Polish Affair in Slough

I am at a Polish restaurant in Slough called Aromat Kuchni. 

Last night I had landed in the UK and had taken a taxi to my hotel in Slough. It was a nice drive on the iconic black cab and the weather was pleasantly *freaking cold!* The Holiday Inn Express hotel was nice and I had promptly fallen asleep at the first sight of a well made bed, thanks to my economy class seats. I don't ask for much but business class travel is one thing I will have one day! 

The day went with a bit of shopping, exploring and a siesta and by 5pm I was hungry, for food and some human contact. 

There is nothing like a nice homely welcoming food joint to get the spirits high.🏠

 And this Polish restaurant felt like it fitted the bill. There were fast food options like mc Donald's but a quaint restaurant can't be replaced...It's the easy atmosphere of people laughing real, big belly laughs, which attracted me to this place. That, and people talking in Polish, or is it Polski?

The ambiance was nice and homely. Wooden table, embroidered table clothes, a nice small candle lit really brought the home atmosphere. 

The menu had a wide variety from vegetarian soups, chicken dishes and a few Polish pork and beef based dishes. I decided to seek help and ask the waitress to suggest. It's always best to tell what meat you eat. 

"I eat all meat." I had said.

She suggested the house specialities of beef roulade or pork knuckle or even the breaded chicken. I had heard of the pork knuckle somewhere else and thought I must try it. So I asked for it.

It's big, fat pork joint with mashed potatoes, a sour cabbage salad, mustard dip and a tangy, strong tasting white paste. The orange juice felt it would go nicely with it. 

When the pork knuckle came after an eager wait of about 20 minutes it looked amazing! 

It was a giant portion of pork sitting over a bed of cabbage salad accompanied by two scoops of mashed potato and dips. 

The first slice of the knife on the pork told me how nicely this meat was cooked! The fat was gooey and the meat came off beautifully from the bones! Easily it was one of the best cooked pork I have ever tasted. 

The pork was probably brined as it had a salty after feel and went really well with the sweetish mashed potato. The cabbage salad was a tangy (I wouldn't call it sour). There were two dips, a mustard dip and another white one. The mustard dip was nice and strong. The white dip was pungent and a bit strong for my taste. I decided to focus on the rest of the items. 

The orange juice gave good company until I was completely full with about half of the pork still on my plate. 

( sorry if the image is too gross... 🤔)

I was, graciously offered a take away and I completed my meal with a stomach filled with delicious Polish pork and a heart filled with some good, convivial surroundings.👍

 Do visit this place if you are in Slough. 

Van Gogh Village

I am in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. And as the powers have it, I have landed up in Nuenen, also called the Van Gogh Village. Apparently this is where Van Gogh created most of his masterpieces. I dont know much about art, but yea, I do know that Van Gogh was one big bugger in the art field. The past few days have been very cold and temperatures have plummeted to -3 degrees, which was also one of my firsts! But as I woke up today, the temperature is a nice 5 degrees (yea, funny how relativity works), the sun was out for the first time since I landed 3 days back (and boy, is it a strong sun!) and as I saw the lanes flanked by autumn leaves and all pine trees, I knew the reason why this place creates artists. Its FREAKING BEAUTIFUL AS HEAVEN! And its the natural beauty of this place, plus the intention of the people to preserve it, that is so worthy of respecting. I am indeed blessed to be here. Thank you God, for creating this beautiful creation...and making me aware of it. Thank you..

San Bruno with Solitude

San Bruno with Solitude

Life brings in moments periodically wherein we find ourselves distinctly alone. When even though you see your friends around you, you still feel that you are the only one you can really talk to right now. Has it happened to you? I am sure it has. the people you see around yourself begin to look like strangers.

Today I woke up and found myself in an empty house. Sid and Ananta (my roommates) had left last night and I was not aware of it. Suddenly the realization dawned on me that I actually am my only constant companion.

I remembered the day when I landed in the US with a suitcase, a bag and one phone number. When I got into Super 8 motel and gradually started my life from there. 5 months have passed since then, and I had nearly forgotten how it feels like to be alone.

Maybe because I was always surrounded by some friends. Once again I feel like the person who had stepped out of the Cathay Pacific airbus onto the tarmac of the San Francisco airport 5 months back. Its a good thing. The relations I had built are dissolving away gradually. We had a gang of guys, it dissolved. Then there were people who filled in and they went away as well. There were times spent travelling and just helping each other out in a country where all of us were new and unsure. And then, one-by-one, you move away on your own road. Its you at the end who stands beside yourself.

