San Francisco Chronicle - First Edition.
That's the subject I put on the emails I sent to my friends in Bangalore, describing my days in SFO. I don't think I new that name before. Later one day while stepping out of Mc Donalds I was so surprised to see a copy of a newspaper, titled "San Francisco Chronicle" that I took a snap of it. I should gratefully admit here that Mc Donalds served some 'homely' vegetarian food like Mc Vegie hamburgers and french fries.
On the Saturday late afternoon Prasanna, one of Anand's friends, came down to the hotel. We drove across the San Mateo bridge to Fremont, said to be teeming with Indians in SFO. It was no surprise to me when he took me to Hotel Saravana Bhavan and the masala dosa tasted exactly like it did back here in Bangalore. At Prasanna's home I met little Suvarcha and his mom. Since I badly wanted to buy a digital camera, and someone to help me with that, I happily agreed when Prasanna said I could stay over and we could pick the camera up the next day. Suvarcha in Sanskrit meant 'Sun' and Prasanna picked up his kid's name from one of the Sanskrit verses. Soon the kid and me were friends and we watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire late into the night.
On Sunday morning we drove to Walmart and picked up my camera. A 5 megapixel Kodak Easyshare, that took an aweful lot of time to start up and process the images taken, but when the shutter was opened, took some great pictures. Since I had goofed up my traveller's cheques, Prasanna paid for the camera at the store. He dropped me back at the hotel.
In the afternoon I decided to make my first trip to downtown SFO - the center of the city from where I could start my lonely walks. I took a Caltrain - possibly short for California Train - from Belmont station to SFO. Caltrains were short trains that ran to-and-fro on parallel tracks between SFO and San Jose (read 'san O se'). With neat double-decker cars, these trains were a new experience, for the best of the boggies I have seen was a 2nd class Indian Railyways sleeper. The timings of the trains were well documented and I collected a few pamphlets from inside the train that talked about upcoming events and special trains.
I read in a pamphlet that CalTrain ran a special train during Christmas, known as "Trains for Tots" which collected used Toys as donations and distributed them among the less fortunate kids in the bay area. The pictures showed a very colorful train painted with an advertisement (ofcourse!) on the outside. I really caught a glimpse of one once!
"Take a Caltrain from Belmont to downtown SFO, which is the last stop"; I wasn't particulary comfortable with this short instruction to start with, because I was not sure how to continue from there. But soon I learnt that information was at one's disposal in SFO if one's willing to look out for it. Pamphlets inside the train and bus route map I found inside the terminal station were just great. I boarded a bus that almost circled the city, ending in Fisherman's Wharf. I enjoyed the unhurried trip in the bus and still remember the lady driver in the bus - all for a dollar and a quarter.
At the wharf I took a walk through the streets. Busy with people of all colors, wayside sellers, wayside buyers, wayside painters, their subjects and curious onlookers with wicked smiles.. It was getting dark quickly and my priority turned to catching the next train and getting back to the hotel. I took a cab to the Caltrain depot and caught the next train. Towards late in the evening the frequency of trains was lesser and I didn't want to miss my station, Belmont. I was feeling very sleepy and at Hillsdale I reminded myself that the next stop was Belmont. But the hour of the day being "very early in the morning after a sleepless night" I dozed off and woke up at San Carlos, the station after Belmont. For the next thirty minutes I stood in the chilling weather, waiting for a train in the opposite direction.
I wanted no dinner as I got to my hotel back. The last find of the day- a cab driver named Aswani, Punjab da putar, yaron da yar. I sunk into my comfy bed and I don't think I thought of the next day at work.
posted by ദീപക് -:-Deepak @ 6:10 AM
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