. Unless you are carrying something pretty valuable or illegal (which is usually not the case), you may do the same.
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Form I-94
This particular document keeps track of your arrival and departures from the land of USA. Fill it out on the plane itself. After seeing your documents, the immigration officer will indicate your duration of status ( D/S ) along with your admission number and this form will be clipped to the visa page of your passport.
On Landing
· Head straight for the immigration counter. Keep your passport, I-20, customs form and I-94 form handy.
· From there, go to the baggage section and collect your baggage from the carousel. You may find a trolley helpful (the carousel number at which you may pick up your baggage will be announced on flight or at the airport on landing).
· Now proceed to customs. In most cases, you will not be asked to open your baggage and will simply be waved through. If you are asked to open your baggage, do not panic. Do so slowly. In some rare cases, you might be asked to go to the agriculture department. This is when they suspect you of carrying some seeds, plants etc .They have a strict policy of not allowing any foreign horticultural goods in the US of A with out proper custom procedures.
· From customs, cart your baggage to the helpdesk of the airline with which you have booked tickets for your connecting flight. You will have to check in your baggage again for the connecting flight and reclaim it at St. Louis airport.
· Collect your boarding pass and proceed to your respective terminal.
What if you miss your flight?
Missing flights is not uncommon at all here. One need not panic if that happens. You have to go the counter of your airlines and they will book you in another flight and will also have your luggage taken care of.
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After Reaching St. Louis
There will be bill-boards and signs all over the air-ports to guide you. Feel free to ask the airline staff any queries you may have. Make sure you get to the right terminals at the connecting airports (each airport comprises of tens of terminals). The trolleys may not come free of cost. Keep $3 bills handy to take one.
If you have informed us about your arrival well before your arrival date, you can be sure that there will be somebody from the association to pick you up. They will be waiting at the baggage claim area.
What if you don't see anybody?
Please don't panic. This case will usually arise when you have missed a connecting flight or if your flight has been delayed or if your information hasn't reached us. After making sure that there is really nobody to pick you up, you could give us a call. We assume here that you will have the phone number of the person you contacted for pick-up. We also suggest that you have the phone numbers of the president, the vice-president and a few other executive members.
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How to use the payphones?
Public Telephones are normally referred as payphones in US. You could ask any of the airport staff where you could find a payphone. Clear instructions are written are written on these instruments on how to make a local, long distance and even international calls with the operator assistance. Generally, payphones do not receive incoming calls and this is marked on the phones. The number of the payphone is printed. You would be making a long distance call from St.Louis to Rolla.
A US phone number always consists of 10 digits (123) 456 7890. The first three digits within parenthesis are called area code and remaining seven digits are the telephone number. The area code for Rolla is 573.We suggest that you have enough $1 bills in handy which will be useful for making calls too. A long distance call would cost you about 15c per minute. When you make a local call (a telephone number with the same area code as that of yours), you do not dial the area code. Any number with 800, 888, 877 as area code is called a toll free number. You need not pay anything when you call a toll free number. Most companies/organizations, especially for reservations and customer service have toll free numbers.
After having conveyed to one of the exec. Members that you have arrived in St.Louis, you would wait for his advice. If in some case, all this fails there are other ways of reaching Rolla too. They are:
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The Greyhound bus service
There is a Greyhound bus service to Rolla from the St. Louis airport, Lambert Field with a fare of around $32. There are two Greyhound buses leaving St. Louis airport for Rolla everyday at 9:10 a.m. and 7:40 p.m. respectively. Check the timings at the information counter. You may also confirm the bus timings (they keep changing), by making a TOLL FREE phone call (within US) at "1-800-229-9424" to the Greyhound office. If you have to stay overnight at the St. Louis airport, you It should take you a maximum of two hours to get here from St. Louis.It will drop you near the Mc.Donalds outlet in Rolla,where you will have a person from the association pick you up, if you have given us a call from the airport.You could care to call that person again from a payphone in Mcdonalds. The phone numbers of some of the taxi services in Rolla are listed below. The fare within Rolla is not much, it costs only $3 for one person with a dollar for each additional person. As you will notice from the address list, most Indian students live together, in close proximity to each other and if you do not find anyone at the address you have arrived, try the neighboring apartments in the same building. You are sure to find an Indian. He/she will put you in touch with someone from the India Association. However, all this is only of academic interest. We promise you that you will find someone to receive you at McDonald's if you have been in touch with us.
Taxi Services in Rolla
· City Cab 1-573-341 - 3733
. ABC Taxi 1-573-341 - 3100
· American Cab 1-573-364 - 6021
As told before, you need to dial only the last 7 digits in the above phone number if you are calling from Rolla only.
The USA express
There is also the US Express service that leaves at regular intervals. This costs around $92 per person, if booked in advance. The USA Express service runs at an interval of every 2 hours between 8:00 AM and 10:00 PM. You can contact USAExpress at their toll free number "1-800-872-9399". It will drop you at your desired address in Rolla. As soon as you arrive in St. Louis, go to the baggage carousel and collect your baggage. If you are carrying a lot of luggage (which is usually the case), it would be advisable to get yourself a trolley. These will cost you $1 (if you do not have change, there are change machines available all over the airport; these machines accept $1, $5 and $10 bills). From there, proceed to any information counter you may find - there are plenty of them around. You could make yourself comfortable in TERMINAL C (you will find some couches there, unlike the other terminals where there are only chairs). If you prefer to take the express service, you may check the timings at the information counter. This service leaves directly from the airport. Please note that both the Greyhound and the express service take approximately the same time to get to Rolla. Most of us have arrived here in Rolla by the Greyhound. You board the bus from the AIRPORT BUS-PORT just opposite the airport at a walking distance. However, with so much of luggage you might use the shuttle service of the airport to go to the bus-port. The shuttle service is free and it should make things much easier for you. Ask for directions to take the TERMINAL SHUTTLE to get to the airport bus-port at the information counter. If you prefer to walk to the bus-port, you may take the trolley out with you. It is allowed. At any cost, DO NOT EXIT the airport before confirming the bus timings; unless you have made alternate arrangements of your own. Please note that you might be advised by ill-informed persons to go to the bus-station in St. Louis Downtown. DO NOT GO THERE. Though the buses start from there, all buses passing through Rolla will come to the bus-port at Lambert International airport. You may purchase the tickets for the Greyhound at the airport bus-port (there might be a Greyhound official coming there just before the departure of the bus), or you may take it from the bus driver himself/herself. Keep around $30.0 handy.
We hope that the above information will be useful to you in getting here to Rolla safely. If you have any more questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. Please note that it would be highly convenient and suitable if you could email us at india(at)mst.edu or any of the email addresses of the persons listed at the end of this document. It would help us to help you.
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