The American touch!

Hey its been about 2 weeks since I reached Raleigh. This is my first official post from the US (:D)… As I was thinking as to what to write about, I got reminded of my observations about people of US for the past 2 weeks and here we go, vroom…

Aug 4th: As I landed in Brussels airport for flight change, I was engulfed by mixed emotions, happiness of travelling to a new continent, pain of leaving India etc. In that mixed state of emotions, I wanted to make a call home and poor me, I didnt have a mobile with me. I went upto a counter where an European was seated and the conversation was like:

Me: I wish to make a… (I was interrupted by that guy)

He: Good morning, sir…

Me: I wish to make a …. (interrupted once more)

He: Good morning sir… (it took me 2 good mornings to realize that he was demanding one from me!!!)

This was the starting point of the ‘welcome’ culture. You may have noticed that I ve started with Brussels (an European nation), having mentioned US in  the intro. Without giving this prologue, the post would not be complete, thats why…

After reaching the Newark (its not New york, its newark only…) airport, I found that the ‘greeting culture’ was even more out there. After a few hours of wait, I boarded the flight to Raleigh and was received (!) by seniors, at the Raliegh airport. The first thing that I noticed while I traveled in the car was the clean ambience. Beleive me I couldnt spot a single police man in the signals or other places! All of them are disciplined, right from car drivers to motor cyclists (its difficult to spot bikes, almost every one has a car!) to PEDs (Pedestrians). I got reminded of my friend Rajesh who would call me ‘Ambi’ for adhering to signals and rules even when a police was not there…

I was roaming around the University campus and went to almost all buildings (for on-campus jobs :D). Initially I had a doubt as to whether the people at office and desks would be grumpy like their Indian counterparts (I never had got a smile from any office guy at College…), but beleive me, every single soul present here would greet you in the best possible manner and would even go to the extent of asking ‘How do you do? How was your day?’ etc. Thank God, I didnt feel the pain when they said ‘no vacancies’ , coz they were so sweet in replying and had the knack of communicating pleasantly. The fantastic thing was that you never feel out of place. Also, I had improved myself in terms of greeting people, being courteous etc.

Here, all the buildings have swing doors (which automatically close). While people open the door and enter the building, they dont just leave it like that and move ahead, they hold the door until the person behind them catches hold of it!!!

It took me a day or two to realise that you can ask for help from any stranger you see in they campus, they would be patient enough to explain to you in the most nice manner.

Hey I forgot to mention one point, PEDs(Pedestrians) are Kings!! (as rightly said by my senior and buddy Arun Prakash). Over here, pedestrians are given first class treatment by drivers. I was standing at one corner of the road, in pursuit of crossing it, while a car was passing by. The car guy could have easily passed by, as he was the one who came first, but he stopped the car and signalled me to go ahead! Such is the respect given to PEDs here.

There are dozens of such qualities to be learnt by us (or atleast me!) from these people and I wont post all of them at the same time (c’mon I need stuff for future posts too 🙂 ).

Hope you enjoyed this post! Have fun…