Golden Gate and Alcatraz.

 Saturday 10th June, 2023 my 40 year dream turned in to reality.

In 1979, I read "The Golden Gate" by Alistair MaClean. The book is a plot to blow the Golden Gate Bridge if ransom is not paid by terrorists, when the American President and his 2 Arab guests were visiting the bridge. Such a masterful storytelling, made an impression on my as a 16 year old, that I decided that I should visit the place. While I had been to California a few times, I never got a chance to visit San Francisco taking detour and visit the most famous land mark which is about 85 years old now. Now that I am here finally, we decided to visit the Bridge and see its beauty. It was an amazing experience of walking about 3 miles both ways and enjoying the scenery of Hills, San Francisco skyline and skyscrapers besides looking at Alcatraz a mile away. Ofcourse, the weather was cold, windy, muggy sunnyless day. (It turned better after 2pm). Be aware that with road repairs etc. you may need to walk both ways which is about 3.5 Mile affair. 

I picked the Golden Gate book from the old booksellers shop a couple of hours before leaving Bangalore as I wanted to take pictures with the book at the famous site. 

We also visited the Alcatraz Federal prison which was closed in 1963 and is now a tourist spot. The 2 hrs spent were amazing. The audio tour (with electronic devices recreates the prison days!!)..... Glad we could make it. Alcatraz had notorious Al Capone had its guest besdies 3 in famous who made good of their escape on 11th June 1963 which the movie "Escape from Alcatraz" was filmed. 

Week 3 USA. (1st to 8th June 2023).

 

Relatively quiet week. The weather is getting better with more sunshine, of course, the maximum temperature never above 20C  which is cold by our standards!! Nice feeling is Sunset at 9pm, which gives a long day to work things and hit bed later and still be up at 4am sharp as usual ! 

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1. I am getting used to heating stuff in an induction coil stove. Unlike Gas, where switching off supply cuts fuel, here the residual heat makes things heat up for good 3-5 min more, which I found out the hard way by letting out milk boil over after I switched off supply, and moved to do other things without noticing what is happening to milk.
2. I find Ergonomic mat on the kitchen floor an awesome one, giving comfort to the feet while cooking. I plan to order one back home when I land.

Visited Google, Apple complex. Lalitha is a proud mom when Shravan explains a few intricacies .

1. 
   
   At Apple visitor center, cafeteria (it is a replica of Apple Park one)
   Virtual reality of Apple Park thro Ipad @Apple visitor center. 
   
   Shravan took us to a mini golf course, 18 holes, (each hole course about 75 feet long with upslope, water,etc) took us 90 min on a bright sunny hot day. Interesting experience, Lalitha beat me by one stroke. Sangeetha was the winner. 

There is a 4 mile walking trail (For walking and cycling only)... at Foster City.  Great feeling to do a brisk walk without any worries of vehicles. 

Lalitha was given a tour of Costco, Target, Safeway for buying stuff and the massive scale of storage. The Costco at Sunnyvale is good 150,000 Sq ft floor space. The pack sizes are humongous even by American standards. Lalitha's first impression is Indian food stuff/ spices seem to be of better quality and cleaner than back home.! (She is amused by the soilless Coriander (Cilantro) and potato in shelves! and Carrot as sweet as sugar). 

It was great catching up again with Kirti Shravan (Shravan's namesake) here at SFO. Shravan and Kirti were batchmates at Columbia, New York and shared @Manhattan, an Apartment as well as tough Covid times. Kirti is from Bangalore & they connected before leaving for the USA in 2019. Kirti now pursuing Ph.D. at NY. 

Visited ISKCON and Kamakshi community center, Santa Clara. The Indian community's spiritual deep dive and involvement is amazing to see! 

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Week 2 USA (Los Angeles).

 1st June 2023.

Key Highlights:-

Los Angeles Visit 4 days over Memorial Day weekend. We got the feel of a traffic Jam towards LA, took 2 hrs for 40 miles (until San Jose) and then 4 1/2 hrs for the further 330miles to LA from Cupertino. Eshwar and Shravan- awesome driving and on the way back Sangeetha did 100 miles, cool...! 

1. AirBNB apartment, well maintained stacked apartment (3 bed/2 bath) with coffee tea etc, worth the money we paid for 4 nights. Interesting experience of a non hotel stay at a place unknown. (More so we arrived at midnight not knowing where Apt is!?)
2. Hollywood Sign, Hollywood walk of fame, Madame Tussauds @ Hollywood. I visited Tussauds in London 1994 so it was a kind of revisit to see a changed world. Ofcourse, here it is all about entertainment.
3. Griffith Observatory, -2 shows the origin of life and the universe..! Amazing. The narrator, Steve Cooperman, reminded me of our Siddarth Kak whose narration was so awesome when I visited the Nehru Planetarium in Bombay 1979.
4. Universal Studios 9am to 7pm. So many rides, which put you in shock and awe.. Some are really scary. The WaterWorld show was a stunning end to the day with so many stunts.! Also ending the day with a snap with Marilyn Monroe, She said let's "pose for the Paparazzi". ! 
5. National History museum, Battleship Iowa,and Santa Monica Beach. (Battleship Iowa was one Truman, Churchill, Stalin met for world peace!)
6. Car parking can take hours, as we found out Sunday to park our vehicle, we lost 2 hrs almost during the 4 days.! Also ordering and eating food takes a lot of time. Oh yes, amazing food (Indian, Mediterranean, and Mexican.... 1 hr is the minimum needed for lunch/dinner!)
7. Great to catch up with my Monsanto Colleague, Clyde Roe after 18 years, at Irvine CA, (60 miles from Rosemead, where we stayed!). I had to miss meeting my Honeywell Colleague, George Kohn, who had a situation and excused himself, an hour before our meeting..! 
8. Spending time at Radha's place this week at Foster City. So many water bodies feel a lot colder than Cupertino,(Just 30 miles away!).

General Takeaway of USA, so far for me.. Amazingly after 10+ visits I am getting to see real home life in America...(Shravan was always commenting, "Dad you have seen American life from Hilton/ Marriott or through Mercedes Benz rental pick up"!!!)

• Corporate discounts for anything and everything is just amazing, so much potential $ savings! Your Badge helps save so much. Oh, yes speedy access at a higher price, like entry into Indian temples! 
• Driving in India is equal to cooking in America, kitchen spaces just don't exist as much as road space doesn't exist in India. I am struggling and bang myself against one object or other or drop things when it trips against obstacles. 
• America is a discount / sale nation! Everything is offered on Discount /sale at a lesser price!! You give your Cell Phone # you get discounts... (It gave on my Indian Cell #). All on credit cards, guy was stumped when I offered Cash for parking slot 30$.! (2 hrs parking!).... 
• We could never come across 1 pound packs of stuff; all are 2, 5, 10,20 pound packs!! So store a lot, consume a lot and get fat!! hahahhah! 

Regards

Karthik.

With Marilyn Monroe Live!!!