Last year I visited the US for the first time. It was the first time I attended an international conference, the first transatlantic flight I took and the first English-speaking country I visited. And the experience was extraordinary for several reasons.
When my supervisor first suggested this conference to me I opposed! primarily because of tedious visa procedure and problems faced by some of my colleagues here. Since the conference was strongly recommended, I decided to make the effort. Even though I got all the necessary information from one of my friends it was still an arduous task to prepare all the necessary documents, taking a visa appointment and visiting the consulate in Amsterdam. I wasted many working days but in the end it was worth it. I got a 10 year business visa for US!!
Usually when I go for workshops/schools, I take few days off to travel around. Since I had to attend my cousins wedding in India shortly after the conference, I decided to spend only a couple of days to satisfy all my travel needs! I was not sure what to expect from that country! But I certainly got more than my expectations!
So there I was! flying over Atlantic, to the US! to the country I knew so much about, to the country I knew so little about. I finally landed on the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. The first thing I noticed was of course the security, but there was more: the people! they were different. They were talking, a lot, and in English! It was so beautiful, just like being in a Hollywood movie. We took a train to Atlanta city and started walking from the station towards Georgia Tech. It has a big campus, green patches, departments and fraternities. So there was something different about this institute as well. After spending little more than a week in Atlanta I returned home with an impression of US I had not imagined I would have.
The Service: A notable difference between Europe and US is the customer service. In Europe, at least in Germany and the Netherlands where I have lived, shops are open mostly during working hours! Moreover, the staff doesn't care about you as much. I have seen shops close before closing-time and I have also been asked to leave the shop because it was the closing time. Sometimes, its very much like the service people are giving a favor to you! No wonder, the tips are uncommon in restaurants here. The contrary was true for the US. I was impressed! The customer is treated like son of God. The service I received I had not seen anywhere before that, not in India, not in Europe. The friendly smile and a helping hand by the airport staff, by the conference organizers, in restaurants, museums and in shopping malls. A tip of at least 15 percent is usually paid in restaurant but the expected service is also received. People in general talk a lot more than Europeans.
The Shopping: I had heard so much about US being cheap place to buy stuff that I really wanted to make my trip memorable. Being overly motivated I decided to carry almost no cloths with me in order to have the urgency to go and shop!! I had filled my bag with dutch newspapers on the way to US. As I didn't have any clean cloths to wear, we (my colleagues and I) had to go and shop for me. But they didn't know how desperate the situation really was. I spent 3 hours in Macy's buying trousers, shirts, socks and undergarments! Seriously, I had brought nothing from home :) We were in Macy's for so long that my colleagues ended up doing shopping of their own. We didn't speak another word on our way back!
The Public Transport: I had heard that public transport is not as efficient in the US as it is in Europe or, for that matter, in India. But I experienced it firsthand when I was asking about shopping areas and got the answer in terms of "xyz hours of driving distance from the city". Now this was something new for me. The Europe has excellent public transport system: interconnected complex network of trains, buses, trams, subways. Anyhow, I could find some shopping malls which were, although outside the city, accessible by train.
The Conference: I had attended several national conferences before but I had no idea attending a conference could be so exciting. The most important people working in my field were there. The conference talks were so good. I got to attend talks by so many renowned scientists and those who I admired. I got super motivated about my career prospects as a researcher and being part of such a wonderful community.
The Food: Europeans have little sense of food and taste. Its really the extreme in countries like the Netherlands and Switzerland. The only satisfactory cuisine I can have here, at least as an Indian, is either Italian, Spanish, Greek or Turkish. On the contrary, in the US, the same European food tasted a lot better! In general the food I had in small restaurants and in the conference was better than here in Europe.
The City: I live in the Netherlands, that too in South Holland: the most densely occupied area in Europe. There are no boundaries between cities here. So the first thing I admired was certainly the open space and the expanse of this city that went into forever expanding forest. We had to visit the house of Margaret Mitchell, author of the romantic novel 'Gone with the Wind', as my other office mate back here admired it a lot. I visited Starbucks, which is an international coffeehouse chain and an American invention, for the first time, although there are a few in the Netherlands as well. We went to CNN headquarters but it was unfortunately closed. The most exciting place I visited was "The World of Coca-Cola". I tried like 40 different varieties of Cola-Cola they sell in all different continents, it was awesome! Also, I watched a 4D movie showing Coca-Cola production process. They used a moving chair, wind, splashing water and a poking device in the seat to create 4D. We also had conference dinner one day in Aquarium, which was a nice experience.
