Murthy's Blog

Food and eating habits: Americans, of all age -groups, love eating. All food portions are maxi-size. Age and sex do not matter while eating. They all eat very well. Many eat fast and junk food. Eating joints are all over the place. They do not drink much water but guzzle lot of aerated drinks and alcohol. Usually one comes across posters on the highways saying, " Get out and stretch your mouth". !!!

People: People generally mind their own business and would like to maintain distance. They are cordial, friendly, and exchange greetings frequently.

Hygiene and Sanitation: Hygeine in the Americas is at a different level from India. They wash off their hands with antibacterial soap, hand sanitizer, etc. All public rest rooms are very clean and all public areas are very well kept and maintained.

Attitude to Work: Americans are extremely focused and dedicated at workplace - whether they do investment banking or they wait at tables. They don't cheat at their work timings. It is often said here, "our driving force are the people".

More Observations:

• All over the USA, the Armed Forces veterans are treated with respect.
• Traffic Police on the highways/exits are most efficient
• Americans, especially in California are tolerant to other religions.
• American enjoys their holidays fully. They plan their holidays well in advance. Some of them move in their Caravans.
• Americans generally never stop learning. They follow rules implicitly.
• Health care is largely facilitated by health insurance, which is a big industry.
• In earlier years, Americans had great respect for Indian scientists and doctors. They now respect Indian software engineers as well.
• All airports cater to complete requirements of the visitor with excellent infrastructure. Most of the facilities are self-managed.
• Right from master planning of infrastructure of towns, and cities, till execution of micro-aspects, everything is documented and facilitates the end-user,
• Standardization is mandatory in many areas.
• Electric power supply, water supply, gas supply are all meticulously planned.
• In the rest room areas, eco friendly tissues are used. "No littering,” signs are they’re everywhere. Defaulters are fined heavily. Owners even take responsibility of their pets shit. They dispose off these droppings in garbage areas.
• In case of traffic jam, most of the time there is no losing of temper. People are calm and patient.
• The concept of neighborhood watch is prevalent everywhere in the USA. In case of suspicious movements of people in the area, people are alert, and take appropriate action.
• Americans take pride in flying their flag everywhere.
• Weather forecasting is excellent and in conveyed to people through all available media (TV, Radio, paper, etc.)

# posted by Murthy @ 4:22 PM 0 comments

This was once again a rest and recoup period. We totally relaxed, first at Campbellsville, and later at Blacksburg. The proposed trip to Augusta was postponed to our next US visit, much to the discomfiture of friends there.

At Campbellsville, we visited the Green River State park area. It is a project, which is largely managed by the Corps of Engineers of the US Army. Surprisingly, there is more number of civilians forming part of the Corps of Engineers than the Combat soldiers. We were told that a number of Combat Engineering is in Afghanistan/Middle East. This State park is a very beautiful and scenic, which has certain historic places, connected with the civil war. The weather at Campbellsville is ideal for long walks, which we enjoyed.

On 3rd June, we drove back to Blacksburg. Although we had been on the route three weeks back, the entire stretch was most invigorating and breathtaking. The rain played hide and seek and there was foggy weather at some places. It was a great relief to be back at home in Blacksburg. In the USA, there is the concept of yard or garage sale, where unused and unwanted things are sold at near throwaway prices. Yard sales are haven for deal seekers and students. We bumped into one such sale on one of our walks, and found a Spalding golf set, priced at 5 dollars! This was a goldmine discovered. Also, a number of books were being sold for a dollar or less. These included some autographed bestsellers. The next day, we spent two hours in cleaning the golf set thoroughly. It was indeed a great purchase.

On 7th June, we drove about 25 miles (from Blacksburg) to the Jefferson National forest region. Here, we embarked on a four-mile hike to a very scenic waterfall called the Cascade Falls. We climbed around 750 ft along a flowing stream through jungle and hills. It was a stimulating and an enjoyable hike.

I decided to test the new possession, the “great deal” golf set in the Virginia Tech golf course. It is a fantastic course of nine holes. The green fees rates for a visitor are $18 on weekdays till 4 pm, after which a reduced fee of $13 (the twilight fee) is charged for play up to 8:00 pm. I enjoyed the game. (Compare this green fee rate in US & in Indian golf courses.)

