Boston..

"I think I'll go to Boston...
I think I'll start a new life,

I think I'll start it over, where no one knows my name,

I'll get out of California, I'm tired of the weather, ...

I think I'll go to Boston,
I think that I'm just tired
I think I need a new town, to leave this all behind...
I think I need a sunrise, I'm tired of the sunset,
I hear it's nice in the Summer, some snow would be nice... "

-Augustana

To SFO: 1 hr 15 minutes

1 hour and 15 minutes to fly 300 miles seems ridiculous. However, the Embraer Brasilia EMB-120 endeavoured to do just that. It is an extremely cramped 14 seater plane (smaller than Air Deccan, if that can be believed). A massive football player built person could not fit into the seat at all. His legs were constantly against the front seat. The air-hostess gracefully moved him up to the first seat where there was more leg-space. A passenger travelling to France who heavily overpaid for going over the 50 lb. limit replaced him next to me. The 1 hour 15 minutes passed agonizingly slowly. Landing however, was a nice experience. We were flying over water till the last moment. I thought we might even land on water, but the land started appearing in time, and we touched down with minimum fuss.

To BOS: 5 hr 24 minutes

An overnight flight in the same country. After eating dinner in the excellent San Fransisco airport, I had to run to catch the flight. As usual, I got a middle seat on the plane. They were screening a movie on the big screen - I forget which because I slept through most of it. My neighbour, a typical Californian slept through the whole flight, and woke up only to adjust his guitar in the overhead bin. A rather large eyed priest sat on the other side reading religious passages throughout. I gave up on trying to read and slept pretty soundly.

MIT:

The next thing I remember was the air hostess welcoming me to Logan International Airport. I got off, and we decided against a costly cab. Boston has an excellent public transportation system, so we took the T. That's the name for the underground in Boston. Buying tickets through a plastic tap card is cheaper than buying a paper ticket. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority card was one of my first acquisitions. The T crossed the river Charles into Cambridge, MA. Cambridge is the home of MIT and Harvard. MIT is situated on the river Charles. The Charles divides Boston and Cambridge. Got off the T at Kendall square.

MIT has a blend of conventional and radical architecture with just as many old fashioned stately looking buildings as there are odd shaped slanty looking buildings. Though some have been declared as architectural marvels, most look odd. The Stata center is an odd-shaped futuristic looking building with a rail track passing underneath it! To me, the most interesting building was the Simmons dorm. Apparently inspired by a sponge, it's boxy and irregular shaped with 'pores' which are actually windows and completely randomly coloured.

A dome is most prominent in the MIT skyline. This is the Engineering Library, one of several libraries on campus. This is the dome where the famous MIT vs Caltech spat escalated, with the Caltech cannon being proudly displayed on the dome. How it was brought 3000 miles and hoisted on to such a high roof was a complete mystery. Similarly, the people of Boston were shocked at the sight of a police car on the roof of the dome with lights flashing.

Boston:

We went to the Boston Museum of Natural History that day. The iMax show was Alaska was my first experience of the iMax theater. My falling asleep mid-way probably had more to do with the 5 hours of sleep got on the plane the last night. Slept at McGregor house that night. An undergraduate dorm in MIT was the first experience of an American dorm. The shower, interestingly does not have any door and it is separated from the rest of the common bathroom by two shower curtains. It seems surprising that in a co-ed dorm there is no door to the shower, but it was shrugged off as commonplace by the residents.

Next day was Boston duck tour day. After lunch at Bertucci's, excellent brick oven pizzas, the Boston duck tour started at the Museum of Natural History. The tour is conducted in a WWII amphibious vehicle which eventually drives into the Charles and is a highpoint of the tour. The tour guide was excellent and kept us regaled throughout. We passed through the Boston Commons - a big park in the center of Boston, Beacon Hill and the so called 'Boston Brahmins' who live on Beacon Hill. Boston, being a historically significant place in the Independence of the USA had quite a few places of historic note which I've totally forgotten! Driving into the Charles was an exciting part of the trip, where the duck (amphibious vehicle) lived up to it's sea-worthiness.

The next day was the trip to downtown Boston. Downtown crossing is the hub of Boston's downtown area. Shops like Filene's basement offer excellent discounts on clothes. Tello's, another bargain place even had hilarious printed t-shirts featuring Looney Tunes characters in ghetto garb. A trip to Chinatown was made too. We tried a special type of Chinese tea called Bubble Tea. I'm not sure if this originated in China, or whether it was an American Chinese concept. Basically, it's flavoured tea with tapioca 'bubbles' or called 'pearls' in the glass. It's rather strong, so exercise caution while drinking bubble tea. Tofu is an integral part of a vegetarian Chinese meal. Owing to my rather rabid dislike of tofu and other soy products, I had a spring roll at the Buddha's delight in Chinatown.

