Los Angeles: First Impressions

* The place is not very different from driving on NH8 starting from Vasant Vihar upto DLF Square. Its probably a little cleaner.

* The most surprising part I found here was the waiters in the restaurant. They speak such good English that its not funny. I am told that kids here also speak much better English than a lot of accomplished people in India.

* At this place, the quantity of everything is huge. I ordered something for dessert and after 30 minutes of non stop trial on both the ice cream as well as the apple crunch, a lot of apple was still left. So I had to leave it for some other day.

* I must also tell you about the guy who came to pick me up at the airport. The guy name is Daniel Corral( also called Danny, you can check him on my linkedin list). Danny changed all the impressions I had about US in 2 hours. I smoked in his car and threw the butt on the road...just like that...then just to prove to me that its no different in US, he jumped a red light....this guy was really cool......and he is still only 21...a real live wire....a lot like our own bhopla....but I won't claim that he has the same road scorching capabilities as Mr. Bhupesh.

* The weather here is good. 26 degrees in the day and around 15 at night...but I find it a little colder compared to my expectations...

* I met a guy called John on the flight and he knows Van Halen. So I took his number and will soon contact him. Also, Danny's uncle played drums with Jim Morrison when he was still an unknown young prodigy here in LA.

* This entry is definitely incomplete without any mention of my observations on American culture. Till the time I came here, one of things which I thought was great about America was the freedom which kids get here right from childhood. I had actually heard stories of parents throwing their, sometime, lazy kids into this freedom. No wonder, irrespective of what we think about America and the decay of American civilisation, one fact remains. There are still tons of talented people coming out of American society. Players, guitarists, software engineers...all of them are good at what they are doing. Not restricted to being just doctors and engineers. I like to call it "Institutionalising Innovation". I think I still require some time to find out whether my hypothesis is true but whenever I find this one out, I'll definitely give it space on this page in a seperate entry.