City of Bridges

When a city has over 400 bridges, we can call it a City of Bridges. Recently, I got an opportunity to visit Pittsburgh. I must have passed at least 6-7 bridges in a day of my stay which justifies the name. At a point of time, it was the 3^rd industrialized city of US, after NY and Chicago. I was there on a business trip, just for a day. I flew from Chicago to Pittsburgh in the morning and rented a hotel nearby airport. The benefit of booking an airport hotel is it’s cheap and convenient. Also, you get the shuttle pick up and drop off. As soon as I entered the PGH airport, I was greeted by a Mesozoic era being-Dinosaur. PGH is the home of Carnegie Museum and hence the display. I called my hotel and requested for the shuttle pickup, they gave me directions to stand outside pillar 8. Soon the shuttle came and driver asked me “app Indian hai”, he had a different accent, so I was not able to catch it first time. I said “sorry”, he replied back-“app Indian hai”. Then I understood him and said “ha bhai, me Indian hu”. As I entered in the shuttle, he offered me if I wanted to sit in the front seat. I said, ok, and then we had a little conversation and got to know that he is a refugee from Bhutan/Nepal. He was born in one country but his ancestors were from another country. At 18 years of age, that another country denied keeping them and he could not move back to birth country. So, he had nowhere to go and hence fell in US. The hotel room wasn’t ready when I checked in, which is understandable as I was too early than check in time. I was on call all the time while checking in and traveling from Airport to Hotel which is also understandable. 

I spent some more time on the call and then took rest before heading to office. I called Uber and reached PPG industries where my office was located. It was right in downtown. That building was the best building in PGH. It was surrounded by similar type of buildings. As I was hungry, I had a sandwich first and then entered office. I completed my office work and then I was roaming around downtown to get a gist of PGH. I visited Point State Park and Fort Duquesne (in Point State Park). The Three Rivers Arts Festival was also going on in the park. I sat down and enjoyed some songs, although I wasn’t able to understand everything, still it was good listening to those bands. It was Wednesday, but crowd was enough to make the environment lively. Then I took my dinner and headed straight to hotel and returned back to Chicago the very next afternoon.

Humid Houston

Summer Trip 3

HPE

Out of the blue, I get a call from one of my manager to check if I wanted to go for training. Being me, obviously, I said yes. I mean, who doesn’t want to learn something new, right. It was in house training which barely happens in my company and hence I was excited for it. I have attended one more training in past in India, but I had to bare all the expenses for it. It’s okay as I consider it as an investment. It was one of the major reasons, me being here. But this time, it was different.

Into Space

There were 4 people chosen for this training. Out of them, 2 were my all-time trip friends which made this trip even more exciting. This was the 3^rd trip of the summer series and the longest one. It extended an entire week. There was no clear idea about the training and it didn’t matter either as it was a chance to learn something new, explore a new city, meet cowboys and visit the space. Training was conducted by HPE-a sub part of HP. I was sent to the training to learn storage, its essential for me in order to manage my infrastructure efficiently. Some people were raising questions and making fun on why we were being sent to training, but its okay. We know that when one person wants to move up in life, there are 2 people trying to bring him down.

Entering in Houston Downtown

So, we raised travel requests, booked hotel and flights and soon we were in Houston with little bit of hiccups. It was an official training with no time to explore anything but to learn and return. Even then we/I were able to steal a day in order to check something out. These are the things that should remain out of the blog. I hope you understand. Training was exhausting, it used to start at 8 A.M. and finish 6 P.M.10 hours, that’s long. Even office has 9 hours. Training was more of sales event, they were trying to train and sell their products and eventually we can sell them to our clients. Clients expect us to learn and know whatever is new in the market and bring it to them. Hence, it was a win win situation. Seller gets to sell his product, my company earns commission from seller and client and Client gets a new product which improves their environment. I get to learn new technology.

View from Houston Office

We used to come back from training in evening and then spend sometime in the pool and hot tub. Then go out to get some food and finally sleep. I used to awake till late night to attend some calls. We were trained from Monday to Friday. I had a special day in the middle of all this. It was Tuesday, when my parents visited Ujjain to officially confirm that I am no longer single. My marriage was fixed with a gorgeous girl. I am no longer available. It was an exciting day, I could not believe that my life will take such a serious turn. I was ready at some point, but I still don’t believe that everything has fallen into place at right moment. It’s all God’s grace.

We were there from Monday to Friday. Friday was bit relaxed day as we were allowed to leave early. Everyone left, excluding me. I had to work on something else before I could return back to Chicago. Thursday, I get a text from my supervisor stating that I had to speak with him before leaving. When I called him, he explained me about some new thing that I had to complete. I extended one more day, completed my job and finally returned.

Tulip Time Festival

Summer Trip 2

Tulip Time Festival is an annual festival held in Holland, Michigan. Tulip festivals are held in many cities around the United States of America that were founded or largely inhabited by Dutch settlers. It is celebrated every year in mid-May and is currently the largest tulip festival in the United States. Although, we didn’t knew this till now still we planned to visit Holland just to get a taste of something new, to enjoy summer and live life.

