Incoming....

Three weeks. Thats how long its been. Three weeks and no way for anyone to reach me, save e-mail. Maybe that is something that some people may like. But not if u are in a new city, and trying to contact others in the vicinity. Classmates, and faculty, and realtors.

Its tough to try and coordinate events with just email. Sure, skype helps out by allowing u to make free calls across continental US, but thats not mobile enough. You could carry your laptop and headset around and use that to make calls, but think about it, what wud u look like. :-)

Anyway, the torture, if i may call it that, is now over. Finally got my own cell phone yesterday. Its been too long... especially for a telecom guy that I am.. to be disconnected from the world is quite disconcerting.

But think about it. Technology has spoiled us. Not even five years ago, this would have been something that only the rich and famous would have had. Today, its an inconvenience, one that really pinches.

Just another one of those things that we are now overly dependent upon. I dont think I can escape its trap, however.

Dude Where's My Cab?

So we decided to go to the temple today. Got a call at 0930 hrs asking if I'd be interested in joining a bunch of classmates headed out to the temple.

The Plan
Meet up infront of school at 1030 hrs. Take a bus from there, to a mall near the temple, and then cab it from there to the temple. Simple?

What actually happened
We met up at the bus stop at 1030 as discussed. Unfortunately some people turned up a little late. And the bus came early. So we missed the 1020 bus, and the next bus was scheduled to arrive at 1127. And the wait began....

The bus arrived as per the Port Authority Transit timings, and 9 of us boarded it. The journey was as expected, a 40 minute journey to Monroeville Mall, which is where we thought we would get off. As we continued, we started wodnerign where to get off. Thats when RC decided to ask ppl around for some directions. A lady sitting besides her told us to take the bus further down to Lowes in Monroeville, and then take a cab from there, as it would be closer and more convenient for us. New to this city, and considering the helpful spirit of the populace, we beleived her.
Another 10 minutes and we got off at Lowes. Meanwhile, we were joined by 4 more guys, making us a large party of 13.

The fun begins
Calling a cab is supposed to be an easy task. So we thought. Unfortunately when u travel to places like Monroeville, things tend to get dicey. It took us 10 minutes of being on hold to get through to the yellow cabs and ask them for 3 taxis. Three people tried calling... but only one got through. In this country, where cell phone minutes are an expensivc commodity, it seemed to be quite a waste.
The wait began, again.

The callers of the group.

Pretty soon, everyone started getting bored... and tired..

Thats when hunger made her presence felt..... the non-vegies headed off to Taco Bell, while the vegetarians went to the usual, SubWay.

We enjoyed our meals.... u can see our smiles....


Having eaten, we then proceeded to wait again. Taxis were summoned.. but the taxi companies refused to answer the calls. If we did connect, we were put on hold for ten minutes before being disconnected. Sometimes you wonder whats on the mind of the cabbies here!

As we waited and contemplated our next plans, one of us went into the neighboring doughnut shops, and enjoyed the sweet bread with the hole ;-)


Boredom caught up with us again, and some ppl decided to catch some sleep....



It had now been three hours since we had reached Lowes at Monroeville and we were still there... waiting. Patience had worn thin, and we finally decided to cross the road, and catch the bus back to campus. As we approached the road, we saw our bus zip past us. Knowing our luck, you can be sure the frequency of the bus was quite low. To be precise, it came once every 45 minutes!

So we just had a new place to wait, and for a new destination as well. Thats when the blame game began. I had some videos of that, but am still trying to figure out how to upload them... suggestions welcome.

Whats a story without some drama?
It seems two of our gang, who happened to be room-mates were involved in some sort of tiff at the Sunrise Inn. Here you can see them as they part..... and then you can see the frustration in the one left behind.... ;-)




Its all about perspective.
What we saw as a running away from a situation.... they saw as the arrival of a taxi.. so dont jump to conclusions just yet! They saw a taxi standing where we had asked for one... and ran... across a bustling highway...

How many trips?
So we now had 13 ppl and one taxi. The taxi had a carrying capacity of 4 passengers. How many trips did the taxi make? If you said 4, you were wrong. It actually made 6 :-)

How? Simple. The temple was 10 minutes away. So one group of 4 got in, and headed out to the temple, while the rest waited. 20 min later, the second group of 4 takes the taxi. By the time the taxi heads back for the third group, it turned out that the group had become one person! The group of four whom we met along the way, completely frustrated, and with the sight of the bus for home, gave up and ran for thebus. They went to the temple the next day. So group of 1 came in the third ride for the cab.
By this time, the first group were done, and we took the same cab to the Monroeville Mall. And so the cycle continued, with groups of 3 taking the cab to the mall.

Ok.. now the temple!



Back at the mall, and what do u expect, the girls had to shop!! So off they went and got themselves their first non-Wall Mart purchases of their stay here.... while we waited...