Ownership..

Here I was, about to take a right-turn onto 101-S heading downtown. Saw a police car in the rear view mirror and panicked. Changed lanes to the right and heard a horn - a crime! A horn blared in America? It's surprising that cars here are equipped with horns. Ah well, the worst case, I guess. The police car in my rear view mirror puts on his siren. I pull over sweating. "You nearly ran the other guy off the road there!" says the policeman. "Sorry officer, I was just trying to move over and give you space" I said. Can I see your driver's license? Showed him Karnataka state driver license. Policeman would have spat if it were India. He said, you need this, plus passport plus international driver license. Convinced him that this was enough (vindicated by California driver's handbook, which I keep preciously in the car dashboard). Switched places with the license holder and went on our way with a reprimand - no ticket. Memory still haunts me, and I take the car out very anxiously now.

There are two things that you need to own a car in America. Registration and insurance. Those are the two basic things at least. So to register a car in my name, I need the old title, VIN and previous registration if any. The form also requires me to fill in my driver license number. For insurance, I need registration. For registration, I need a license. For a license, I well, need a car! And pass the test. For insurance, I need a license too. It all depends on the license. And how will I get a license if I don't have a car? To get a license, the insurance of the car must be in your name, otherwise they won't let you even take the driving test. Vicious cycle? This is why rental car companies are so popular here. Not only is a car the preferred mode of transport for distances less than a 1000 miles, but also it is impossible to drive one unless I practice illegally and rent a car to pass the driving test.

Intermediate Solution: Pass the written driver's test. Get a temporary permit. Just like a learner's license in India, a licensed person has to be sitting next to you. Tested this one night at State Street, the policeman even smiled at me. Just getting over my morbid fear of the police constabulary. Even though my previous brush with the long arm of the law turned out to be extremely lucky. So, you can fill in this license number while registering the car. Insurance, on the other hand is a tricky thing anyway. Most insurance companies turn you away if you don't have a license, even a permit. Finally found one that allows me to buy insurance with the permit, but I need to pass the test in thirty days. Pressure is on.

I just passed the written test, getting 6 out of 36 wrong. That was a close one. Nearly lost 27$ and nearly had to do it all over again. Didn't study California Driver's Handbook that well apparently. Where should you look if the oncoming traffic has high beams? Apparently, the right edge of the road (left edge in India). Few questions about Driving Under the Influence (DUI). Influence can be either drugs or alcohol. I see newspaper ads about DUI lawyers every day advising what to do in case you're caught.

California has this weird Smog Certificate Law. A car from out of state could fail something like this - as Julie did. Running around, getting it fixed for a cost, is a hassle. The good thing is that the Smog Certificate is transmitted electronically to the DMV. Without a smog certificate, they will refuse to let you register the vehicle. So, at a considerable cost, got all spark plugs and wires changed. After all this, I took it back to the DMV. She had my number plates ready for me. 5XOT352. She said "Do you have tools to unscrew the number plate?" Didn't. Took tools from her gladly - two screwdrivers, a wrench, some pliers. With heavy heart, because I was instructed to save the number plates, removed it and surrendered it to the lady. Screwed in one of my own - but I didn't have enough screws - so I have only one number plate now.

All done now - registered in my name and got insurance. Julie is mine after five days of emotional wrangling and monetary loss (had to buy parking permits for five days). Why isn't every day President's Day? Thanks again R., S. and J. Can never thank you enough.

Teaching..

In India, some students stand up when a teacher enters the room. Some students stand up when a teacher talks to them. The buzzword is respect. Students are supposed to respect teachers. Or are they? Should respect be given by right or should it be earned? Doesn't matter - I don't want to question the concept. Would anyone in India, whichever school they are in, bring a sandwich and a coke to eat in class? Rare exceptions. What would you call a teacher in India? Sir? Madam? Uncle? Aunty? Ever imagined anyone could call a teacher an a**hole?

Here, things are a little different. Sandwich, cokes, bagels all go. When the teacher is teaching, the embarrassing sound of a coke can being opened up is common. In India, it was excitement to conceal a chocolate and eat it when the teacher was teaching. The sound of the chocolate wrapper was damped and giggles from the girls were stifled. Convenience is all that matters. If I have a class at lunch time, then I will eat lunch in the class. That's how it is.

Ever considered just walking out of class in India? Or entering a class without asking permission? College professors simply wouldn't allow that. Here, people walk in half an hour late, without any shame and calmly sit down. Or I should say skateboard into class half an hour late and sit down. As an aside, I was taken away by this fad, and was persuaded to buy a skateboard recently, at a throw-away price. Needless to say I could not afford protective equipment such as knee pads and arm braces. Therefore, after a rather lucky fall, it has been consigned to the back of my room.

