Thoughts on the way back!

Our trip in US is almost coming to an end. I did not give much thought about this till someone asked me the other day about the positives and negatives in US over India. I first wanted to start off with the negatives since I thought that would be easy as I already began missing India. People complain about the culture here, but I would say the deeper emotions within a person are always the same irrespective of the nationality of the person. There are people in both the countries who love their family and try to spend every available free second with them. At the same time there are people who feel family is a big responsibility and see it more like a burden. What is 'our culture'? There was a time during my childhood where alcohol was considered bad culture in India. And by the time I graduated from college and started working, alcohol was considered social culture. There are still people with their own set of opinions on the matter even today. Leaving that aside, the point I am trying to convey is, something can be right to some people and wrong to some others. It is not right to categorize a country as bad cultured one. 

Every day when we go around shopping or looking around the city, we get greeted by atleast a dozen strangers. The other day I was pushing the stroller with baby through a door and a passer by asked me if I was okay or needed her help. I said I am doing just fine. But she waited till I left and made sure I was okay before she left. There was another instance where at the billing counter there were two people with heavy carts waiting before us and we had only one item to be billed. I asked them if I can go before them and they both let me go with a smile. So, people here are helping. I noticed something else too. People sometimes go to parks in the evenings on bicycles and park them there with no need to lock them. They are assured of its safety. At the same time, there were places we have been to, where I was scared to ask someone to take a picture of all of us together for the fear of him running away with the camera.

Man power is very costly in US. Most of the assembling work will be done by the people who own the commodity. It is sometimes fun and sometimes tiring. I assembled a BBQ grill and a patio table chair set and felt good. Assembling a basket ball pole however was very tough and I left it half way through.

If u stay in suburbs, it is practically not possible for you to commute without a car and of course you should know the driving and have a licence and must be confident enough to go on highways and must be familiar with GPS and maps. And the biggest catch is, u should have a credit card with good credit history to rent a car. If u are with babies or infants, u cannot even hire a taxi from any random point since the car seats are mandatory.

US trip updates: San Francisco

Summarizing what I have seen in the last 5 weeks is very tough. Not a single day passed by without having me excited over at least one thing. US is a place where you can find people from different countries. I liked the beautiful residential localities with parks at walkable distances. I liked the vastness of the place and large open spaces. The best of all is that most of the pictures taken in US in the day time come really well :P.  

I saw so many types of vehicles in San Francisco. I travelled in a bus on road with wheels which had a pole on top connecting to a cable running across. There was another bus running on rails on the same road. There was a train which also had two poles on top connecting to two different cables running across. The roads have a lot of rails on them. One look on top and u see a lot of cables running across. I was very excited to see so many types of transportation. Did someone ever say roadways and railways cannot meet without a gate? And yes, the place reminded me of the long forgotten Civil Engineering concepts. 

I stayed in a non-Indian's house for 3 days. It was a very pleasant experience. She was Vijay's colleague at his previous office. She was so sweet to order a sofa couch to make us comfortable in addition to the bed which was already present. She has a baby and the entire house was a perfect example of a baby proofed house.

The Golden gate bridge was a complete beauty, especially when half covered in fog. I made sure to read all the stuff displayed about the bridge there. The walk on the bridge showed great views of the city. There were a lot of people sailing on the sail boats as hobby. I enjoyed each and every minute spent there. The bridge is equally gracious from all the angles. I will update about the rest of the things that amazed me in the next couple of blogs. I gotta go now!

What the hell?

In US I have seen people placing a lot of decorative items in front of their houses where there is a scope for anyone to grab, but they do remain there!I want to mention about the incident that happened just today. We ordered something online and were expecting it to be delivered today. We waited all evening and opened the door at 8:00 PM and the package was at our door!! I was like - "what the hell? How on earth can he just leave it at the door and go? What if someone takes it? What if it rains? Or even worse, how can they prove that it is delivered to us without getting our signature?" "Relax.. this is how it works here. They come, ring the bell once, drop the package at the door and leave. No one takes it.." -  my sister-in-law calmed me. I am still not happy with how it went..but learnt that thats how it is here..