I was having discussion with my friends to go someplace where we can enjoy summer and one friend brought up Tulip idea. I have been to a Tulip festival, so I knew it’s not much but again, let’s go out and enjoy. So I started making plan of going there. Soon, we were 5 people all set to go and then it became 7, then final count reached 8. It was right time to book a car. When we were planning the trip some people got to know about our plan and started talking about it. I understood, I can never have a silent anything. If I do something, it will be grand. My Boss also got to know about the trip. Even though, he was going to the same place, he made me carry my laptop with a hotspot so that I can start working even from there in case something falls apart. How workaholic I would look working from there hi hi hi.

We planned everything one day before, which was already late as per my planning. I asked everyone and whoever agreed at that time became part of our plan and whoever denied was out. One of my friend called to confirm in night but by that time, everything was booked and it was difficult to change. Even then I told him, come will adjust, but he was not ready and backed out. Morning, I got ready and got the rental car, it was cool. We thought that will get a 7 seater as per booking but fortunately we got 8 seater Kia Sedona. We were behind schedule at this time. Once we picked up car, we went to our friends place for snacks and then picked up another friend. These people were also not ready which caused more delay. Anyways we started from here and directly stopped at Michigan.

It’s a big festival and hence no parking. Locals opened up their backyard to provide more parking by taking 5 bucks which was pretty interesting. After searching for half an hour, we finally got a place to park. Then we saw the parade which was okay. They had paid sitting, I don’t get that part. Then we moved onto an attraction called as Windmill Island Gardens, a park with Tulip Gardens and a 250 year old windmill. We spent majority of our time here and then we wanted to eat something as we didn’t had lunch yet and it was around 6 P.M. We thought of ordering something, but then we saw a Pizza buffet. Greed of buffet made our trip costly and added more time to our already slow plan. We spent lot of time eating and hence we were not able to see anything afterwards. Then we spent some time chatting outside pizza hut. Afterwards we checked out some shopping places and then some people wanted to spend some more time hanging around and others wanted to head back home. Choice was made by voting. Everyone was tired of taking photographs and walking. Finally we headed towards home around 8:30 P.M. I was home by 1 A.M. This concludes our Tulip Trip.

Warren Dunes

Summer Trip 1

Dunes

A dune is a hill of loose sand built by wind or flow of water. Beach dunes are different than desert. Desert dunes can be 300 m while beach are 5-6 m wide. We got an opportunity to visit one of the dunes called as Warren Dunes, Michigan.

Group Picture

Summer initiates a series of trips, it mostly not about where you are going but about an outing. It’s about getting up from your bed and going out somewhere. I believe, we should travel and meet new people as much as possible. It is required for our holistic growth or at least I think so.

Initial plan was to go there, doesn’t matter how many people comes up. As the plan was coming to end, more and more people wanted to join. Finally we had 3 cars, that’s the maximum no. of people I had collaborated since ILP training. ILP was a totally different ball game. When there are people of same age, culture, language, schedule, age and even home, it’s easy to agree on things. But when you have people of all ages, cultures, nationalities, status, race it becomes difficult to make them agree on a single point.   

3 Musketeers

We had 3 cars and the plan was to meet at office and start from there, but due to different timings we were able to run 2 cars together and 3^rd one was going separate. So we thought of meeting at Subway or some restaurant. We were able to get 2 cars at subway. I moved to 2^nd car and sent one guy from that car to ours. Finally we made calls and aligned 2^nd and 3^rd car. Although, now 1^st car was separated, anyways I moved from 2^nd car to 3^rd. We had a mix of Americans and Indians. I moved over to an American car and sent an American to Indian car. This mix gives us a possibility to learn new things. Eventually, I was able to ride in all 3 cars. The Americans were a family, a father, her daughter and her friend.

Gabby

Soon, we reached Warren Dunes. It was bit cold over there enough to make us feel cold as well as bit hot. Beach was colder, so we moved over to dunes quickly after taking some photographs. As we were climbing up, we took more pictures and further more on top. I also tried somersault from top which came out to be pretty amazing for my neck pain. Then we rested on top and played with sand. Some friends started pouring sand on top of my head and then one another girl. Then we rested for a while and came down. We had an interesting member in our trip called as Gabby-friend of daughter, she made everyone angry and at the same time kept the trip interesting. One of our friends eventually became babysitter for her.

We also made a quick stop at another place called as St. Joseph Harbour few miles away from Warren Dunes; it was closed as we were before actual summer season which starts from Memorial Day. We spent some time over there and finally wanted to come back. When we were coming back, the father and daughter had left for a restaurant and we were left with Gabby. We were bit worried to have her with us and the father wasn’t even answering his phone. All of us decided to visit a gas station to attend nature calls. At this point we were able to make contact with father, handed over Gabby to him and took sigh of relief. Then we came back to home sweet home.