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!!!

USA Visit Week 1. (San Francisco).

 27th May 2023. 

We landed in San Francisco, on Saturday, 20th May via Dubai. We will be here for 50 days,(Due to Lalitha's coaching sessions back home, we need to be back early) with Shravan (Cupertino) and Radha (Foster City) 30 miles from each other (Radha lives near San Francisco Airport!). This is Lalitha's first visit outside India.! 

As of now, we have no plans of visiting anywhere outside California during this trip, as we want to spend time with children and enjoy the moment.

I plan to work weekly updates, as we see things here. My first,on a personal visit after dozens of visits on corporate, which would make seeing "The American Land" a lot different than charging everything to an AMEX Charge card as well as living in Hotels!!! 

Key Highlights:- (Week 1).

1. A -380 amazing aircraft. No noise, turbulence, very quiet. Emirates folks are very courteous. Good food, we didnt take our packed food... Gave to Radha and Shravan... The Lounge in Dubai, was world class, we got enough time for a good breakfast there!
2. Visited 2 Indian temples. Beauty is all spectrum of Hindu gods covered under one roof, to feel all divinity in one place.
3.  Apna Bazar ( Indian grocery shop - massive scale) 4 times, I am tired... People throng for free Indian masala tea... So many Indians are here as in Bangalore.
4. After 30 years I am eating leftovers (Indian dosa with sambar for breakfast, as nobody out there to give food away)
5. Shravan and Eshwar are awesome drivers...... Glad Shravan picked up driving.. !
6. We are able to walk a lot; a park is nearby.....
7. Visited Stanford University, great feeling, personally feel good to be inside Harvard and MIT (2001) and now Stanford.. 
8. We are on the way now to Los Angeles for Memorial day weekend travel ( Friday to Monday)...! 
9. Sunshine till 9pm... Sunrise 445am....

So far so good... We have mostly overcome Jet lag a lot. (Traveling west is never an issue)...

Karthik. 

Stop at Coalinga, CA on way to LA.

US Visa Interview Experience Madras Consulate (26-27th Sep).

I applied online for a US Visa – DS 160, on 9^th January 2021. After a couple of cancellations of visa appointments in these 20 months, I finally got a slot this week. I preferred a personal interview instead of DropBox for me, despite previous US visas (4 times issued before) as Lalitha had never been to the USA, so her physical presence was mandatory, so we decided to attend together.

 

All my previous visa interviews were one day affairs with Fingerprint/ biometrics done on Arrival at US Airports. This has now changed with a 2-day affair of First day being day for Biometrics at III party agency and second day being Visa interview at Consulate on Mount Road.It appears this process is a huge loss of personal productivity, with you not able to work anything else due to travel etc, as well as cost quite a bit as you need to spend at least 2 days at Madras. (Madras is the nearest option for 3 states covering 700 Kms).

 

Our appointment for Biometrics was, Monday 4pm ( We reached Madras by 11am to be on safer side). We were called in around 3pm. (We saw a trend online that they close the facility at 4pm so it is good to go early and call in early). The process was done in 15 min flat. The irksome aspect was that you are not allowed to wear a smart watch about which there was no intimation. (Mobile can be carried, switched off). I had to find a locker to keep safe and that took some time. They check documentation and do 4+4+ 2 (Thumbs) as a way to fingerprint and photo for biometrics.

 

Our US visa appointment was 12 Noon the next day, Tuesday, we arrived at 11am and were allowed in. Security check is minor as you are not allowed to carry anything other than papers. There are about 20+ windows for interviews. It is good to see Interview options exist for Indian languages. After waiting 20 minutes in line we were called.

 

Visa officer asked me the purpose of my visit and I explained. After a few more questions she approved the visa for both of us. The interesting aspect was when I said we plan to spend 3 months with my son at Cupertino, she responded “ Beginning of Retired Life”!!! (Maybe it's time to throw the towel fully, I guess!)

 

The observations in the 20 minutes I stood in line were.

1.     All visa officers I saw asking questions ( I could see 6- 7 windows) were polite, respectful, and had a sense of humor, never showed irritation when the questions were not understood, and the applicant went tangential. (You can hear a bit of the conversation as both speak to mike with a speaker- there is a glass partition in between). 

2.     Preference for fast track to Family group with children, Old aged people.

3.     Couple of  American women officers spoke Tamil to the applicant and conducted the entire interview in Tamil.

4.     The pride and amazement they show when responding that the sponsor, dependent works for a great organization shows they wish the immigrants would do well and are proud that America gives such opportunities.

5.     Generally, B1/B2 were Yes or No decisions. While L1/H1B were accepted with visa issued, subjected to  providing additional evidence. (Green slip or Pink slip handed over at end of interview).

6.     The only disappointment was the Lady officer never questioned Lalitha anything,!!!

7.     Number of documents asked as evidence =0. I spent quite a bit of time collecting and collating them for both of us!

 Interesting also is that the US Visa in your Passport allows you to travel to 49 countries without a visa of that country for a short duration. Even in the UK, you can spend a maximum of one night on transit without a UK visa.

 

While it is a far more improvement from my days 20 years ago, to stand in Queue at 3am for an 11am appointment (That too lottery / first come first served basis) to fixed slots. (This changed when George Bush's senior security Advisor on travel for Dubiya's visit planning, saw the crowd waiting for visa at Madras, assumed Rioters were gathered and he was concerned about security issues. He then escalated the matter for change of process and appointments etc started from 2007 or so) Even now in 2022, still there are no facilities while waiting on Roadside until you are called in.   If it rains, you are at nature’s mercy as so on Hot blistery Summer day. Also there are no lockers, etc for keeping even car keys etc if you drive down etc. Some things never changed for densely populated, III world countries, I guess!!!  

Regards

Karthik. 

Give Credit where Due!! Income Tax Refunds!!!

Amazing, within 96 hours applying in Income tax returns, (Radha being Charted Account at home filed on our behalf for all four of us,)! Lalitha, and I have got our refund from the Income Tax Department, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India,  credited in our bank account. (Shravan NIL returns as Non Resident)..... 

This was the fastest. Radhu told us it is a simple system but all are linked like Spider web so that you can't miss / fail to submit, any declarations...! 

 The amount also is significant, so they could have asked for more evidence etc and dilly dallied like Yes, Minister ....

Some systems work. Gives confidence...... 

Regards

Karthik.

3rd Aug 2022.