MY EXPERIENCES IN CALIFORNIA.
Prologue:This is one blog post I have been worried about the past one year in fact. When I got to know that I was going to the University of California to spend my last two semesters, that’s around when I had started this blog. I was blogging quite regularly then and I was worried about how I was going to blog about my experiences in the US after I come back. 7 months of life in a different country cannot be expressed by a few hundred words and so I decided I should update my blog every couple of weeks while at Davis so that I wouldn’t have this headache of writing it all in one session, but as you can see, procrastination has lead to what I most feared. So here I go!!! I have no idea where to start and where to end and what to mention and what not... So I’ll just go with the flow expanding on events that were memorable to me. I don’t even have daily accounts of what happened, as I have no practice of writing a diary. In fact the last time I wrote one was during my 12th std English board exam. :D Though I may have the urge to clarify the details of some events with the others who were involved, or to look at the photos I had taken in Davis, I will desist from doing so because I want this to be a description of everything as I remember it, even if it may be distorted or inaccurate or biased or having omitted some events or details. I want this to be an account of everything that comes to my mind first, without having to think hard, when I think of the trip, because what comes to you without thinking hard is what is most memorable to you and this is about MY memories of California. Most of it will be nostalgic for those of us who were involved and who know the people who were involved, but a lot of it should make sense to a third-party reader too.
So here goes….
It all started when... we were on our way to Davis and five of us who all knew each other pretty well had decided to stay together there. That’s Aslam aka AZ, Karthik aka MS, Jag aka JD but better known as Jakkibad or Jugs or Jakki or Jag :P, Jeya Balaji (it is a guy btw :D) aka JB and yours truly aka AJ. All of us except MS departed on the Cathy Pacific on the 7th of September, with MS insisting to come a couple of days later on Sep 11th. Maybe he had ideas of blowing up the flight... :D. I thought I would be a mess before getting on the flight as it was the first time I was going away from home and that too for such a long time to a totally alien country. Surprisingly, the anticipation of what lay ahead outweighed the sorrow of leaving and I was actually happy to get on the flight.
Aslam's parents were accompanying us as they were going to visit their daughter in Seattle and they took the wonderful gesture of escorting us to Davis and helping us settle there before they left. So AZ took a seat on the flight with his parents and so it was only me, JD and JB with
consecutive seats. JD, whose messing up of simple things was to entertain us though the whole trip started his antics right there on the flight, when he filled in a simple immigration form on the flight which asked for details such as name, date of birth etc incorrectly, not once, not twice, but thrice. The airhostess was so exasperated with him, that the third time he asked for a new form, he told him she doesn’t have any more extra and he would have to explain to the immigration officer about it. That panicked expression on his face remains etched in my memory, before she told us she was joking. :P .
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Later that evening, AZ's family came down to our apartment to help us set up. His sister and mother set up the kitchen, unpacking all the vessels, provisions etc that we had brought. That itself was some doing, as each of us had planned and brought 12 kgs of stuff for common cooking. So between the five of us it was about 50 kgs of stuff. Plus Aslam's parents had got some stuff for us too. In the meantime, his bro-in-law took us out to Target for some basic shopping, getting us stuff like toilet papers, buckets, detergents etc and also got some vegetables etc from Safeway. The next day, he helped us open bank accounts, told us about the how things work in the US. His dad gave us really good tips on how to manage an apartment by ourselves etc. I am dedicating an entire paragraph to how AZ's folks helped us to settle down, as it’s the least I can do by at least acknowledging their efforts. If not for them, life would’ve been a hell in the first few days. Thanks to them, we were as well-settled as any American in a couple of days. THANK YOU if you’re reading this!
Even after a day, we didn’t feel the jetlag at all and we were wondering what all that fuss was about. We went to check out the gym in the apartment and checking-out turned into a working-out and we came out after an hour, feeling totally drained. So we thought we’ll take a short nap. And a short nap turned out to be 20 hours for me, JB and AZ and more than 24 for JD. And that too on the couch!!! AZ's folks were wandering in and out setting up the house as we were busy slumbering.
From the time we arrived, we were thinking of a cool name to call our gang. At that time, Yasmine akka looked at the stove in our apartment and exclaimed how lucky we were to get a gas stove which gives blue flames instead of a lousy electric stove. And we were like "Ah! That’s a cool name. So henceforth we are the BLUE FLAMEZ!!!". Thus the Blue Flamez were formed.