Home finally?
And so the adventure ended with a bus ride home..... with everyone sleeping peacefully in the bus...



What a tiring day it was!!!!

Room With A View

Woke up this morning to some lovely sights from my bedroom window...

Thats a Church almost next door to my place


Thats the tower of the University of Pittsburgh
(Quite a landmark in its own right)



My Department.. a place where i will spend most of my next 2 years
(from what I have been told!)

The Campus Walk

With the house settled, and nothing in it, the time came for a walk around campus. I had been here 5 days and still not seen parts of the campus other than the Cyert Hall (the cyber cafe for students, open 24x7 and free for us)

So here goes....
There are tennis courts ....


Now we have the famous fence. (Somehow wherever I go, something part of the area gets famous.. first a street, then a fence!)
THis fence was painted with the tricolour on the night before Independence Day (at a time such that it would be 0730 hrs IST).


And now the buildings....

Doherty Hall (The building for engineering and Science)

University Centre aka UC

This is the inside of the College of Fine Arts (CFA) The first one is near the main entrance..
Then we have the fresco on the ceiling of the the entrance hallway... (pics 2 and 3)
The last picture is that of the entrance to the office of the dean!!

The Philosopy building...

The light at the end of the tunnel in the philosophy building... Really makes u ponder...

The end of the tunnel.. and no light!!

The Hunt

They said it would be easy. Who would have known it would have been so tough?

Thats about my apt hunt in the pitts. Arrived here on the 10th, as u may have noticed from my previous post, with all hopes of finding a nice 3 bed 2 bath place for the 4 of us. Soon the true situation unravelled itself before us.

August 11.
We began our trek at campus. Got our ID cards made to enable free bus usage. The we sat down on the lawn and began making calls. We had a few shortlisted apts from before we got here. Unfortunately none were available. Let me rephrase one was. It was so rundown, i think the slums in bbay had a better chance of keeping the cold out during the pitts winter (which goes to -10 C btw!)
I'l le tthe map do the talking :-)



This is day 1 of walking. Quite tiring, with the sun beating down upon you. :-)


August 12.


Even longer.... and quite a lot more tiresome. Esp considering 3 of the 4 had not had breakfast.

Now comes the fun part.
After all this walkign about, we were still unable to find a place to stay... this lead to drastic measures. We had to split.... so 4 became 3 + 1.

Things got slightly easier... and i wont bore u with details.. but frantic mails later... and a few calls... things got sorted out....

The place? Next post!!

The Journey

It all started well. It always does, doesnt it?

Had a long journey in front of me. It began on wednesday night as I left my house, and headed off to the airport, where I would fly across continents, and 2 of the seven oceans of the planet. Yes, I was going to the New World, as it was so famously called some time ago. Reasons? That u will have to figure out yourself, and if u are a good googler, u'l get it ;-)

Anyway, I reached Sahar well in time for my flight. The ppl at the check in counter were really helpful, and i even became a frequent flier (this on my first int'l flight!). Checked in, went thru immigration, and then sat down at the gate. That part was all ok. 3 am, (local time) we leave the ground, and off me goes to Frankfurt.

This flight in itself was quite uninteresting. Save for the fact that they showed Taxi No 9211 on the flight... :-)
I slept thru it, however.

Reached Frankfurt, and headed off to my connecting flight gate. Was told that I was extremely early. My plane in fact actually reached half an hour early. One must admire the qualityof the way LH operates. Remarkable. Anyway, I headed off to Gate B, the shopping complex, freshened up in the loos there, and then roamed abt. Was in no mind to spend dollars, so headed back to Gate C, and sat down looking at the planes. Something not done since Wall Street. :-)

Thats when I saw familiar faces. And what a releif it is to see faces u know, esp in a country where it takes time to grasp what is being said. (I do know rudimentary German). The Bangalore flight reached abt 45 min after me, and 3 faces from the Bangalore clique were reuinted, along with a friend off to climb an ivy. So D, S, A and I sat together, when I suddenly saw my future room-mates appear (R and G). That made six of us, together in Frankfurt, and all from 3 diff flights!!

Made the stay at Franfurt quite enjoyable, in fact.

1030 local time, 3 of us headed otu for the security check as we had an 1115 flight to catch. The security check had just opened up for us. We went down to our gate, and what a shocker. The line for the boarding passes was huge! US Marshalls everywhere. Got pulled out of line for a quick interview by one US Marshall. Seem to have passed as i was moved on to the counter for my boarding pass. Finally got that, and moved out to the plane with 2 of my friends. The plane was quite full already. I wonder when they got on given that they just announced security checks at the airport!

Anyway, sat down and prepared for the plane to leave. 1130 we were still at the gate. 1145, still there. 1200 we finally took off... 45 minutes late. Not good news considering that I had a connecitng flight from Philly, and only 3 hours in which to catch it. This flight was probably the most boring one I have been on.

