Phase I over

I arrived in US in December of 2009. I got married in Dec of 2009. In a period of 28 days my life transformed. It was like entering a very long tunnel and exiting the other side with a feeling that the world has changed in the span of those few minutes you were in. I was in a state of flux just days before and precisely 15 days after. In between changing outfits for the numerous dos, sessions at the parlor, lunches & dinners at my husbands family i think i lost touch with whats reality.

And reality my friends is that 15 days later there's not even a chance of invitation to a dinner. I gotta cook myself-yep, and not just dinner pretty much all meals and snacks if me or my hubby are hungry or we're entertaining. So, after arriving here i am to see the United States of America. What's there to see:-long & wide roads, small mountains, walmart, ikea & the likes. Nature is almost befitting the landscape, it seems manicured as if it went to a nail spa which are many in this country.

Yeah, so with wide eyes i am seeing, then they take to me a lake-this is a place which people visit often if they are in the bay area(this is the place i live now). Bay area has many cities, surprisingly they are not part of a city like in India, where we'd call them areas perhaps. And yeah market is called down town. Taps open in the other direction, same for locks and traffic is bizarre- the platform 9 & 3 qtrs doesn't seem so weird to me.

He( my husband) suggested i start driving, which will help me survive,which in fact is true. In India if you want to survive you'd prefer to stay off the road(extreme situation). But unlike India(well not politically) i had to a write a test, after reading a 100 page book n all. After flunking the test once i got the 'instruction permit'. After which i did not go behind the wheel until a month later, just yesterday!

It was my childhood dream to visit Disneyland, that's what America meant to me. Thus he said let's. Believe it or not that's what they call it too-"the land where dreams come true", synonymous to US. By this time people i meet ask me polite questions about how i pass time and in consolatory tone let me know "that's ok" and "that much time you take to adjust", stuff i already know and i guess they know i don't wanna hear.

A couple of weeks later, by now it's valentine's day and 6 weeks after my arrival in this country. I decide to gift him something-with experienced cooking skills n familiarity with American stores i think a cake is opportune. Little did i know that cake mixes are sold by the dozen and after making one i can tell you they are phenomenal (tried Duncan Hines-Devil's food cake). We also decide to go to Vegas, by the by; around this time people have already started exasperatedly asking me the same question "how do you pass time". I think i should come up with a wittier reply, like may be i have started smoking, or i can now count up to a million stars on a clear night. At least it will get the conversation going somewhere interesting. My answers remains the same and so do their quintessential responses. Anyway, so Vegas is a place which breeds debauchery and they tell me it spoils. But i am ready to be spoilt and get outta my house at any given chance, which happens to be weekends only in the company of my beloved.

So Vegas is a 3 night and 4 day road trip for me and him. This was his 4th trip, and he kept tutoring me on where everything is as if bay area isn't enough for that. But then that' what attentive husbands are for, i suppose. We gambled and clubbed in Vegas, i gaped at the grand canyon and tirelessly walked across death valley. After 4 days there i have come back to where i was, have seen more of this country and have some more topics to talk about.

Until now, he and i used to fight rarely, now we fight more often-i want to blame it on vegas but truthfully vegas has only humbled me (shown me how much more money is needed, before i can hit those tables again). I can talk to some people who've been around, about some common grounds we have toured. Despite this feat in a strange country with new people, i still can't chat with my mother in law.It's hard to broach a subject and am constantly answering or asking about the weather. Thanks so much for that!