Almost an year has passed since I last wrote here. And I am not surprised that in spite of mentioning that I'd follow up with posts more frequently, I haven't done so. Not that anyone was waiting. It's not that I did not try. It was just that I wasn't able to put into words all the thoughts that had engulfed me over these many months. Things have not got any better. But here I am still trying to do justice to the space that Google has provided me for writing.
A lot has happened over this last year - besides stepping into a new Decade. I was in Schaumburg (IL) a year back and those were very tough times for me work-wise during those days. Relentless work and the icy cold weather just made a mess of my stay in that place. Did not quite get a chance to catch a proper glimpse of Chicago during my stint there - all thanks to these two factors. No Sears Tower too. But got a feel of how chilling it can get in the Windy City. Took my first US Train ride during this time - from Schaumburg to Chicago. A few malls, a few eateries is what I visited during this stay in IL. Did not manage to get my driving lessons. I look forward to visiting Illinois again some day, during summers of course.
My work took me to San Jose (CA) during 1st week of April. A welcome change, I'd say, so far as the weather is concerned. But no respite from work. We still managed to visit a few places in and around San Francisco. Alcatraz is a nice tour. Not worth a 2nd visit though. However, we ended up visiting that place twice. I would come back to the purpose later in this post. SFO for sure is a lively place. The area around the Embarcadero stretch along the Bay reminded me so much of my stay in Geneva an year back. The people roaming around, some running and the hustle was so much akin to what I saw in Geneva around the Geneva Lake. I loved the buzz. Given the food buff that I am, it was hard not to try out a few of the food joints in SFO, especially the Sea Food ones. Crab House at Pier 39 is great. Work continued to be gruelling though. However managed to get a good break during the Memorial Day long weekend. Visited two college friends in NY and went around visiting Washington DC, Baltimore, Atlantic City and bits of NJ and Virginia too. A whirlwind tour it was, but quite refreshing. Soon after I got into a deluge of work and till end June I was all occupied with work. Good food and zero workout left me bloated by 8 Kgs during the first half of the year. More work also meant I could not go take pictures of the famed places that the Silicon Valley is known for - Google, Yahoo!, Cisco, Oracle, Intel. I left San Jose a day before the US Independence Day with a hope of coming back again to CA, especially to Silicon Valley. Oh yes, I had a painful RCT done just a day prior to flying out and no driving lessons yet.
Next assignment was in Toronto and I lived and worked in the Downtown area. This had by far been my best stay outside my country. Canada I heard was very much like the US. But Toronto, I saw, was so so so much different. This was so much more a cosmopolitan city than any other US city I visited and lived in. There were several reasons for liking the place - the eating joints would be at the top among them. I'd discuss about the city in a different post, perhaps. Work was comparatively less and I had a good time the 5 months that I stayed here. The Summers to my surprise were very pleasant - against the stereotype that I had in my mind before visiting the place about Canada being covered in a blanket of snow all year round. Stupid me. Visited 1000 Islands and Ottawa during this stay. I wanted to visit Vancouver and Montreal too but Winter started setting in and I had to move on to a different Project.
So, I escaped the Canadian Winter during 1st week of December and decided to head Home before the new assignment. I had three weeks before my new assignment in the Silicon Valley again (\o/). Visited Bangalore, Kolkata and my native place Guwahati during these three weeks. Met brother after 3 years, met parents after 1.5 years, met best friend after 1 year, a few old college friends after 4 years and some school friends after 9 years! It felt good.
I flew back to SFO on the evening of Christmas. This flight was especially tiring because of the fact that we had to fly via Dubai and the second stretch of the flight was nearly 17 hours. Regardless, I was glad to be back in San Jose after 6 months. And here I am penning these thoughts in a well deserved (pat-on-the-back) couple of leisure hours. One month has passed since I came back and the Winter here is pleasant. Reminds me so much of the pleasant winters that we had back in Guwahati. The Bihu was good here with two of our friends flying in from NJ to visit SFO. And this is when we paid our 2nd visit to Alcatraz. Also visited Napa Valley, the Mystery Spot, the Golden Gate Bridge - everything that I had missed during my first stint in SFO/San Jose.
As I look back now, I do see that my last one year had been real packed with work, with sprinklings of some fun once in a while. That should probably be one of the reasons of not writing here. And yes, spent a number of hours watching good movies as well. More on movies later. I have so many random thoughts going in my mind and I wish so much to put them into words here. It would be better I believe to do that during the hours that I waste browsing nothing on the Web. I will try - not a promise, but a hope to do so.