Rain in San Bruno

It is winter time now (Dec- 2008) and It has started to rain in San Bruno. The whole city is washed to a degree which is hardly imaginable.

The first thing which struck me on the first morning in San Bruno was the clarity of the air here. It almost took me quite some time to get used to the total clarity of everything. Its something one has to experience first hand and something which definitely cant be expressed by the limited writing ability which I have been blessed with. It is beautiful. The beauty of this land is extremely inexpressible, just like beauty of any form usually is.

Its late in the evening and it had rained in plenty today. The air outside is fresh with cool moisture and a sweet breeze is blowing through the pine forest which surrounds this place. I would like to roam amidst nature after a fresh shower and feel the monsoon breeze inspire songs and poetry in me. I have "Ustaad Amjad Ali Khan Sahab's- Romancing the Rains" playing on the background and it is one of those preciously perfect moments in my life which I am so blessed to have.

San Bruno

Its been some time here in San Bruno now and I have settled down in a strange way. Let me speak about San Bruno first.

San Bruno is another city in the Bay area of California. Its called the bay area because it is situated in a bay in the Pacific ocean. It is situated towards the south of San Francisco and falls under the district of San Mateo. Other cities in and around this place are San Francisco, Milbrae, Fremont, Foster City and Daly city to name a few. San Bruno's zip code is 94066 (just in case you ever wanted to know :P).

America is a strange country. It truly is especially so for an Indian like me. Why? It's strange because it seems too perfect to be true. For me its more like living in a country which I have seen only in my
Archie's comic books. The hamburger joints (like Pop's Shoppe) are everywhere. Some common hamburger joints here are Burger King, Wendy's and Carl's Jr. Cold drinks are called soda (again this takes me to my Archie's reading days).

I see kids on the footpath (kerb) riding their skateboards. It's surreal!

I managed to get myself an apartment under lease for 6 months along with a roommate (Rohit, who is also on an onsite requirement from Infosys like myself) in San Bruno. My apartment complex has the following address:

Apt#: H12,
3815, Susan Drive
San Bruno

 - and it overlooks the Pacific Ocean.

It's on top of the San Bruno mountain and is quite frequently covered with fog and cloud. So I can
look down on the Pacific Ocean while walking through the clouds. Talk about being surreal.

Apart from the initial challenges of getting through the legal formalities in a new country, new project and new everything, there is also the confusing challenge of coming in terms with the "opposite" way of doing things in America.

Its like everything HAS to be done the opposite way the world does it. The switches turn on when you flip it up. The plug sockets are an upside down "therefore" sign instead of the "therefore" sign like arrangement in  India. Cars drive on the exact opposite way we do in India. The flush knob is on the left side whereas it is on the right side in India (if you had cared to observe). And off course, they follow the left hand drive in cars.

Talking about cars, they are everywhere! And not one looks like the one before it. In my one week stay in San Francisco I must have seen all the makes of all the car companies in the world from GMC (general motor company) to mitsubishi, nissan, hummer, mercedes, chevrolet, corvette, infiniti, honda, hyundai, ford, chrysler, ferrari, volkswaggen and everything in between, left and even right. I must have seen at least
ten different models of harley davidson bikes. I tell you they are a real pain with their engine sound more of a noise than a heart warming vroom. Just imagine an Enfield Bullet with a damaged silencer and amplify it 10 times. They just breaks the wonderful silence and calm that this country seems to be filled with.

There are a lot of sport bikes and I have seen guys do the wheelie more than once. Its more like a country
of wannabes. Everyone wants to be the next TV celebrity. Everyone is like an American Idol contestant.

But they are friendly people.

I find most of the guys on the street quite friendly and courteous. And the most friendly people are the cab drivers. You can really have a nice heart to heart talk with the cab guys and they seem to really like talking to
you as well.

Public Transport

I use SamTrans. Thats the Bus service here in San Bruno. And the current "employee of the month" is a desi guy called Ramkrishna Singh (quite proud I was when I saw that too). The buses are really big and comfortable and they follow the times religiously. When the bus is suppose to be there at a stop at 3:17 pm (according to the bus route map), it will be there at 3:17 pm.

You got to tug at a yellow wire which runs along the bus roof if you want the bus to stop at the next bus stop. When you tug at it, a sign "Stop Requested" appears on a display in front of the bus driver. When you enter the bus, you feed the bus fare in exact dollar bills or quarters into a machine and the driver will punch some data onto a device in front of him. Its quite a lot of razzmatazz if you ask me. However it is very efficient and it keeps the noise level of shouting at the driver to stop to a minimum zero.

The roads and the drive amidst alpine woods through the hills in San Bruno is something to die for, you can take my word for it. San Bruno is beautiful. It seriously is.

