Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Hello, Amreeka!


As you can guess from my blog name, I've just recently moved to Sunnyvale, CA. This blog would be a sort of a journal for all my experiences in this new city. As is the case with any new place, I'm sure there are lots of nice places to be explored, cuisines to be tasted and friends to be made. I'm really excited about this new phase of my life and look forward to enjoying this experience thoroughly.

Let me start at the beginning-my flight. unlike the two earlier visits, this time I flew with British Airways instead of Cathay Pacific. And needless to say I regretted it deeply. The hospitality, food and service was way below the high standards of Cathay. And there was an hours delay which was even more annoying. Anyways seeing V after what was 36 days but seemed like 36 years was well worth all the trouble. To my surprise, I was greeted with this-a very sweet welcome indeed!


We then left for our new apartment. I was almost sure the excitement and curiosity of seeing it would kill me before I actually reached there. I'm glad I managed to survive. One look at the house and I knew that I was in love. I'll do a separate post with more details about the house with pictures. For now it's enough to say that my new house is my new favorite place on earth :)


2 days of jet lag followed but that was in no way stopping me from heading out. On Saturday, we decided to go to Target and buy a few household items. (I had already made list of these things when I woke up at 3 am and had nothing else to do.) Before I proceed I must mention that both V and I don't drive. So we depend on the public transport which isn't very great. The buses, unlike in India, run on very limited routes, have a frequency of one bus per hour and the last bus runs only until 7 pm or so. This is going to be a very big challenge for me as I have great plans of going around the city but have no reliable mode of transportation. Having established this important fact, let me move forward. We took the bus to Sunnyvale Caltrain station and were pleasantly surprised to see a Farmers market at Murphy avenue. Now I had never seen a farmer's market in the US. Sure I'd been to many such markets in India but in US it was a new thing for me. Unlike the supermarkets and malls that i was used to seeing in US, this was very impressive. the entire place was buzzing with activity-farmers selling fresh fruits and vegetables, people dressed in colorful, summery clothes, street artists playing the guitar, banjo and singing. it was a very lively scene. Unfortunately, i did nt have my camera to capture this beauty.


On either side of the street were numerous restaurants, cafes and bars-food for every taste, pocket and preference. A little ahead was a row full of street food-again variety at its best. We decided to check out an Italian restaurant-forgot the name just as the food was quite forgettable.


Shopped around for a bit in Target and then my jet lag kicked in. We went back home and that was pretty much the end of Saturday.


Sunday we went to Ikea-ofcourse we took the train and a bus to get there. The place is every bit worth the hype surrounding it. I had already seen the catalogue but was blown away by the designs and furniture arrangements. I noted down all the stuff I wanted and decided we would come back later when we have a proper mode of transportation. The place although very crowded was a heaven especially for anyone who is setting up a new home. Every piece of furniture made me think 'Oh, this would really be nice to have.'

Post the weekend, I haven't gone out much except for some grocery shopping at Bharat Bazar at the corner of the street. I was very happy to find dosa batter and this is what I made for dinner last night-yummy!


This is already a very long post. I'll save the rest for my next blog.

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