Houses in US are quite well equipped and modern compared to India. It makes living very simple.

Let me list out things which comes along with the house for the house rent which we pay. Refrigerator, dishwasher, air-conditioner/heater, electric stove. There is an automatic water heating system here to which all the taps are connected. Water gets heated automatically. All the taps are designed to control both quantity of water flowing and the temperature of water. The floor everywhere has got carpet which comes with the house. House is wooded.

Kitchen and bathrooms have got required furnishings/cabinets. We have two bedrooms & 2 bath-rooms. Both have bath tubs. The drainage system here is quite advanced. Kitchen has got 2 sinks. One of these sinks is designed even to take extra kitchen waste & food material. Even if waste material gets stuck, the sink hole is fitted with an electricity powered device which can suck the waste material to the drainage! Even in bathrooms, the drainage is designed in such a way that all small materials other than water gets sucked into the drainage unlike in India where we need to keep cleaning. Its time that we improved the drainage system in India I guess.

We have got an open kitchen (no wall separation from other parts of the house) which makes the house look big. I kind of liked the way the houses are designed here.

I am very heavily loaded with work right now. My application is going for production and I am not finding time to write blog. Infact on friday night I had to even skip my sleep! But I hope to find time soon. [Don’t tell me to find it on goolge ]

Lot of people have been asking for updates from US.

Life is nice at Charlotte & I am loving it. Everything here is so new to me. I am still getting adjusted to the totally new environment. My brain is on a big learning mode. I have quite a lot of things to say, so wait for my next articles here!

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I have just landed in the Land of Dreams. Had quite a big journey of 40 hours from Bangalore to Charlotte.

My journey was something like this. Catch flight from Bangalore to Delhi. Then wait at the Delhi airport for 6.5 hours. Then fly to Paris. Wait in Paris for 6 hours. Fly to Atlanta. Have immigration and customs check. Spend 4 hours at airport. Fly to Charlotte in North Carolina, US.

My father and Madevi (our cook at Mysore & also my childhood caretaker) helped me pack my luggage & dropped me to the airport. I made sure that my ticket, passport, travel insurance & invite letter are with me. Checked in my baggage and boarded the Jet-Airways to Delhi. Got a window seat (got it in all the 4 flights). So, most of the time I was looking out of the window & it was quite interesting. It made me realize once again how small Earth really is.

Here are some of the photos taken by me using a point & shoot basic camera during the photography workshop by Arjun at Talghatpura near Bangalore in December 2005.

Click
here for the entire photo album on Flickr

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[This article has many photos]

This is Prateeksha. The cutest person in my life. She stays in the same building in which I stay in Bangalore. She is the grand-daughter of my land lord. Isn’t she really grand!

Click here for complete album of Prateeksha

She apparently likes me very much & she visits my house very often. She fights with her mom/grandfather whenever they come to my home to take her back. She says "Naan baralla…" which means "I won’t come…". She is one of the rare proofs in this big world that I am a loving person!

She calls me ‘Sheshu Mama’ & whenever she she sees me she loudly shouts "maaamaaa……." which brings an irresistible smile to my face. Whenever she gets happy she claps her hand and jumps. She is 3 1/2 year old and very small. So, often I throw her into the air and catch her back which makes her very happy. Her facial expressions and body language is too good. She somehow doesn’t like to talk, she prefers to communicate through body language and facial expression which makes her even more cute!

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[This article has photos]
This New Year I partied at the most happening place for New Year in India. Yes, it was at Goa. I went to Goa with 5 of my college friends Vp, Maski, Mote, Aashik & Timloo. It was great fun all the way!

We reached Panjim pretty late, at 12:00 PM on Friday. This was due to the 18 hour travel Air Bus of Sharma Travels with a powerless engine. If we could have managed to get seats in Volvo bus our journey time could have been around 12 hours. Most of the time of Friday afternoon we spent in searching for vehicles. We couldn’t get 2 wheelers as all were booked because of the New Year Season. With great difficulty we managed to rent a Maruti 800. But we had to shell out Rs.2000 per day for it as rent ! I am sure it’ll be much lesser on other days. We had some good food at Maski’s brother in law’s house at Mapusa & then we started off towards beach!

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A nice website has been recently launched to help bloggers who travel. Visit the site www.canicrash.org. You can give space to travelers at your home or if you are traveling you can stay at some bloggers home in that town! I hope that this site becomes popular.