American Dreams -3

It is going to be an year since I had been to US , and I am yet to finish this so called story of “america kanal”, though I never got to see what the real America looked like.

Basically I started writing this series for not losing details of what i did when I was there, if I become an Alzhiemer's patient ;). And for my friends to pull my leg. friends-- hmmm..the number has reduced to a handpick....whatever...

Prathibha took me to Al 's office on tuesday 17th July, and aftr the formal intro, he took me to my mentor Mike. He is a man of tricks, hnece his surname is Trick. I hope he would never stumble uopn this blog. ;)

A nice guy in his fifties, with a good sense of humor. I was asked to share Jason's office room.

While I was in Prats room, Hari came and asked me why I had not called home yet and all at home were panicking because they heard from me last on sunday and it was already wed in India. :D . Finally I called home and reassured them that their daughter did nt get lost in the so called “ bad America” .

On the very first day, I could nt plug in my laptop charger due to the dif in the plug in US and Europe.So the first went cool without any work.. :D

Lunch , I had with Prat, Hari and their freinds in an outside restaurant. I took some vegie stuff ( dont even remember its name!!). It was "lot of food and green veg " for me and Rachappa had to eat the rest of my food.

On the next day evening, while returning from office, Prat n Hari took me to Radio Shack in U mall for buyin the plug. 11USD -my very first shoppin in US.

By the way, University Mall s a big shoppin center in vermont, one of the only two shoppin malls in that tweeny weeny state of US.And U mall was my hanging out place during weekends for 2 months!!!.

Days went by like that, in between that weekend, PH took me to a dinner at Madan's place. He is a indian guy working for IBM, wanting to settle in US. Got to meet some indians there. Saw for the first time in life how these guys take the Tequila shot. Maan..it was a sight worth watching. :D

Had really good Indian food. That weekend , hari and rachappa were returning to India after their term, and we went to circuit city to get my camera.

My very first camera- I did a lot of research into buying one, bugged Sri like anything for helping me in selecting one. He was shouting at me whn I told him the budget and he made me rise it to what he wanted ( hmmm..!!! ) and finally we decided on one. I liked it from the very first sight. A sleek and slim black beauty from the Olympus series. J

Days went by like that….nothing much happening..work slowly progressing…getting adjusted to eatin jus plain chkn sandwich in the cafeteria for lunch..

I used to love the brkfast at Hawthorns..it was always good… And ofcrs the dinner prepared by none other than dear me mee ..that too daily aftr lot of nagging from dear sri.

I loved the ice creams and dif flavours of yogurt that I explored in the Hannafords in Umall –simply awesome –ice cream was a lot cheaper than drinking water, frankly speaking. J One weekend, Prat took me to a place called Stowe in Vermont – with lots f woods and mountains –flowers..a beautiful palce indeed. On the way back, we stopped at a Japanese restaurant named Kyoto and I had my very first helping of the Japanese food. It was too good. The soup , the salad, the chef making the food in front of you , tossing the fried cucumber chunks and throwing them at u which you should catch in our mouth..really cool… Had shrimps and chkn with fried rice. We were also invited to a Barbeque dinner party at one of our collegue’s place. It was a very nice evening, spent in the company of fellow IBMers and their families.

IBM had a baseball tournament outing on a Friday .it was free tkt and free food , of crs. I had two managers ( that too second line!!!!!!) sitting on either side of me and trying to teach the game to this poor illiterate being.phew…honestly, boring game for a person who has grown up seeing legends like sachin playing cricket.Anyways , it was fun.