Pastures new...

The people or the lack of people was the rudest shock! In India it is people, people everywhere, not a spot to stand! Here, I could see cars after cars on the roads, speeding away but not a single soul on foot! Perhaps this was because I was living in the sub-urban New Jersey and not a proper city, but yet the difference was blaring!

At home, the carpet flooring, though soft to step on and nice to look at, never gave the feeling of absolute clean! Nothing like sweeping with a nice broom and swiping with nice Lysol-mixed water thoroughly! The ceiling of the apartments is much lower than what we are used to. It gives a feeling of being in a tiny apartment. Having the washer-dryer right inside the home did save a lot of trouble, but no hanging the clothes in the sun to dry?

And the biggie, driving on the right! The first few days were spent very confused! On the roads, it always felt as if something was wrong. Poor A, he had to start driving our rental right from Day-2, so as to help settling in. And yea, another shocker, lack of public transport. If you have to get from a town to the next one, yea, there is Train and in some cases buses too. But if you have to get from your house to the grocery store, there is none! So the first thing one has to do is get a car…at least a rental. Coming back to A, we had to start shopping and buying things in order to settle into our apartment and that called for numerous trips to Wal-Mart and the likes. Luckily, our hotel was very close to the shopping area, but still required driving a portion on the High-way! It was so tough! Not only do you have to follow the right lane, you have to listen to the darn GPS to know when exactly to turn and also mind the speeding cars. Getting honked at is another big No-No. It is considered a big insult if you get honked at, rather it means you’ve made a mistake. And many-times, the GPS would tell you just a few minutes before you have to make a turn and if you aren’t in the right lane to make that, you have to miss the turn and go right upto the next junction to turn.

I had to get my driver’s license soon. With hubby’s work taking off pretty much as soon as we settled into the apartment, I knew I had to start driving soon to be more independent. I took classes from a driving school. A Russian guy ran the school and was recommended by a friend of A. “Oou want to drive za car eey? “ He smiled. With that we started our 2-hour class. Since I was already driving in India, I knew the basics well. We quickly went into learning the much-dreaded Parallel parking! It was not easy! There were going to be cones kept with just enough space for one car to park. He made me practice very hard, at the parking lot of a mall. With the mall-cops expressing their dislike to our classes being held there, we dint have too much time. The guy made sure I was comfortable with parallel parking and we went straight for the test. Since I had already taken the written test, I had to just go for the road-test. Luckily, my DMV (US equivalent of RTO) had a road-test patch inside their premises itself, which meant I did not have to drive on the actual road. I took the test, followed speed limits, came to a complete halt at the Stop signs, signaled, did the K-turn and finally came to the parallel parking. I carefully followed my driving-teachers instructions in my head and inched slowly towards the parking lot. I finished parking and the instructor got down to check if all was okay, within the cones. He gave me thumbs up! I had passed and got my license too! Yay!

The way of life here was sure different, not entirely but small things added to it. The newspaper feels smaller than ours; the cell-phones come only with calling plans; the cooking is on electric-stove, not gas; there is no ‘iron-kaaran’ near the stairs of the apartment or by a shady tree nearby; no Indian channels on TV; they like their coffee black and their Christmas white; children don’t just run into neighbors houses to play, they ask for a ‘Play-date’; The climate is different; there are very few street-lights on the roads; their coins have such tiny lettering;…Hmmm…. It’s going to take some getting used to…