Next day we visited the Virginia Tech library, and came across a book called Diabesity, written by Dr Francine Kaufman, a former President of American Diabetic Association. It talks about the obesity-diabetes epidemic that threatens the USA and what people must do to avoid it. It is a thought provoking and interesting book with ample verified data and examples. Experts predict that more than one third of American children born in 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime. A must read book.

Development of sports amongst school children and college students are an important facet of American education. Sprawling sports complexes with indoor stadiums dot almost all Universities and Schools. It is a pleasure to see such facilities at School and College level. No wonder the Americans is great performers in the Olympics. We saw one such facility in Virginia Tech.

We are now ready to return to Bangalore. During the last nearly 6 weeks we have seen quite a bit of America, American culture and people. It was been a fantastic learning experience. We would like to come back and continue with this experience as much as we can. We have, as mentioned earlier, a lot to learn from this great country.

# posted by Murthy @ 4:13 PM 0 comments

The flight to California (San Francisco) was via Memphis. It was an hour-long flight to Memphis. We had already crossed one time zone. We had a grandstand view of Memphis from the plane. It was a fantastic and exhilarating experience flying over the Rockies, which were snow-capped at most places. We tried to capture some of this sight on our camera. We crossed the Colorado /Rocky Mountains and almost immediately entered the deserts of Nevada. What a contrast in the terrain! It was breathtaking view from the sky at 38, 000 ft. In fact, we passed through a number of terrain configurations. This carried on for almost an hour before we landed at San Francisco. We reached San Francisco airport at 10:50 AM local time – 3 hours behind East coast time. San Francisco/Bay area is a huge valley surrounded by mountains. California reminds people of the Mediterranean coast, which we believe, has similar weather (warm wet winters and hot dry summers). From the airport, after a 45-minute drive we reached Sunnyvale - a very picturesque and well laid out city.

Sunnyvale, we learnt, was a huge orchard few decades back and every other house has at least 2 fruit trees. In the last 10 years, thanks to the Y2K and dot COM booms, the entire area is overflowing with Asian immigrants, especially Chinese and Indians. The Chinese have been there for the last 50-60 years. There are 260, 000 Indians in the Bay area and, naturally there are a number of Indian stores and restaurants. One side of the valley leads through the Bay area to the Golden Gate Bridge and on to the Pacific Ocean.

After a delicious lunch in our cousin’s place in Sunnyvale, and after some rest, we headed towards Stanford University and some of the famous venture capital offices in the Bay area. Venture capitalists fund new businesses. A number of Indians are in such businesses. We drove through and walked around Stanford University. It was great feeling being at this world famous university, which is home to many Nobel Laureates.

The next morning (27 May 2005) we re-started our regular morning walk, and caught up with relatives & friends in the Bay area. We went to the Sunnyvale Hindu temple and later took the Cal train (local Bay area train service) to San Francisco city (40 miles away). It is a double Decker train, extremely clean and punctual to the second. At San Francisco, we took a streetcar to Powell and Union Street, the heart of SF. This is also a cable car stop. Cable cars are famous old time transport in SF. As usual, we bumped and rubbed shoulders with fellow Indians. There were many other tourists from all over the world. We witnessed a tap dancer (American-African) performing to recorded music right in the center of the street. The cable car goes up and down the unique undulating (and dangerous to drive through) streets of San Francisco very smoothly. It was a great experience. We walked along the Fisherman's wharf and went to the Ghiradelli Square. Here we had the world famous Ghiradelli hot fudge sundae ice cream. It was out of the world. Later, we took the Blue and Gold fleet ferry, across the Bay to the island of Alcatraz. Alcatraz, a twelve-acre island, was the military prison for 25 years and later was converted into a Federal prison. All dangerous convicts, including Birdman and Al Capone, were housed here. The convicts included rapists, murderers, thieves, etc. We went through a well-conducted audio tour.