CHAPTER 1- The journey and the birth of the Blue Flamez
Aslam's parents were accompanying us as they were going to visit their daughter in Seattle and they took the wonderful gesture of escorting us to Davis and helping us settle there before they left. So AZ took a seat on the flight with his parents and so it was only me, JD and JB with
consecutive seats. JD, whose messing up of simple things was to entertain us though the whole trip started his antics right there on the flight, when he filled in a simple immigration form on the flight which asked for details such as name, date of birth etc incorrectly, not once, not twice, but thrice. The airhostess was so exasperated with him, that the third time he asked for a new form, he told him she doesn’t have any more extra and he would have to explain to the immigration officer about it. That panicked expression on his face remains etched in my memory, before she told us she was joking. :P ..jpg)
Also on the flight, when JB was sleeping, JD's prankster mind got the idea of placing paper bits on his half open mouth like a cigar. The stewardess had a good laugh, when she came to serve us something and she looked over at JB. Nice idea JD!!! Other than that, the flight was pretty uneventful. We watched a couple of movies and slept quite a bit.
We had a 4 hr changeover at Hong Kong, where we spent most of the time exploring the massive airport situated right on the ocean and also posing for the camera with "punny" poses such as these. Ahem ahem!!! (Our gesture is significant)
After a long flight which we didn’t find strenuous cos we had each other for company, we landed at San Francisco. After immigration and picking up our luggage etc, we were received at the airport by Aslam's sister Yasmine akka, her husband Harris and their lovely daughter, Safia. The 7 of us (4 of us plus three other girls from our college we knew who had taken the same flight- one of whom I have to step out of the way to mention was probably the most talkative gal I’ve ever come across in my life. Hope u re reading this, P'tha :P) boarded the taxi that we had pre-booked. We were all pretty excited as it was the first time in the US for all of us and we were all peeping out of the window to take in as much of San Francisco as our eyes could. All of us except… JB, who just slept through the whole journey. SLEPT!!! Inexcusable... For me it was doubly exciting, as the first city outside India that I saw was the huge San Francisco. :D. As we travelled north to Davis, we saw the skyscrapers vanish and a lot of barren land come into the picture and by the time we reached Davis, it was totally rural countryside scenery that we saw. We felt it was serene.
We got down at our apartment, Adobe at Evergreen and were received there by a guy from UCD GSP (Global study program) staff member, who helped us check into the apartment. We found the apartment really cozy. It was fully furnished, with couches, beds, desks, a fully equipped kitchen with a microwave, an oven, a dishwasher etc.
Later that evening, AZ's family came down to our apartment to help us set up. His sister and mother set up the kitchen, unpacking all the vessels, provisions etc that we had brought. That itself was some doing, as each of us had planned and brought 12 kgs of stuff for common cooking. So between the five of us it was about 50 kgs of stuff. Plus Aslam's parents had got some stuff for us too. In the meantime, his bro-in-law took us out to Target for some basic shopping, getting us stuff like toilet papers, buckets, detergents etc and also got some vegetables etc from Safeway. The next day, he helped us open bank accounts, told us about the how things work in the US. His dad gave us really good tips on how to manage an apartment by ourselves etc. I am dedicating an entire paragraph to how AZ's folks helped us to settle down, as it’s the least I can do by at least acknowledging their efforts. If not for them, life would’ve been a hell in the first few days. Thanks to them, we were as well-settled as any American in a couple of days. THANK YOU if you’re reading this! Even after a day, we didn’t feel the jetlag at all and we were wondering what all that fuss was about. We went to check out the gym in the apartment and checking-out turned into a working-out and we came out after an hour, feeling totally drained. So we thought we’ll take a short nap. And a short nap turned out to be 20 hours for me, JB and AZ and more than 24 for JD. And that too on the couch!!! AZ's folks were wandering in and out setting up the house as we were busy slumbering. Another instance where we had a laugh at JD's expense was on the next day. Harris was setting up the wifi modem that we had bought and he tried searched something to test the internet on Microsoft live search and it didn’t work. JD came forward and advised him to use Google instead, further adding Microsoft is lousy. Harris looked at him in the eye and said "I work for Microsoft in Seattle". JD was pretty flustered.
From the time we arrived, we were thinking of a cool name to call our gang. At that time, Yasmine akka looked at the stove in our apartment and exclaimed how lucky we were to get a gas stove which gives blue flames instead of a lousy electric stove. And we were like "Ah! That’s a cool name. So henceforth we are the BLUE FLAMEZ!!!". Thus the Blue Flamez were formed.
Now that we were well-settled, AZ's folks left for Seattle and the next day MS arrived and with him the entire batallion of girls and guys from SRM, who were going to be with us in US (:D).
(TO BE CONTINUED....ITS GONNA BE LIKE A MEGA-BLOGPOST UPDATED EVERY WEEK. PLENTY OF PARTS [EXPECTING ABOUT 20 SUCH] COMING UP...)
NEXT POST ON MONDAY, 10TH AUG