To conclude, I confirm that the recipient of the a**hole remark was indeed yours truly! Most of my peers think that she was flirting with me. Though, my reaction was highly non-confrontational, I smiled at the offending girl and let the remark pass - as if she was saying "What a lovely day!" However, I wouldn't recommend this approach for the first time teacher. Just for the record, I was not offended at all, but to this day, I still cannot understand the cause for her frustration.

Snippets..

Shirts vs Skins: In California, soccer is played with one team wearing shirts and the other no shirts. Whenver I join the soccer match, I'm usually made a skin. Surprisingly, it is me that has the most hair on my chest of all the men there. I usually get a lot of weird looks, but I have become immune to that. My pants unfortunately are also usually falling off - the price to pay for starvation in an alien land.

Unusually, the men hesitate to take off their shirts when the women don't seem to have any problem doing so. It's the exact opposite of India. Of course, most of the men playing are Mexican. There is some exceptional South American talent on display with passing and movement of the highest calibre. However, understanding their language is quite tough. Shouts of "Middle" were misunderstood by me to be "Mero" which means Mere in Spanish. I further mistook this to be "Slow" so I kept slowing the pace of the game rather than whipping in a cross to the middle of the field. It didn't take me long to stop playing, quite predictably.

Wine Tasting: Robert Mondavi Winery (Yountville, CA) offers conducted tours of the establishment. The philosophy they use to market their wine is as follows: they do not sell in the open market. However, when visitors come to their establishment, they are allowed to buy them here. The exclusivity of these wines adds to the hype and their price. (Eric Cartman would have been proud) For this reason, it is considered a very good wine. Quality of wine depends on many factors. Hype is a very important one.

The tour however, excellently showcased the facilities, culminating in a round of wine tasting. Three wines were brought to us. A Fume Blanc, Pinot Noir and a Cabernet Sauvignon were allowed out of the vault and a crash course in how to taste a wine was delivered. Abstract terms like body of the wine and some others I've conveniently forgotten were discussed. So each wine was swirled in the glass, smelt and tasted. It might have looked bad if I gargled it or spat it back in the glass, so I had to swallow mine.

Later, we retired to an exclusive tasting room for a taste of some desert wines, the Muscat wine being a hit. Other wines such as the Sirrah and Zinfandel also went down well. The ladies seemed to particularly like the desert wines because they were fruitier and sweeter. After all the wine tasting, I still preferred the 2001 Cabernet we had with lunch from the Silverado wineyard across the street at Oakville.

Halloween: This is the occasion where most women take the opportunity to dress like a slut. It is accepted at this time of the year. Trick or treat and such customs are lost in university towns. DP is the most crowded this time of year. It is packed with people with barely place to move. Usually the most vibrant street in IV, DP lives up to it's reputation, providing a great place to party every Friday. Being next to the ocean, the location is perfect for all the parties. Usually podiums are erected on front yards, allowing aspiring rock bands a place to showcase their music. Music is all over the street as are also the smell of stale beer and weed. Shoes tied to electricity lines are more common here than in all of IV.

It is estimated that every day, five people get charged in IV for alcohol related transgressions, four are in DP. On Halloween, this number is scaled by a factor of at least twenty. Police are all over DP, trying to keep hooligans in check. A lot of people from out of town come in to DP on Halloween night or the weekend before to party. The men have a field day at Halloween. Social pleasantry breaks down to such an extent that shouts of "Did you grab my ass?" rent the air with alarming frequency. Slaps are doled out at a similar rate too. A lot of men wear cardboard boxes on the head with signs such as "Kissing Booth, 1$ a pop". Considering such a bold and desperate move, it's a surprise that they do get a few kisses, with most of the women being in an inebriated state anyway. Most men come to DP for Halloween to "hook up". The others, like me, just go for curiosity as a first-timer. If you're around at Halloween, don't miss DP at any cost.

Flight...

LAX to TPE: 15.5 hours over Kamchatka Peninsula, Okhotsk Sea.

I was sandwiched between a Chinese man and his daughter. They barely exchanged two words, the daughter content to play Nintendo games on the screen in front of her, while her father was watching Pirates of the Caribbean with Chinese subtitles. Only when the food came, was there communication between them. The father took his daughter's chicken with his fork. It was surprising, because the daughter had a strong American accent, and it didn't seem that the father could read English. In fact when my Indian Vegetarian meal arrived, he pointed at the Chinese menu asking what I was eating. It took fifteen hours for the daughter to talk to her father. A shrill "Papppaaa" shattered my belief that she was mute. When we finally got to Taipei and they were about to leave, I found out that they were from Virginia.

I was fairly content with my "Indian Vegetarian" meal. Singapore Airlines, I must say is the best airline I've ever flown, in terms of inflight entertainment and food. The order of hierarchy would be Singapore Airlines > British Airways > Air France > Thai Airways > American Airlines.

