First few days in the United States (Raleigh, North Carolina)

Well its been long since I have updated my blog ....

Actually the life is so hectic that I couldnt find time ...

Well I had nothing much to do on the day I reached at my senior's place , so just had dinner and went off to sleep ..
Woke up next morning and suddenly started getting bad news from peers regarding on-campus jobs and finding an apartment near the campus...
It was a sunday (6th Aug to be precise) and everything was closed.. In USA nothin is open on weekends.

So there was no point in searching for apartments or an on-campus job.
So , we decided just to roam about and get ourselves accustomed to the geography of the area.
Went to a few apartments, met some seniors who gave us some guidance ....
Well , we 7 ppl were given temporary accomadation at different far-away places so couldnt meet each other , and also there was no way of communication.

Now , was the time we would see the first working day in US..

Monday morning , I had breakfast , and we started knocking doors of property management offices to find apartments on rent...
There were none available in the area near the campus , so we all were dejected and also very tensed to even find an apartment (even far from the campus).....Finally we got a good deal for an aprtment at Kensington parks which is about 20 mins walk from the Centennial campus (The campus where I have all our classes)....
We finalised the place and got a new address for ourselves in the US....

During my stay at a senior's place , I got to meet 2 other guys from bangalore who were looking for room mates.
We got a 3 BHK which could fit in 5 ppl legally (generally there's a rule which states that an apartment cannot have more than 4 ppl )...
So , We asked those 2 guys whether they would like to shift in with us..

It was a quick decision and the 3 of us (kunal, harsh and myself) were aware about how would we adjust with 2 strange ppl...

Well, once we were relieved of the tension of finding a place to live , we had to start searching for on-campus job and also start doing things which one would do when settling in a new place...

We went to the main campus on the 3rd day of arriving to US to register ourselves at the Office of International Students..
Created a bank acount (Wachovia Bank) where most of the students create (coz it has many ATM's on the campus)...

I guess this is lots of stuff to mention and whoever reads it will be bored by now so let me put in some snaps to refresh you...

Here are they ...
Snaps of my Journey to the US..
Journey to the USA


Now snaps of my new apartment...

My NewHome in US

Thats it for now....

Will keep updating whenever I get time....
BY the way My calsses started today (23rd August)
Had only one lecture in the entire day ...but i guess will be hectic later on with the homework and assignments....

My Journey to USA

We were 7 ppl travelling together (Nirali , Kunal, Harsh, Zankhana , Aditi , Pranali and Myself)

Well let me start from the Mumbai Airport...
I had taken 2 bags but because of insistence of Harsh had taken 3rd extra baggage full of Tur Dal and Moong dal which is quite expensive in US ($14 per kg just imagine) ...
I had weighed every bag very accurately to 31.6kg but at the Airport in the Weighing machine it was showing abt 33 kgs so had to shift some of the luggage frm 1 bag to another ...
I was done in abt 10 mins but other girls had a tough time in getting their luggage weights to the allowable limits....

Checked in the baggage,made a call frm the PCO to talk to parents and then headed for the security check...
Everything done and we boarded the plane...
Well , I got the window seat so was very happy abt it,...

While boarding the flight I never imagined what the nxt 24 hrs would be like...

While the plane was abt to land on the Heathrow Airport (London) , I could see the entire city ..
I saw the London Bridge , the Giant Wheel near the Thames riber , some Football Stadiums as well as cricket stadiums....It was awesome view from the plane.....

Didnt have much time at the London Airport, Had to change the flight and the terminal....Boarded another flight BA185 for Heathrow to Newark ....

After Landing at Newark went for the immigration and then for the baggage claim area...And to my Horror all my bags were missing while all others had their baggages....

Went to the BA office directly and told them abt the situation ...
They gave me a tracking number, took my details abt where i was going to stay and gave me
$50 as compensation...
While completing these formalities , we missed our connecting flight AA4651 at 1.40 pm by just 5 mins...

And all 7 ppl were stranded at the airport..
We were given standby tickets for another flight AA 4659 at 5 pm ..
And to add to our frustration , the flight got cancelled ..
Now the next connecting flight to Raleigh was nxt day morning at 7.55 am from Chicago...

We pleaded the American Airlines people to give us Accomadation but they wont listen to us and kept saying that it was the fault of BA that we missed the flight...


And when we pleaded BA people , they said they couldnt give us more than $50...

Aditi had a friend , his name is Sandeep in Newark who came to meet us at the Airport ...The girls went with him at his place to freshen up while we 3 guys were at the Airport , taking care of our luggage...
1 guy used to keep a watch while other 2 slept...
The girls came after 4-5 hrs and while coming to the airport they got a pizza for us...
Sandeep was like a lucky mascot for us because as soon as he came , things started getting in place...
We insisted him to come with us to Chicago , so that nothin wrong happens with us again ....

So , We boarded the AA flight to Chicago ...
Reached Chicago at 9 am , The busiest Airport in USA...
While taking off from Chicago for Raleigh, our flight was in queue in which there were abt 5 flights ahead of us and more 5 waiting to take off behind us...
Well, the air traffic in Chicago was like road traffic seriously....We could see other planes from our window going in various directions.......


So , we reached Raleigh at 2.50 pm and were waiting in the baggage claim area.I was hoping that the only baggage left would atleats arrive safely ....

The Seniors were already at the Airport to pick us up ...
And we reached our temporary accomadation in abt 30 mins ...

The seniors gave us a warm welcome , and after I freshened up , they had kept ready Chhole and Paratha for me.....