Shopping at Sears

You know you have come to America when you have bought something at Sears. Its a huge store selling clothes items. I got myself a jacket and a T-Shirt. Then we went to Target to buy our house groceries and
had a lunch at Burger King. So you cant get more american than this!

Currently I am in the process of applying for my SSN and phone number. So after that I can be more adventurous in my tours and travels of Uncle Sam's backyard.

Till then Hastala Bye Bye Baby!!!

First sight of San Francisco

From Airport to some hotel in SF

The flight was uneventful. As we approached San Francisco the view from the flight was awesome. I took a couple of pictures from the flight which will go down on my blog. :)

After entering the Airport and finishing off the formalities and collecting my baggages, I was left with only one task- to find a place to go. I was moving ahead with what I would call the traveller's instinct towards a billboard where they were advertising the hotels nearby the airport. I chose one that looked less pretentious in a dollar saving mode. It was called The Westin El Rancho Inn in a city called Milbrae which is about 2 miles from the airport. The fare was $89 post taxes with complementary breakfast and a king size bed. It was good enough for me, but even then I had the strange lurking inside which said, "Dude, someone is ticking you off your money. You could have found a similar room at a much lower rate and closer to San Bruno. This is a shit deal".

Anyways I took it up and told them that I would pay by cash and they would send the hotel shuttle to pick me up from the airport. The driver told me to come to some place I couldn't understand properly. All I could make out was that I had to go to the Departure level and after that there were
incoherent words like "island....red kerb". So with the traveller's instinct in full throttle I made my way to the Departure level which is at level 3 in SFO. I reached the lot and there were areas marked there for all the airlines. So I took a seat under "Cathey Pacific".

Well to cut a long and uneventful story short, I waited there for quite sometime and later discovered that I had to cross the road to something called the "Middle Island" which is a strip of footpath-ish (kerb-ish) construction with the kerbs painted in stripes, red etc. The red striped kerb part was for hotel courtesy shuttle. Ok! So I made it. The shuttle came, and the driver Fernando (a mexican with a really cool physique and sun-glasses; looked cool and I am NOT being gayish, but yea I appreciate what is deserving) helped me with the baggages. He took me to the El Rancho where I lugged my 21.3Kg suitcase, 9.12Kg backpack and 5kg Laptop bag.

I was suppose to give a dollar to Fernando for handling my baggage but I did not have any change on me. So when he took off my suitcase I told him honestly that I did not have change and I am very sorry. He was very nice and said "No worries man...your intentions are good" and laughed out a wonderful laugh. I thanked him again and shook his hand and he "God bless you"-ed me with another big laugh and I showed him a thumbs-up and entered the El Rancho reception.

I was greeted by a guy called Marco at the counter who checked up my reservation. He enquired for my credit card and fed in the data to find out that my ICICI credit card does not work. So I would not get any reservation. Wonderful!!!! I enquired if I could make a phone call and Marco told me that there is a dollar store across the street where there could be a pay phone. Wonderful!!!

So I lugged 35Kgs of baggage across the street and finally made it to the Dollar Store which apparently was...CLOSED! oh yea you got that....C-L-O-S-E-D. I enquired at the neighboring shoe store (Red Wing Shoes) and Carter (the store manager) told me that they had closed down sometime near last thanksgiving. I asked him if there is a pay-phone somewhere nearby and then he did something really amazing!

He asked me to wait around and he will get back to me after dealing with his current customer (who gave me a shouting "Good luck" as he left. Comforting as hell I tell you). So Carter asked me what's wrong and I told him my credit card did not work and I am stuck and I have to make a phone call. Carter asked me if it is a local call and he offered his cell phone to me. I called up Suneel (my reporting manager) who asked me to come over to Super 8 in San Bruno where I can get the reservation made without my credit card. I thanked Carter like I had never thanked anyone in my life!!! And to top it all he even called me up a taxi. He had a friend called Brian in the VIP Taxi thing who came down to pick me up. It would be some time before Brian would come over, so I looked around the place trying to find something to buy from Carter as a way of showing my gratitude. It occured to me that I dont have slippers. So Carter suggested me some slippers which he had from Christmas. He over ordered the stuff. They looked really wonderful and I bought a pair of slip-ons for 29 $ pre-tax (which was 49 $ previously, Carter threw in a 20 $ discount as off-season sale). They felt like a heaven and became my first purchase in the USA.

Brian came after some time and Carter told him about my story. Brian was just as helpful as any other person I had met in the USA so far. He lugged my baggages to his car and drove me to Super 8 which was like 5 mins drive from Carter's shop. We talked about the weather and everything and it was nice. He helped me with the luggage once again when we reached the Super 8. He gave me his card and we shook hands and parted.