I watched four episodes of Two and a Half Men, I've become addicted to it. Also watched Million Dollar Baby and Omkara, snatching some sleep in-between. Singapore Airlines also has this new interactive language learning service. They attempt to teach you a new language by showing you pictures and giving the word in that language. I tried Hindi and Tamil. Karandi means spoon in Tamil. That was the extent of my learning.

TPE to SIN: 4.25 hours

At Taipei, I found myself sandwiched between two large Chinese women in Burkhas going to Mecca for Haj. I felt like an Oreo cookie (credit: Lisa Lampanelli). Dreading the situation, I luckily was able to convince them to switch so that I could get an aisle seat. During the flight, they refused headphones and had their purses with them all the time. When the lady at the window had to use the bathroom, it was a big pain. I went out followed by the lady in the middle seat and finally the lady at the window. The lady in the middle wanted to go too, but she stayed behind casting a watchful glance at their purses and at me (potential purloiner of women's hand-baggage). I took in "You, Me and Dupree" on the flight. The lady was constantly watching my monitor. Luckily heavy turbulence forced her to re-occupy her seat and I had to get up again to make way. A few minutes later, window lady comes along and we have to do the whole thing again! I decided not to watch any more movies or shows because I was constantly interrupted. Turned on some music in the new 80G iPod, which unfortunately I have to give away.

SIN airport : 8 hour layover

Took the free Singapore tour offered at the airport. Officially, I never entered Singapore. My passport was not endorsed. In fact it was impounded for the time I was in Singapore. Free boat ride from the quay ensued, taking in Mer-Lion statues and the skyline of Singapore's central business district. The four of us were quite tired at this point, happy to return to the airport for Singapore's most famous cocktail - the Singapore Sling and some Indian food at Kaveri. Browsed the shops for a while, toyed with the idea of getting a massage (S$10) or having a shower (S$8) or watching a free movie but did neither.

SIN to BLR: 4.25 hours

It's good to be home.

Party..

So there was this really fancy party at this fancy beachside downtown Hotel Radisson. The cocktails weren't free; champagne, beer and wine were. And there we were, two lost souls making no conversation with the rest of the table. The first aperitif was a glass of sparkling champagne. White Russians were abundant at six dollars a pop.

In the meanwhile, the next course was being readied. It consisted almost entirely of cheese. I believe the different varieties were Provolone, Swiss, Feta and Blue Cheese. There were some crackers too. Gulping down the champagne, we moved to red and white wine respectively. Considering we had paid a pittance (ten bucks) for this party, we had to make do with cheap chardonnay.

As in James Bond movies, uniformed waiters came around - serving hors d'oeuvres, sushi cakes, fried balsa fish and spinach puffs. My vegetarian friend and I sample the hors d'oeuvres, before later realizing the mushrooms had sausages on them. My friend goes to spit it out in the trash, while I urbanely swallow it with a gulp of cheap red wine.

Dinner was served. The main attraction was the ciabatta bread with olive oil and vinegar. A dish of beans in white sauce with fried onions didn't go down too badly either. An excellent cheesecake completed the evening for me as I struggled to finish my wine glass. Interestingly, the bar-man had filled my wine-glass to the brim, a social no-no.

After dinner, came the ballroom dancing. In name, at least. The fancy hardwood floor remained unoccupied for much of the evening. Only when popular songs such as "Mambo No. 5" (when my slightly inebriated friend suggested it had been performed by Amitabh Bacchhan) came on, was the crowd enthused to a degree. "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt evoked a mixed response from the crowd. The women in their black cocktail dresses danced in place, not so subtly hinting to their partners that they wanted to be on the dance floor. The men in their black ties, were having none of it. The young men, who had come stag denounced the song. For some strange reason, it was compared to Smallville, where the conversation moved on to Superman's age (apparently he looks 30 even though he's supposed to be in high school in that particular show).

I must devote a paragraph to inebriation and sobriety. The former seems like an excellent excuse to do absolutely anything you like. My friend almost asked a girl to take her stockings off (which might have been fairly pleasant, but not quite the right circumstances to do it, one felt). Luckily, sobriety prevailed and I was able to attract his attention for long enough in order to make him forget. In another case, he felt inclined to do Bhangra on the hardwood floor when soft romantic music was being played.

Christmas spirit was in the air. Gaily decorated trees were the rage all over the hotel. Sadly, mistletoe was absent throughout the establishment. As expected, most ladies were able to "persuade" their partners to join them on the dance floor. This unfortunately prevented most men from heading back to the bar to grab an after-dinner beer. Only the most resourceful men were able to do so.

It was time to head back. The revelry was over. Tales of drunken misdeeds were related, followed by vows never to drink again. To that, I say hah!