A techie’s guide to visiting, staying, and traveling in the United States
Its now been quite a while since I got back from the US. I was there in the months of June and July 2004.
I am based in India which is almost on the other side of the globe from the US.
The shortest route between the two nations might just be through the centre of
the earth.
As most would be aware, India has become a major IT hub and traveling to the
US and other nations is quite common amongst IT professionals here. So when I was
planning to travel, I was hoping to find many Indian accounts on the web about things that they found different in the
US and what to expect and what not to. I found some info on travel sites but strangely did not
find any first person accounts of US travel by IT professionals.
So I had decided back then that when I get back I will write all that I
have learnt. It has taken me many months to get started but finally I have. I was in the US for only 20 days so I am sure I have seen and experienced only a small fraction of life and society in the US. So all
things that I say are essentially IMveryHO. Readers of this piece who disagree or feel they can
add to what I have written, please use the comments section at the bottom of
this article.
The cities where I stayed:
- Scottsdale, near
Phoenix, Arizona - San Francisco, California
- Ypsilanti, near Detroit, Michigan
The reason for my trip:
- I had to meet some business acquaintances as well as some members of my family and friends.
- I was a speaker at the ODTUG conference at Scottsdale Arizona
- A speaker at JavaOne, San Francisco and also had a book signing there. I
have written a few books on Java technology:
Harshad Oak Bio.
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- IT Survivors - Staying Alive In A Software Job  Before I started working for myself,
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Written by Content Team on April 12, 2005
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Editor: Harshad Oak
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Nice to read your experiences.I had experience of working in Canada when i was onsite for 6 months.The office manners there are completely different than ours, i mean the IT work culture and alike.I will write on this some other day.Anyways nice to read your stuff.
Regards,
Ranjan Khot.
I travelled twice to the US after that and all my experiences were positive and enriching.
As an American it was very illuminating for me to read your well written blog on your experences in America. Your observations on the use of ‘all set’ and ‘Thank you, I appreciate it’, as well as, all our various accents were ‘on the mark’. As I think about it, the term ‘All Set’ is very strange indeed!
It is hoped your trip and experiances we all positive, and the experiance with the man on the bus was an abnormality. Thanks again for posting your feel of the US. As I travel the world I too work to respect each culture and continue to see that there may be differences, but we are all more alike than we realize.
You’ve inspired me to write one on living in UK
Will be posting it on my blog (http://mskadu.blogspot.com) soon.
- Mayuresh
Good
Thanks! I am having a business acquaintance and his wife visit in a month. They are Indians living in Indonesia. This helps my understanding about what they will experience/feel while in the USA.
>A friend of mine offered me usage of her Bigzoo.com card and I later bought another bigzoo.com card. I checked Bigzoo.com today and they seemed to have closed down on 31st Jan 2005. So you need to find a different provider.
That is true - BigZoo did shut down with no explanation at the end of January 2004 and many people lost the money that was on their accounts. To find a good replacement, check out [URL=http://www.easycall.net/bigzoo]EasyCall Communications[/URL] They offer two services that work very similar to BigZoo.