We took the train back to Sunnyvale from SF. While on our way to the train Station, the taxi driver showed us some apartments in the San Francisco financial district and mentioned that there were a few flats available for sale at a "reasonable rate" of 600,000 dollars for a two bedroom flat! He definitely considered us to be very affluent people!!! After an enlightening tour of SF, we had a good, sound sleep.

After the usual enjoyable morning walk, we left for Monterey Bay, a small coastal town, approximately 100 miles south of Sunnyvale. We crossed through many fields including the world-famous garlic town. The entire drive was extremely picturesque with changing landscape. Monterey houses an under-sea aquarium. The aquarium is home to several different species of fish, and other under aquatic life. After seeing the aquarium, we drove along the 17-mile scenic drive, witnessing the world famous Pebble beach area golf courses. It was an interesting car drive. Every golfer worth his salt would like to play in these courses. Maybe next time I will land here straight from India to play golf!! Pebble beach also has some of the most expensive real estate in the world, where a house could cost around 15 million dollars. In all these places, we came across the massiveness of the USA in every aspect possible (mountains, rivers, lakes, vehicles, animals, children, men, women, food, etc).

After this delightful drive, we visited the Fry's electronics store in Sunnyvale. In Fry's are can purchase any possible electronics item, some of which are however priced quite exorbitantly. We rounded of the day with a Pizza specially catered for the Indian palate, followed by watching a masala American movie - National Treasure. It was as quixotic as a Hindi potboiler!

We started off the day by driving to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. This well maintained bridge was constructed in 1936 with a great vision. It is a suspension bridge, which is approximately 1.6 miles long and uses 80,000 miles of cable. It is an engineering marvel. The color of the bridge is "international orange". When the sun's rays hit the bridge, it appears Golden, and hence the name. Thousands of tourists visit this bridge daily. The planners of this bridge were great visionaries and had catered for the kind of traffic almost 75-100 years later than it was built by suitably leaving room for expanding traffic. We viewed the bridge from different angles. From the bridge, we witnessed a sailing regatta in the Bay area. The view from the bridge is breathtaking with the Pacific Ocean opening out on the West.

We then drove through Lombard Street, which is the most crooked street in the world. It is a cute little paved road with steps going down on both sides. The day turned out to be very interesting.

We visited the San Francisco area yet again, the next day (30 May’05) and had several different views of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco city. We drove up to Twin Peaks, which provides a grandstand view of San Francisco and the Bay area. We could clearly see the Market Street dividing the city into two halves. The football team of San Francisco is named "49-ers" after the 49-mile scenic drive that runs through the city along the Bay. Being the Memorial Day, almost all restaurants (including many Indian restaurants) were closed, and we ended up eating Chinese food for lunch. It was good. We than visited Sausalito, a small little coastal town west of San Francisco. Sausalito is home to a number of houseboats (similar to the boats in Srinagar- They are however much cleaner). While driving through San Francisco, we went through Haight Street, where the Hippie movement started in the 60s. Later, we drove through the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge to Berkeley. This bridge is a double-decker bridge and is more of an engineering marvel than the Golden gate bridge. It is a 6-mile long bridge. It was a treat to drive through this bridge over the Bay. Berkeley is home to the famous University of California. We drove around the University, and passed through Telegraph Avenue - a major hippie hangout. Livermore was our next stop. The 100-mile drive from Berkeley to Livermore passes along the western portion of the Bay and is home to a number of industries including many IT companies. At Livermore, we spent over an hour at the Hindu temple. This temple was conceived, planned, and constructed by die-hard Indians over 25 years back. It is housed in a 10-acre plot, and there are plans we were told for a 15-million dollar development program for this temple and connected activities. It is a beautiful temple. This temple is visited by almost all Indians in the Bay area/Indian visitor to California.

We spent the next day with old friends at Santa Clara and San Jose. Later in the day we drove through a number of IT companies in the Silicon Valley, including Google. It is time to return to Campbellsville/ Blacksburg.

On 1 June 2005, we returned to Louisville by air via Minneapolis. Minneapolis airport is very big, and is hub to many international routes. Minnesota State houses around 1000 lakes and is sometimes called the lake state. We could see many grand views of lakes from the plane.

# posted by Murthy @ 3:26 PM 0 comments