A pretty young lady came to the reception and my bet is that she is a Gujrati. She did my reservation and I went to my room. As I was leaving for my room I overheard her saying over the phone her name was "Nilam".

So yes, she is Indian. This Super 8 motel is managed by some person by the name P.Patel. And is licensed under "Nilam pvt ltd" or something (which I saw on a display in the reception). Anyways, I made my way to my room. It was room # 212 at the Super 8.

Room # 212, Super 8 Motel
The room is awesome! A nice, big, soft and springy double bed (apparently this room is for a single person). There is a big TV (which shows only 2 channels though), a microwave, a coffee-maker, an A/C, an iron and an iron-board. It is very comfortable. I freshened up and changed into some shorts and t-shirts and t`hought would grab a nap. It was around 5:30 pm in SF. I thought I would wake up by 8 and go for dinner. I slept and when I woke up it was 12:30 at night!!!! WHAT!!! 12:30! How could I have slept 7 hours??!!! It felt like a couple of hours only...!!! And now its 2 am and I am wide awake and all charged up.

...I just wonder...if this could be the jet-lag. Maybe not...I was tired after all... I hadn't slept much in the last 24 hours (even though the concept of time has been murdered very convincingly- I reached SF at 1:30 pm on 17th June, when I had boarded the flight to SF from Hong Kong at 4:30 pm on 17th June. I reached before I took off. There you go!).

Whatever it is, I say it has been an awesome start in the United States of America!!! A bloody good start. I am sure the remaining part of the stay would be better.

Hong Kong Sights & Sounds

Hong Kong Sights & Sounds

Right now I am in the Hong Kong airport. How do I feel? Its pretty cloudy today. Don't know if that's the normal weather here. The view from The Cathay Pacific flight as it circled over Hong Kong was amazing. It was my first view of a foreign land. This place has a different history, a different culture, a different life altogether...suddenly, I have stepped out of India! So what did I do first thing in Hong Kong airsport? Went straight to the gate from where my next flight to San Fracisco would start its boarding. Once I reached gate# 61 I went straight to the rest room to freshen up.
I am writing this blog from the lobby of the airport and I am waiting for my flight announcement. The flight is scheduled to take off at 16:25 Hong Kong time. I have taken a few snaps of the flight I would be boarding and also the cloudy overcast skyline with the green mountains. Reminds me of Assam.

First Sight of Hong Kong
As I had mentioned earlier the first sight of Hong Kong from the flight was really wonderful. We were circling over the Hong Kong airport above the Pacific ocean. The ocean is green in color and as if keeping the theme right, Hong Kong is very green. It is a port city (state/country..whatever) and yes there were lot of oceanic activities going on. The view of small speed boats racing over the ocean leaving a white mark in its wake was simply artistic. I was at peace at once. This was my kinda weather and this was my kinda geography. I am yet to have an opinion about the people in Hong Kong because I have not got a chance to interact with them They seem pretty friendly, mostly keeping to themselves or with their friends. Which is like anywhere else, which in fact, translates to how human beings are mostly. It gives me a strange sense of security and control.

Inside the Airport
The airport is very much like Shamshabad International Airport. The vast expanse of runways, taxi-ways, different international airlines landing and taking-off...its the typical international scene. People in Hong Kong speak Cantonese. So most of the announcements are in Cantonese as well apart from English.

Loo View (This is the serious part)
Yes I went to the loo to freshen up like any other normal human being and the interesting thing which I witnessed (which I have not seen anywhere else till now) is, there is a dispenser besides the commode which dispense Disinfectant. You are supposed to spray the disinfectant on a tissue paper and wipe the toilet seat before using it.
Even while entering the departure "bay" the security people checking my boarding pass had rubber surgical gloves on. What I am trying to get to here is Hong Kong being a busy international airport is at a very high rist of being infected of virus. Epidemics like SARS and bird flu which had broken out recently had its impact on Hong Kong. The hygeine level may be higher in Hong Kong then any other place because of its susceptibility to infections as history has shown.

Shopping
There are numerous duty free shops here and not to mention many designer showrooms. Right in front of me is a GUCCI showroom. Besides that there are designer perfume displays, computer accessories show room, wines and liquors, cigarettes and refreshment bars. I think I shall buy something as a souvenir.

My Souvenir
I got myself 10 USD worth of Hong Kong dollars. Today's exchange rate is 1 USD = 7.2 Hong Kong dollars. Anyways my flight is scheduled now, so I shall get back with more experiences.