San Francisco - City by the bay

Man is measured by his friends. I am a billionaire. Before I reach the US invitations, plans and discussions arrived or started with gusto. So dear pal and ex boss Sharayu and her Husband Hemant lay it down for me...first weekend its Frisco!

And not just any tepid car tour, we biked over the golden gate bridge. If you can imagine joy, aching muscles and wind blasted wide eyed exhilaration in one moment multiplied by several hours.

We had to buy a 3 bike rack, exchange it for a new working piece, load up the bikes then start to SFO from Surajganj, CA (Sunnyvale for noobs). The good thing in this season is that Sun sets at around 8.10 pm so you can do a lot of activities in day light. First stop FisherMans wharf. This place is the chowpati of SFO, but not a beach. It has rows of Piers, some of which are functional. Rohit had to rent a bike from here and off we go.

Slopes are killer in SFO. Killed my gears right off the start. My Bike was rescued by Hemant with his common sense and plain mechie skills. I dared not change my gears but then as can be imagined, I stress the slopes are killer. I crawled my way up the slopes while Sharayu, Hemant and Rohit were floating like fairies up the the picturesque route.

The route went through beaches, through awesome lawns, through lovely neighborhoods, through hills, through scenic high point vistas, through the golden gate bridge..through a mindbendingly beautiful montage of sights and sounds.

Biking over the Golden gate bridge is an experience not to be missed. The win blasts and chills you while you over look the pacific over one shoulder and Frisco city over the other. You see the traffic stream mixed with tour busses and you wonder why they are boxed in steel when they could be biking or else walking over the bridge. Get Sunscreen. Just after we went over the bridge is an awesome ride down slope into sleepy Sausolito. Unexpectedly we come across a bunch of Indians and among them is a pal Rakesh. What a coincidence.

A nice ferry ride took us back to Pier 39 where we had parked the car. Like little kids back from an amusement park we went back home with a glow and deep tan on our face, ache in our body and warmth in our hearts.

Amrikka!

Finally I manage to erase the shame of not having gone to 'Foren' despite being in IT for 3.5 years. Unlike my imagination, the entry wasnt as wide eyed and breath taking as I imagined primarily due to the fact that the airlines lost the bag which had all my clothes, the immigration giving me a hard time and the customs insisting they hand check every thing in my bags and pockets. Couple that with a let down of a hotel and you have one seriously angry jet lagged desi. The journey from San Francisco airport to my place in Belmont wasnt that jolly as I had imagined.

Rescue was 35 mins away at my cousins place in Santa Clara. Jumped into a cab driven by a weird bigoted taxi driver who started advocating me the reason for U.S's problem is the president till I reached Santa Clara. NOTE: its pronounced Sana Clara. Almost like the 'T' disappear here.

But things are not bad, not bad at all. I guess everyone goes through the pain of lost baggage, Immigration and customs once in their life. I got a small dose in my first trip overseas.

But things went better from then on...