I landed at Newark ( NJ) airport at 5.00 am (11th July), then I underwent immigration and custom officer's (CO) checking. Officer was very hot headed that time, might be some person before me had made him so ! But anyways I was the victim.
CO : "Hello, Mr.......Ra....mavat......aaaarr..!!!" :D.
I interrupted, "Sir, you can call me Ram".
CO: "Ohhkay....Ram, tell me why are you here?"
I: "I am here at MY company's client site, to add initial functionality to Tennessee Medicaid system."
CO: "Which is your company?" He looked bit surprised.
I said, "Mphasis Limited".
CO: "Are you the owner of Mphasis Limited??" :o
I said, "No no...." He said, "Just answer what I asked and be specific" Obvously I was wrong here :( (Mphasis is not MY company, its the company which I work FOR.....)
CO: "Are you carrying any eatables like biscuits, coockies etc?"
I said, "Yes" He was making some marks on some paper. CO : "Are you carrying sweets?".
"Yes".
"What?"
"As I said I have biscuits and coockies. Thats it"
"Mr. Ram, are biscuits and coockies sweets?"
I was afraid and confused, what to answer. So thought I should be straightforward, "Yes, I have biscuits and coockies which tastes like sweets. So I call them sweets."
"Mr. Ram, I mean are you carrying pickle?"......Oh my god here I came to know that Americans call pickle as sweets !
I said, "No."
"Then why you said that you are carrying sweets? Are you sure you are not carrying sweets?"
"No, Sir I am not carrying any sweets". I knew I have to answer NO here even though I was carrying pickle. ;-)
"Shall I bring your bags, and check here infront of you? If I finds any, you would be fined $500 !"
I said confidently, "Sure you can"
"Alright Mr. Ram, welcome to USA and have a safe stay here" Then he let me go. Thank god !
I landed at Nashville airport at 2:45 pm 11th July 2009. We went to claim our luggage. I needed to come down to ground floor from there, but as I didn't find any other way so I climbed on elivator (moving stairs) along with the luggage. When I tried climbing, I litteraly fallen one step down because luggage was heavy, but thank god I controlled myself. A very wierd welcome to Nashville ! :) Anyways, then I moved out of airport and hired a yellow taxi to reach to our hotel. Cab was moving from right side of the road. 1st thing which I noticed. Everything was so different. No two wheeler, rarely few taxis we can count on fingers, roads were so clean, few signals etc. He charged me 35$. Immediately I started converting this amount in INR (35 * 50 = 1750 Rs !). Goshhh...!!! Receptionist was a lady with 100+ kgs weight, fair color and too much talktative...I thought at that moment. Later on I came to know that everyone speaks too much here if needed. During the 15 min of formalities, she must have spoken about lacs of words ! I was only trying to understand what she was speaking about. Somehow I managed to grasp only the keywords, I was replying keeping in mind those keywords only ! She gave me an ATM card like thing. At last she said, "I gave each one of you, two keys". I asked Amit, "Did you got key?" Receptionist said, "Sir, the card is nothing but the key ! you just need to swipe it out." :) Again shameful incidence !
I proceed towards lift, ohh sorry..Elevator. Like in India, we three entered into elevator together along with 8-9 bags, it was too much congusted. It was an awkward feeling but anyways there were no one accept we three :D. Room was very well maintained, interior was superb. There was only on PC placed near reception for internet users. But only we three used it a lot, no one else !
Till today I have said the greet words like 'thank you', 'thanks a lot', 'you are welcome', 'no problem', 'have a good day' etc, millions of times. Everyone here greets anyone who come across, if not then you will get a good smile atleast. Most blacks...Ooopss ! please don't call them blacks, they are African-american ! Most African-americans are wierd looking people, their dressing sense is disgusting, they looks too much ugly, too much heavy weigthed. Their english is not easily understandable.
Since I came here, I have seen many english movies, the only hindi movie which I saw here was 'jo jeeta wohi sikandar' and that too online using Reddy's laptop. 'ice age 3 - 3D' is the first ever movie which I saw in american theatre 'opryland theatre', more than 24 screens are available in this theatre ! Simply superb, no? I was stunned by the dressing sense of girls around, so shorts and skimpy skirts, fantastic girls ! Don't about boys :D
So friends today I will stop here, actually there is much more to write about. Probably I would be writing it next time.......
