Ya? Nah!! Ya??!!

My share of Bay Area rocks and shocks!

America (may) run on Dunkin' but not Bay Area

Yup, Dunkin' Donuts, a common sight anywhere on the East Coast and all other cities I had visited before, does not exist anywhere here. Kinda questions both DD's tagling ('America runs on Dunkin') and the taste of people here, say what?!

 (ps: who knew there could be a craving for donuts?!)

The numberless exists

One very important piece of advice when travelling to the Bay Area - either take a GPS or ask the names of exists before and after the one you need to take. The concept of exit numbers is foreign here! Trust me, the entire northbound 101 from San Jose to San Fran, has exits by street names and no numbers! If you dont know a few names, you would either be driving forever on the right lane in anticipation of your exit or driving forever without realizing you possibly missed it.

Ah!! the hub of technology is clearly not prepared for navigation without technology!

(ps: the other trouble might be recognizing the exits themselves, which look like entrance to service lanes sometimes .. honestly!!)

My share of  'This, and here??!!!'

I've seen US city names originate from Britain, and in CA many come from Spanish/Mexican. In the midst of many San-s, is this small town named after the very Big Capital of my country.

On the other side of the world is my Delhi, the capital of India, the 8th most populous metropolis in the world. And here, along the roomy US-140, are signs to this Delhi with population of 8022!!

Then came the shock of seeing my mother tongue, Kannada, written on a Cinema wall along the 'Historic El Camino Real', in downtown San Jose, almost 9000 miles away!

Bollywood movies are popular all over the world, but to think there is audience for other regional languages. Honestly though, the shock and excitement of seeing that script quickly turned to sadness over the lack of audience for the better movies coming from my language!
Well, good, bad or ugly...its still Kannada!

(ps: there also seems to be some tamil mythological  movie poster in the bgrnd!)




The grass is always greener on the other side, they say...

... but which side, I say?!
This must be the first place I went to, where the foliage dries and browns in Spring-Summer and (apparently) is 'lush green' in winters!?!
Go figure!!









But...

no matter what it lacked,
no matter what it said,
I will always crave to be back,
at the Golden Gate!