327 refers to building number where I started living after my initial 7 days of hotel stay. This was famous apartment as this had hosted more than 10 people from our organization who lived here and left over period of time. I was part of 327 for 6 odd months after which I shifted to next building (325).


Our apartment T2 was in basement of this building on the back side and it opened a nice view from patio looking over green lawns of school ground and public tennis courts. I joined this apartment with Raviraj (another dombivlikar, coincidentally we were total 3 out of 10), Nitin Dandekar & Sorabh Arora. Questions like where will I live, how to find grocery etc always hang on your mind when you are about to move to different country in new place but for me setup was perfectly done, thanks to these guys. As they already lived here for more than a year, I barely had to do anything apart from joining them. I lived here for about 6 months and it was fantastic experience. It always helps when you have somebody from your own kin to support you initially.



Fortunately our apartment was surrounded by plenty of grocery and general shops in minute walking distance. Most famous of them was India Palace. This was authentic Indian grocery shop just like any other shop in India and also was a Indian restaurant. These stuff will be much expensive than local grocery but you have to deal with it, especially if you're veggie like me ;) India Palace was truly Indian store which did not accept credit card for transaction below 10$ to save 2% tax, forcing people to buy stuff which they didn't wanted in first place and at times rats running around. Yikes!


One thing you will quickly realize that labor cost in Europe and US is very high. So you will seldom come across situations like, having maid to do household stuff, cooking, calling guy for fixing electrical issues or doing laundry from shop. Due to very high labor cost, people tend to rely on themselves for most possible things you can imagine. You wont believe but people paint their house themselves. So you can imagine how rare situation it is to call somebody to fix something. I think it kind of works if practiced, as there are several advantages to it. First you get trained automatically about almost everything as you grow up from kid to teen. Secondly, you remain more and more active for most of the time. Having said this, it is also important to find time to do all these stuff. For country like US, they have ample time after work hours, as working hours are strictly followed and travel from home-office-home is significantly less for most of them. In fact, there is a law in Germany where you cannot work more than certain amount of hours in a week and you have to take mandatory certain number of holidays. During my stay, I wanted a basic table for my laptop which you easily get ready made in India delivered at your doorstep. But for me, it was more like you buy spare parts which are ready to fit and you just need to put damn parts together with screws. It was fun in itself and we had made a nice computer table and shoe stand after buying spare parts from Target.


Never in my life before, I had even managed to pay attention in kitchen, forget cooking. When I reached in US, I wasn't even aware naming of spices and condiments. But since living with room-mates and practice of cooking turn by turn, makes you some sort of cook someday eventually ;) I was never interested but my friend Raviraj forced/helped/guided me through cooking and lot happened over cooking after that. I can almost write separate blog on cooking, but to tell story in short, Raviraj eventually left cooking.. lolz :D We used to treat ourselves on weekends by cooking multiple items along with few ready made items. This freedom of living and doing household things independently and responsibly can turn out to be advantageous in anybody's self development. Thankfully I went through all these stages.


So in short, life was nicely settled in US thanks to everyone who were around me and support I received from them.

It's always fascinating to visit new places, learn more about people & culture and take pictures for memories. We all love trips. But visiting foreign country or going abroad can be on top list of most. Some may want to visit for shorter period for tourism purpose and some may want to live for longer period. In today's IT boom, going in foreign country (going onsite in IT lingo) is not a big challenge anymore. With most IT business in India carried out for foreign clients, sending Indian people to client country is inevitable. So the trick is clear. Become an IT/Software professional and you might be on the way soon anytime.

And so did that happen to me. After higher secondary school, I badly wished to go for Hotel Management which of course didn't happen due to opposition from my home. But if I look back, in a way it might have happened for good. I got into IT field studies, graduated out of Mumbai University and got into IT organization through campus. It was less than two years spent at organization and I get a call. I was late to office on Monday and friend of mine tells me, my project manager was looking for me. "You need to travel urgently to Baltimore (US) on Friday for long term". Long expected yes, but completely out of mind frame at that moment, I was shocked. With so little time left and so many unfinished business at current project at offshore, I was more than lost.

Saturday, 23rd June 2007 and I was on my way. I was accompanied by my parents, sister and two of my good friends. Apart from going abroad, there were few more things about this travel to me. For more than a decade now, I have been following football quite closely and being a true fan of ManUtd football club in England, it's always a dream of any Reds to visit Old Trafford in Manchester. England being home nation, this place was always close to heart. And co-incidentally, my British Airways flight was arranged in such a manner that I was required to do stop over journey through Heathrow airport in London with 6 hours of gap between next flight. For my age and innocence at that moment, nothing could have come better for me. I wasn't even going out of airport but still the fact that I will be landing in England fascinated me more than landing in US. 





Finally arrived in London, I was overwhelmed. It was my first ever visit to foreign country and normally international airports being maintained in top condition, everything around starts amazing you. To my surprise, I saw lot of Indian(sardar) staff at Heathrow airport which gave a bit of comfort feeling being out of country first time. Instructions to find terminal of your next flight is quite detailed everywhere so its never a problem at any airport. I had 6 hours of stopover and trust me, Heathrow Terminal 5 is one the biggest & busiest international terminal you may come across. It's shifted to new a place now and even bigger than what it was in 2007. You may actually need to take a train to reach to your gate if you landed exactly at the other end of terminal. So spending 6 hours wasn't a challenge. I managed to get a travel phonecard and called home. I was given AMEX credit card by my company for my initial basic expenses which I nicely used to purchase England Umbro jersey worth 70 pounds. Ya, that was my first basic expense (lol). After wandering through entire terminal and shops, I finally had to bid goodbye to England. 





My next part of travel was not much to look forward for as it was 7 long hours of journey over Atlantic ocean and nothing much to watch. However time fly by and I landed in Baltimore, US. The place which I had not even known before coming here and no idea how long I was gonna be here. I had little clue how much this place was going to mean to me after good 2 years of stay. How much it had to offer me and how much I was going to change personally. I had immigration check done and took a cab for my hotel. I was given driving instruction of route to hotel which I handed over to cab driver and I reached hotel with no hassle. I checked in at Extended Stay Americas and finally I was in my bed after exact 24 hours of journey. 

I count my stay in Baltimore as one of the turning point as it changed me personally a lot!