This is gonna be a post after a looong time..and this is gonna be my first post while in the US..or San Jose to be more precise.. Been here since almost two weeks..it has definitely been a hectic two weeks..what with me being the official"driver" for our gang of 4 guys and 2 gals...
the training and work here has been very good and has met my expectations..and our weeeknd getaway was worth every bit of money spent...
Fortunately we have all stopped converting dolars into rupees whenever we buy something...else this would have hampered most of the fun we are otherwise having..The past week we have been working till late evening and then we head off to some nearby place..and most of the time it is to some shopping centre!!!
We all landed here on Sunday and it was not as great a cultural shock as portrayed in a lot of our "crossover" movies.. or maybe we knew what we were geting into and so it did not hit us hard....and anyway we had A, who had arrived 2 weeks before us and "educated' us on alot of american stuff...we did notice that mostly peple were very cordial with each other..and the roads were just awesome...being a biker..the roads are the first thing i observe..and they were just too good..so i was definitely looking forward to driving/riding on these roads..
We got a car..or rather Mini van on Tuesday..and A & i went to get it from the rental place..We had prepared for the return journey by equipping ourselves with some yahoo maps..but we should have known better.. We did make it to the Rental and took the van..then began my fast-track initiation into driving in the US!!! the rental guy gave me a couple of tips and watched apprehensively as I took off..A was my navigator and so i was paying more attention to staying in the right lane and not looking much at signboards...We thought the map would help us get back soon..but then we were so hopelssly lost that we had to rely on homing instincts!!.the roadsigns here do not follow the pattern that we follow back home ..and it did take us some time to get used to it...So we were learning more abut the lanes and signals and stuff..and also getting more hopelessly lost.. The upside was that we did get to see most of San Jose!! Finally after about an hour of U-turns and wrong turns..we did manage to get bck to where we started from...
Now that we had a car and an "able' navigator and a more "able" driver who could respond properly to the navigator's signals...we could see San Jose without any hiccups..and most of the eveneing we ended up in some mall or the other..we saw The great Mall,Wallmart,Frys (electronic stuff)..and many more ..oh and more roads also..most of the stuff unitentional ..we had made losing our way an art form by now..and we were getting to be really good at it..
So with our obvious navigational talents we decided to check out a few far flung places on the weekend. Luckily On Saturday we had P, who could drove us down to Lake Tahoe. He is such a cool person....We left at around 5:00 in the morning, so that we could reach the place by around 9:00 and start off early on our skiing lesons....and ski we did..this too was pretty much like our road experience..we kept fumbling and losing our way..we started off on a small slope and, boy we tried hard..after a lot of..ouch..falls, we did manage to get it right..
We had ski lifts to take us to the top of the slopes and we would ski down the slopes..and one of the times(the navigation skils again)...i managed to take the wrong lift...and wound up on the advanced slope...this was right after lunch..so i had got time to go over my skills in my mind and go all gaga about me geting it right.. Boy was this slope a leveller or what..literally ..just after a few minutes I was in level with the slope..down on all fours..looking like a cat with buttered paws on a waxed floor...The next time though i managed to get the right ski lift and the going was good...so there was another next time and another next time and so on..until my feet began to hurt and I could not ski anymore...
After all the skiing we went on a drive around Lake Tahoe..some parts of the lake were frozen and it was so beautiful to look at..The lake was so huge and awesome that we all could not help going gaga over it... The roads around the lake were just too good..it was a bikers dream...wish I get to ride on this road someday...
Sunday we were gonna do some more shopping and then go over to see Stanford and San Francisco.. Stanford was so impressive and we managed to leave the place only by around 4:00 in the evening ..this was when we actually perfected our navigational art form about which i have been talking all this while.. We managed to take 2 and a half hours for a 40 minute drive..most of the times we would take the wrong exit and enter some city and be even more lost.. Gas stations were our saviours and one time even a liquour shop!!..At one point i was sticking to my lane which we thought headed to San Francisco..and we suddenly saw the road branching and we were on a new freeway and the freeway we were supposed to be on was below us somewhere....
With all these pitfalls we did manage to reach SF and got on to the Golden Gate bridge also..man it was beautiful..with all the lights on and in all its splendour..hope i can see it one more time before leaving this place...
Next update as time permits..and the next one should be interesting..cause i am going on a bike ride in the US..that ought to be something special...
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