Then, we landed. I mean the flight. It was a short flight under 50 minutes. All I did was finish the complimentary coffee that the kind air hostess brought me. When I asked her for a decaf coffee she inquired “how many cream and sugar?” I said three cream and six sugars. To that she exclaimed and said, “ huh… so you want little coffee with your sugar.” Little does she know that it is my birth right to have little coffee with my sugar as an Indian.
I got out of the plane and had to wait at the baggage claim. It worked out well because my brother was running late. I wonder what kind of brother runs late to pick up his sister?
After he picked me up we had to stop by at Walmart to pick some stuff for my room. As we entered my brain went into a clutter mode, there were people everywhere. It looked something close to fish market in India, if you know what I mean. I am not exaggerating. I lived in a small town in USA for the last five years. Our Walmart (at my old place) always felt deserted with sparse people on the weekdays and even during the weekends, I have never seen as many people as there were here.
The drive home was okay because it was a weekend not much traffic. We finally came home and to my surprise, we entered an apartment complex with a parking lot comparable to a teaching hospital’s parking lot. There were 3-4 high rises with 20-30 floors, and a concierge. The concierge smelled like it was cleaned with some kind of disinfectant/anti-septic. It did not feel like a home rather it felt like a hotel or a hospital. The corridor outside our apartment looks like a hotel corridor. Nothing about this place looks or smells like home, and this made me more home sick for my little town.
We got into the house, and that is when it felt like home. We are on the top floor of our building. My first thought was what if there’s a fire, there is no fire escape. My brother said we need to use the stairs. I and my small-town brain are funny. I loved my room as it is supposedly the “master suite.” As long as I am inside, I feel okay, going out made me sick. I think it is crazy that I can see a strip mall and a grocery store from my window and there are a lot of cars/people during all hours of the day. The lights from the cars and buildings looks beautiful in the night though in a different way than I am used to.
At my old place when I looked out of the window, I hardly saw 5-10 people in a day, and now I look out and see at least 200-300 cars at this very moment. You can find here my post on what I saw outside my window at my old place. Did I mention this is not even a really big city in USA, This is supposedly a “small town” (in size but densely populated) in the Mid-Atlantic region of USA, and few people might have heard about it. I say that because no one in D’s family heard about this place, of course it would not be the right scale to measure the popularity of the place. I guess it’s the proximity to big cities, makes it densely populated as it would be a more feasible option compared to living in a big city. What a difference between Mid-Western small town and Mid-Atlantic small town. We talk a lot about Indian diversity, but I find myself to be in a totally different country just by moving to a different state in USA.
I quickly settled in and got a good night sleep as I was really tired.
-R