Which airline charges for the sale of headsets?? $5 if u want to use the headset to watch movies on the personal screen in front of ur seat. Talk abt teasing you. And it gets worse, you cant watch anything unless the headset is plugged in. So no silent viewing either. Thats the way it goes, and since its a not a favourable remark, I'd rather not right who it was! Given the situation, I thought I'd catch some shut-eye. Not easy to do. It was bright and hot outside the window, and even with the shades down, it was not possible to catch up on sorely needed sleep. Of course, they dont have eye shades in the flight either. So i basically whiled away time trying to crack a couple of sudoku's on the plane. Managed only one, in case u wanna know :-)

Time crawled on... every half an hour seemed like at least 2 hours. I finally dozed off just before they served lunch, so had to wake up again! The food was horrendous. THats all i can say.

Finally, at 1415 local time (15 minutes late) I reached Philly. Rushed out of the plane. Stopped by a Marshall for another quick interview! Passed that and ran on to immigration. First one through immigration. 10 seconds... that has to be a record! Now the trying times began.

Baggage claim. Waited 15 minutes for my first bag. THen the carousel stopped working. Waited another hour for my second bag. Got that at just before 1600 hours. Whew... at least I got the bags... Headed out to customs. I actually cut the line so that I could have some semblance of hope for the 1700 flight to Pitts. As I approached customs, what would you expect. Pulled out of line by another marshall. HE meticulously opened all my bags (2 checked in, 1 hand bag). Looked at what I was carrying, and then (thankfully) repacked the bags too.
Time: 1620

Went through, and there were ppl screaming around for the 1700 flight to Pitts. Was rushed to the front of the line where i could recheck my bags to Pitts.

Now security check. The line was about 200 metres long! And the lady in the front refused to let anyone early. People with 1500 hr flights were still in queue. After unsuccesfully trying to argue my case, I decided to try my student card on the nice ppl in the queue. Met this nice Indian family from Singapore and explained my situation. They let me in front of them, and off I was.

Security check here makes u feel like u are entering a jail. Remove your shoes, your wallets, ur belt, yor handkerchiefs, ur watch. Heck, one guy had to walk thru in his underwear. And yes, again, my hand bag was opened... Only for a quick check. But I had no time. It was now 1655 hrs. My gate was 10 minutes away.

I ran. With 9 kgs on my back and lose shoes, I sprinted down the walkways. Reached my gate at 1700 hrs.

The plane was not yet boarding!!! If only they could tell me that! geez.... Anyway, they started boarding in about 5 minutes, and I was the first person on board. Found my seat, and collapsed.

Pretty soon the flight was filled up to capacity. Met a very interesting gentleman next to me. Had a lot of fun talking to him. I guess that was the saving grace of this flight. Wait./... I havent told u what happened here!

1740, afetr some baggage issues, the flight finally left the gate. As we approached the taxi way, I was wondering which runway we were headed to. The one that I could see, had about 20 planes on it, facing both directions! Somethign was amiss.

1800 pilot announcement, " I cant quite see where we are in the queue right now, but I can see planes that are even facing us on the runway. As an educated guess, I'd say we are gonna be here on the taxiway for at least another 20 minutes."

1810. " Folks, it seems like we are gonn ahve to wait a while. I have cut the engines to ... uh... conserve fuel. "
No engines means no AC in the plane. Soon it was a furnace. Got to talking with my neighbor. An american chap coming back from a business trip in Frankfurt. He was involved in making dense high purity solids for sputtering of precious metals. Had an idea about what he was talking about and so learned a lot more. That helped not think about the heat.

1830. Still at the taxiway. Borrow this man;s phone to call the person who was waiting to receive me at the airport. Informed him of the delay.

1840. Pilot announcement. " Listen folks, I've been tryign to bug the ppl at flight control, but they wont seem to want to budge. I want to make this as easy for all of us. So what I'm gonna do is, take a quick 180 degree turn and cut onto the runway. The entrance is just a littel behind us. So we are gonna make a quick
U-Turn get on to the run way and take off." And thats what he did!

Applause from us all...

And finally they serve us water on the plane! Talk abt service. I think Deccan has better service that this!

Reach Pitts at 1945 hrs. 1 and a half hours late. And no the tale doesnt end yet. Got my frist bag at baggage claim at about 2015. The second bag never came. Checked with USAir at 2110. They left it in Philly.

I could have screamed at tht point. They took my report, contact details and said it would be delivered to me the next day.

It was... thankfully... but not without a sweet note fromt eh Travel Dept saying they opened my bag up for inspection.

So thats how i landed in Pitts... Quite an ordeal and if you have read this completely, apologies for making u live through it with me!