After exactly 28 months, I am leaving from Seattle, returning to India. If I have to summarize the experience in a word – it is AWESOME. This post is to get my thoughts registered about my stay so far is Edmonds/Seattle/US. Looking back from the day I landed here there are numerous things I learnt, experienced, enjoyed. My ignorance had no bounds when I came here (still the same case though). Few things are – US is slightly bigger than India in terms of geographical area. Mercedes and BMW are same brands. There are only two time zones. I do not know what a blog is. The list goes on. Got the answers for these things now. Things I like about this place are: First is the weather. Man, Mother Nature blesses this place largely. If you think of rain, it starts raining. The breeze when I start to office is bliss. Food is the next thing I love. I tried different cuisines after coming here. Italian, Malay, Vietnamese, Thai, etc., all were good. As expected, work culture was good. All these factors made my stay here most peaceful part of my life. Most people feel that this place is most depressing because of gloomy skies. I also had those times but thank god, that did not last long. Though I struggled to get a driving license, the driving experience after that was pleasant. Visited few great places – Crater Lake, Leavenworth, HWY1 drive, tulip fests. The number of movies I watched here is greater than the total number of movies I saw in 25 years in India. Thanks to torrents, Online DVD rentals, Mayuri, Bharat bazar, live movies sites, free downloads. Most of them were craps, no doubt. Made some great friends, which I never thought would be possible after you come out of college life. I developed guts to do rafting, sand duning. I love the way they treat the customers. “Keep things simple” is the motto. Most people I met are clear communicators. I got opportunity to stay with different roomies during this period. Each one of them was interesting. I hope that they also find the same about me. Things I am going to miss – food places, ever smiling BOA tellers, the shuttle driver who learnt few Tamil words, the old Chinese lady who packs two veggie rolls whenever she sees me in her food stall, weekend trip to Redmond, hang out(?!) at Mayuri, lovely view of moon from my bedroom window, rain, rain and more rain.

I wrote this post couple of weeks back while in Frankfurt airport but somehow took this long to post.