Saturday, July 31, 2010

First impressions

I have been in the US for two weeks now and haven't yet posted a blog entry which is weird. So I thought I will put in some words here.

First thing that surprises me in the US is the size of the parking lot :) ... If it were Bangalore , I am sure some one would have build an apartment over there :)...

Secondly, the food habits in this country are way too weird for me. They eat a lot of junk (pizza, burger, bagel , donuts, cheese and lots of it ). Yesterday, a colleague and I went to watch INCEPTION and ordered some nachos with wine for dinner. We were surprised to see the amount of cheese spread on those nachos. I barely ate a few.

Third , the approach of the people. Everyone is so nice and courteous. Everyone asks how are you ? / how are you doing today? but I don't think they really care for a response from you. For ex: we stayed at Marriott over the weekend when we went to Washington DC. The receptionist asked us how we were doing. Washington was burning that weekend and we said the same. She didnt even bother to respond and asked us if we had a booking. :-) ... strange.

The organization is highly meticulous and people follow processes as if it were a crime to break rules. Traffic signals are respected. Bills are given for every dollar spent and queue is maintained. How often have we seen people jumping ahead of the queue in India or rather we ourselves have jumped ahead.

People enjoy their life. Traveling over the weekend to another city isnt an uncommon thing.

Credit checks / criminal background checks for housing surprises me. But I guess it is for the good.

And finally, this is a country of various nationalities ... sounds paradoxical , but I work with Indians , Americans,a Slovekian, a Brazilian who are all actually PRs or citizens here. That I think is a great thing about this country , you are accepted if you are useful (sounds a bit like matrix :-) )...

1 comment:

Vee said...

first impressions! some positive feedback here..
about the food habits: that's their food, and that's what they eat. i don't think calling it junk is appropriate. cos, u will soon get used.