Amreeka! Amreeka!

Q: So how was the journey??

A: The journey was a perfect embodiment of what is generally called a long journey except that the particular word in the Queen's language 'long' apparently defied all bounds and decency to transmogrify into 'loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong'.

So in a days time of 23 hours of trying to figure out why exactly British Airways mandates its male cabin crew to have clean shaven heads, ponder at the retirement age for the female crew, turn around every single piece of food packet served to determine its allegiance to the Vegetarian or the Non Vegetarian lobby ( I never spared "Still" Mineral water too), gulping down horrible replacements to what you (that was just a little joke) Indians call food and catching say 15.65 winks for the day, I had almost reached a good twenty thousand miles away from home.

For the run of the mill IT company kind of guys that's it. Go back to sleep. your cab has already started from it starting point and would be on its way to pick you up in sharp 6 hrs 41 mins. For the others, a more detailed and sometimes boring explanation is warranted. Well lets see....

The Bengaluru International Airport with all the hype around it still requires 1 Re to make a call. Oh God! Gone are the days when flashy places like the airports actually charged you a minimum of double digit currency to talk to your girlfriend. So I guess its perfectly normal to find kids and the not so kids in designer suits and Gucci shoes begging around - "1 Re Pleeease". And I guess it needn't be further stated as to who had a first hand experience in the art of begging.

An unceremonious 'random' bag checking and a few plastic smiles later, and of course a couple of high altitude meals thrown in, London was refreshingly hmm..aah...well.... western enough. After being forced to watch the plane trajectory from Heathrow to Denver and a particularly irritating review of all the movies onboard by a certain Michael Something with a irritating sense of humor, the Spanish movie 'The Orphanage' was quite good and intense and I would recommend it any day for anyone wishing some horror.

Some like the chocolates here, some the cleanliness, some the cute ones, but the first thing I loved about this place is ........ ah well...I dont seem to know the name of that but for all I know its those synthetic tapes used as railings in almost every public place. Can be easily dismantled and reconfigured for new ways. For those of you still wondering what Im talking about, I'll post a picture someday.

The best thing about Boulder apart from the northward racing shorts (obviously those preferred by the female species) is the transport service. I love this ( I meant the bus, not the former) so much that there hasn't been a journey since I landed here without me dozing off. Well for starters, some of the queerness noticeable here apart from those mentioned above are

• The eternal penchant for maps and their usage. Every corner has a free map to be 'used'. Getting lost here isnt all that easy, even if you wanted to, for eventually you'll bump into this sweet girl who'll get you on the right track (quite literally) with the help of her sleek iPhone.
• Motorists giving way to pedestrians. Its a state law here of course. Yet, it is embarrassing that you accidentally keep a foot on road and all traffic comes to a standstill and you are forced to cross the road even if you didnt want to in the first place. Dont try them on national highways though.
• And boy, greet, greet and greet. Every moment, every time you see someone, greet. Phew! although amusing sometimes, can be quite irritating when experienced in large doses with no apparent motivation to do it :P

America is said to be a land of opportunities ( someone missed out 'extremes') From my close shave with a hit to the mighty jalapenos (pronounced 'halapenos') and their funny taste, the vending machines that hate humans and dish out dimes and nickels, the really fast internet (vrooooooom!) there's plenty to discuss, but all that if I can motivate myself to blog again. (Heck! I took a whole week to complete this!)