Down memory lane - First few days in Tucson

It's been almost a month. I have been underground totally. Partly because I did not have time for thinking and writing anything due to my exams. And partly because I actually did not have anything to write about.

Now I am back. I hit upon some writings that I did about 8-9 months ago. It's about my experiences in Tucson and UofA during very initial days. This post will look a little anachronistic but I thought it would be fun to keep it here.

Enjoy ! (If at all anybody is bothering to read my blogs. Of which I am highly skeptical.)
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September 06, 2006

It is a new life out here. Everything has changed around me and here I am typing my story in Tucson during the last one month.

I finished one month in Tucson. And it has been an eventful journey. It is the beginning of a new life. The life of a graduate student and in a broader sense, the life of an independent human being.

I remember landing here one month ago. It was a calm night at Tucson airport which I have realized now to be a typical characteristics of all Tucson nights. Mostly clear skies and favorable temperature. I was loaded with three huge bags. A big blunder immediately followed.

I was standing at the baggage claim and it was the area for some other airline. As such I am quite used to standing for baggage claim for long time because it has always been the case that my baggage takes the maximum possible time. My bags usually enjoy that ride on the luggage belt and that is why I suppose they take long time to come out to me. But this time it was different! As I said, I was standing at the wrong place. And I realized that after almost 15-20 minutes. Having realized that, I went to the actual claim place then and took the bags. Then a bigger problem was facing me.

I could not locate any free trolley to put my luggage on and the trolleys required some coins, I don't remember how many quarters. I did not have the change and thus could not get the trolleys. I was wondering how I would drag the bags away from the claim space. And if this was not enough, I could not locate Somu – the person who was supposed to come and pick me up. I waited for him for 10-15 minutes and was wondering if I should make a call. But again the problem was I did not have coins to operate the public telephone. I realized that it was a grave mistake not to carry change, especially quarters.

Luckily, I spotted him in some time and he was with another guy named Mohan who was the one with a car. So we started towards my first destination. The name of the place is University Gardens and Kishore – India Club president lives there. So he had arranged for a temporary accommodation at his place.

I reached there and saw a flood of people already gathered. All unknown faces. Most uncomfortable situation for me! It is always difficult for me to mix with the people seamlessly in initial meetings and more difficult thing is to remember people’s names and faces after having met them once. So I was sitting there without speaking much when Karthik came forward and started talking with me. And it was the start of a new friendship for me. As I look back over the past one month, I feel that we have been very good friends now.

Then some seniors tried to start the mock ragging but could not convert it to a full scale ragging and thus we were saved a lot of unnecessary stupidity. I escaped further boredom by making an excuse that the flight was tiresome and I needed sleep.

The first morning in Tucson was very eventful. I was sitting in the drawing room of Kishore’s place and I heard a knock on the door. I opened the door and saw one more stranger. I just said ‘Hi’ without much interest and introduced myself. He introduced himself as Vinayak ! He was the one I was going to live with here. He had been in Tucson for a couple of days and so was familiar with places. We went to see the place which was going to be our home in Tucson for at least a year from then. The name of the place is ‘Crossroads Apartment’ which is two blocks away from Kishore’s place – University Gardens.

The apartment looked beautiful even when it was unfurnished at the time we saw it first. It is Ground floor – First floor type of structure. The kitchen and sitting room are on ground floor and the bedroom is on the first floor. It is built in 1950s and is a pretty old type. We have trees in front of the house, tea-tables and swimming pool. It is an ideal quiet place to live in. It included all the amenities like air conditioning, heating, gas, microwave oven, and furniture etc. And the biggest plus point of the place is the free wireless internet! We have been using that heavily since the day we came.

Continued ......