Welcome to Ummrica!

or .. veni vidi viblogged

well, after a brief globe trotting to few places here and there, I had to go to where literally every other Indian IT employee goes. America. After spending most of my first 4 days here indoors I guess I am both qualified and bored enough to write this post. And after spending good amount of weekend time clicking remote or flicking matrimonials or licking your plate, I am sure you are also eager to read this post while trying to focus on work. So without further ….

My travel had nothing exciting to write home about, unless you want to call watching-6-movies – getting-served-by-male-air-hostesses – and-loosing-one-of-your-suitcases-in-transit exciting. Anyways what is really the matter with muscular and cold looking male air hostesses? Have I formed stereotypes watching too much of those red skirted kingfisher ladies or it is how they work in this part of the world? well .. whatever

So I walk out of the Columbus intl. airport feeling anorexic from all the in flight consumables and hail a cab. As I try to explain the driver where I wanted to go, I quickly learned that he knows nothing except driving. I mean not even reading or writing. I guess this is what us consultants call verticalization. So while I spell letter by letter and point it on the GPS unit our man was able to configure the address and get the directions. He is a sweet man though.

The first cultural shock came in a matter of 23 seconds. I have quickly learned that I have reached US on a super extra long weekend called thanksgiving weekend. Well, I couldn’t be more thankful though. I was in no mood to work after what seemed like a zillion hours of listening to “stow your brain in the overhead compartment, buckle your belt to the seat and restore your feet from the seat in front of you”. So I spent rest of my day wondering what my wife has packed in the other suitcase that went missing in the transit. I realized it contained important life saving stuff like my camera, bathing soap, bed sheet, pillow and eatables.

Next morning my room-mate suggested that we go get some milk from the near by pharmacy. So we walked across the street and entered in to a place that looked almost like half the size of Chennai central railway station. You could buy Christmas trees, digital cameras, bedsheets apart from medicines there. I must tell you this, here everything that is in liquid form (can be liquified) is measured in gallons, including but not limited to espresso shots, coke or tequila.

Rest of my 4 days here involved more of walking across the street to buy some coffee or wearing too many clothes and watching some Simpson’s while sitting on the couch. I guess that part matches pretty much with the life in India, except that I still miss my suitcase.

A last tip to anyone curious enough to read till here: a gallon actually means 3.7 ltrs but feels like a whole lot of coffee that an entire state of Goa can drink in a morning.

PS: Image belongs to http://www.commercialrealtygroup.com