JC says

So, here I am. Back in to writing business. Got some time so thought of writing some stuff. Life is cool here in US. Actually temp is so down, it has to be cool. Lets start from the first day in US. It was good, one of my friends (Ravi) from TIFR was here to pick us (myself and my wife) up at the Detroit airport. We landed in US with pre-furnished room in a two bedroom apt (I am sharing a room with ravi in his two bedroom). That actually saved a lot of hassel. Here are some pics:


Got over with jet lag which took two days…and then went to Chicago. A hotel was booked for us there in Chicago for two days and we had to look for an apartment and fix a deal in those two days. Well that was done and we got a nice apartment on 10th floor of building in University Housing.
I should also mention the experience of Amtrak at this point. Amtrak is the rail service which connects Ann Arbor in Michigan to Chicago and we decided to travel by this. We got the tickets booked and reached the station. The train was on time. However, in the middle of our journey, there was an announcement “Because of heavy rains (just a few cms), the tracks in Chicago are flooded and trains cant go there so we will stop the train at Michigan City station and a bus will take all the passengers from there to Chicago”. Nevermind, by train or by bus, does it matter? But I was just thinking about trains getting delayed in Mumbai due to very heavy (much more than a few cms as compared to Chicago) rains. So think again before abusing train system in Mumbai or India. This happens in Chicago too. After sometime we heard another announcement that its difficult to reach to Michigan City and now we will have to leave the train at Niles. Finally, we reached Chicago 3 hours late.
We had another good experience after reaching at Union Station, Chicago. We started looking for cabs. A cab fellow came asking if we need a cab. We said yes and we got into his cab. But we just couldn’t notice that his wasn’t a cab but a car. There were some numbers flashing on his screen which we thought might be meter. We gave him the address of the hotel and started. He gave a nice welcome and talked nicely. Got friendly while talking. We told him that we are both doctors. He took us for MBBS doctors and kept on telling “doctors are next to GOD”. I got a bit restless once we crossed the 60th street since we had to go to 55th street. Now I was not talking and just watching the street numbers we are passing. After a city round we reached our 55th street and he asked for 85 USD. I asked him that it looks a bit too much for this distance but not argued too much, since we have heard too much about a few people in Chicago and moreover I didnt want to take any chance in a new place. So I gave him the amount and went inside the hotel. The reception guy told me it should not have been more than 20 USD.
Anyways, its a nice and well ventilated apt which we have signed for a year. Here are some pics:


One of my friends from IIT Mumbai (Prashant) was there to help us get familiarized with the place, the buses, the mkt and everything else in Chicago. He was, and is still of course, of great help in an unknown city.
We travelled by Amtrak from Ann Arbor to Chicago a couple of times and the experience was more than bad everytime. Can you ever imagine a train running out of fuel and another train ahead of it had to be called back and hooked the first train to take it to its destination? That actually happened in one of our journeys from Ann Arbor to Chicago and we were late by just 7 hours. After that we decided not to travel by Amtrak ever again by choice. Currently one of us (myself or shilpy) travel every weekend by Megabus (a very nice bus service between some cities of US); you have wifi in the bus, you have movies playing in the bus, the bus stops in between for food and on top of that not late by more than an hour or so….what else u want. I wish these days of separation end soon though (a little sad for this part of the story).
I forgot to write about my first good purchase in US, the iPhone 3G, it just rocks yaar.
And the lab, I have joined Hashim lab at U Michigan. It is full of good people. Alex, Liz, Katie, Anette, Evgenia, Max, Andrew, Jameson, Scott, Jeremy, Neetu…everyone is there to help me out for anything, I just have to tell them. A good work environment’s most important ingredient is the people around u and I have that ingredient in full along with a 600 Bruker which is available right next to my sitting place.
Lets hope to get best out of the place. So far I am liking it, liking it a lot actually.