It's been a while

Yes, it's indeed been a while. I've been quite busy over the last couple of days - working for a change (As Karthik would say). Anyhow, updates wise - both of us plan to go river rafting this weekend (on sunday) along with Mayur & Purvi. It's in a place called Lotus, in California. Will definitely dedicate a post to it, once we are back.
Another update is that parents will be coming over to the US, sometime in September - Yippee !!!!
The third update is that last week we saw a couple of movies - Shooter (Excellent), Surf's up (really nice animated one), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (quite nice), Swami (ok, ok), Hot Fuzz (terrible), Shootout at Lokhandwala (quite gory - but well made). Whew, thats a whole lot.
Nothing else to add on, so will add on later. Take care, people.

it's been a while....

...and we've been busy. And I mean really busy!!! We moved into our new apartment in Ardenwood Forest on friday, went car hunting on saturday, bought the car on saturday, left the car at the dealership for the accessories and for lack of an insurance, went grocery shopping on sunday, made mountains of food on sunday, assembled the dining table on sunday, went to office on monday, bought insurance online on monday, brought the car from the dealership on monday back to the office, showed it around to colleagues on monday, drove back in the evening.......and then took a sigh of relief.

If you'd like the details on all these activities, you would need to wait, as I'm still cataloging the photographs, and these posts will be up soon - very soon....so see you soon.

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First Drive in USA

Over the weekend, I drove for the first time in the US. Anil was generous enough to allow me to drive his car for a while, and we basically went out for lunch, and some more shopping (whew!! I wonder when all the shopping will end!!). Anyhow, to cut a long story short, it was a interesting experience. He has a black Toyota Camry, and believe me, it's once of the best colors, but a nightmare to maintain!!

Anyhow, at the outset, I sat on the left hand side of the car, and cursed the number of times that I had an opportunity to drive a left-hand drive vehicle in India, and didn't. The first instinct is for the left leg to depress the clutch prior to starting the vehicle, and that's when you realize that it's an automatic without a floor clutch!!!

Once I got it started, the next step was moving it from P (parking) to D(Drive). One needs to keep the brakes depressed, as otherwise the vehicle will roll forwards. After that it was pretty much smooth sailing. Driving was easy, also I didn't hit any of the freeways as that will take some more time.

Once we stopped, I carried out the same sequence, but in reverse - move from D to P, pull the handbrake, turn of ignition. The best part was that after all this, the left hand instinctively looks for a handbrake to pull, as the body is conditioned to do so, in India.

It was fun. We hope to purchase the car (the honda civic) probably within the next two weeks - so then I'll be sure to give more updates. Also we move into our apartment this weekend - so looking forward to that.

Our apartment in Fremont, CA

Hi everybody!. We have finally managed to find a decent apartment in Fremont, CA. We have been scouting for the last 3 to 4 weeks - two weeks from India and the rest here, in the US.

We were looking for a one bedroom apartment with an inbuilt washer and dryer, as opposed to a commonly shared one. Apart from this, the other criteria that we had were a good school district, safe neighbourhood, and a convenient location - either near work or the general shopping area.

Incidentally, a lot of the rates for apartments in the US are decided on a bunch of factors. Apart from factors such as proximity to shopping areas, malls, public transport systems, the key factor is the school district. Most of the education in the US revolves around public schools and people residing in a particular district can send their children only to that district's Public school. The better the school, the bigger the influx of people in the district, which in turn leads to the rise in apartment rates in that area. We checked out a couple of places in central Fremont such as The Avalon, The Estates, Mission Peak, Presidio, Archstone, Waterstone, etc. and the rates ranged from $1245 to $1600. Astronomical and way over our budget!!!

We scouted some more, and finally managed to find an apartment in Ardenwood Forest, about 1.4 miles from work. This is a really nice place. There are a total of 862 units(apartments) here. Very well laid out. It also has basketball courts, tennis courts, swimming pools, saunas, club houses etc.

As of now we will be moving into a two bedroom apartment, as the waiting time for any of the one bedroom apartments is almost 6 months. But then again, by virtue of us becoming residents of the community, we will be placed on a priority list, and so the moment a one bedroom setup would be available, we would be intimated.

The inset photographs are the ones that I pulled off the web. Once we move in, which is next month I'll post some snaps up.

Our initial experiences in the US

I know it's been quite a while since I posted anything here. Well the reason for that was that we (Mahi & I) were in the critical phase of an overseas transfer. What with the running around for the Visas, ticketing, travel procedures, packing etc, we hardly had any time to post anything!!

We sold our car in India, a panther black Ford Fiesta 1.6 Sxi ABS just after 9 months of purchasing it. Thankfully didn't end up taking too much of a hit on it. Also sold my XDA II mini to a colleague.

As of now, we both are based in Fremont, California, and are put up at one of the Extended Stay hotels. These hotels are designed keeping in mind the fact that people might need to stay long term here. Each room had a mini kitchen, TV, DVD, refrigerator, etc. Also there are laundry machines within the building itself, a multi-gym, pool etc. The company will put us up here for 2 weeks, post which we would need to move into an apartment. We have hunting for the same in and around the Fremont and Newark areas.

Met up with Mayur and his wife Purvi and they've been great help in taking us around. Incidentally, they have recently picked up a Lexus 350 SUV, and boy is it good!!! Amazing.

Also, did some basic grocery shopping for the essentials to get operational on the cooking front.

Traipsed around New Park mall today, taking in the sights and the sounds. Also, made the traditional stop at the ColdStone Creamery for some soulful and sinful ice cream!! The ColdStone Creamery chain was setup in 1988 (almost 20 years ago), by Donald & Susan Sutherland, and they serve up what they call "Creations". This basically means that one gets to customize their ice cream, they way they'd like it. You can choose from a range of nuts, toppings, biscuits, mints, fruits, chews, etc. and not to forget - ice creams, to make your unique creation. The ingredients that you chose are placed on an ice cold granite slab and they mixed together. That's where the name is derived from. You can read a lot more about it here and here.

Will post more details as we experience the sights and sounds here.......