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.

Port of Entry Procedures

Port of entry is the first place of landing in the US. Some common ports of entry are Detroit,
Chicago, Washington DC, New York, Newark, Houston, Los Angeles.
Sometimes 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 does not exceed $100. Unless you are
carrying something pretty valuable or illegal (which is usually not the case), you may do the
same.

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.

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 are free of cost.

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 M1 "Meeting Place" 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.

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 executive 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:
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
every day 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 Donut King 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 Donut King. 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 Donut King 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@mst.edu
It would help us to help you.