Foreign trips are great learning experience if your eyes, ears and minds are open else it may appear a trip through a stolid country side. United Kingdom was the first foreign country that i visited (in Dec 2007), i was relatively green and impressionable and justifiably impressioned by the neat and clean cities of London, Winchester and Belfast and professionalism of Britons. I made good number of friends out there, i was a private individual working for a British firm so the responsibilities were not significant.
This month (7th to 21st June) i traveled to USA on an Official Passport of the Government of India and as an Official of the Government of India and this resulted in a different kind of experience both inside and outside of Airport. We found US Immigration Officials very friendly and they did not even take our fingerprints (any unexpected privilege or right raises the level of ego). Our first stop was at Chicago; we (Myself, Aman, Ravi, Arun, Sanjay, Anurag) were joined by Yashasvi, Nidhi and Amrita at breathtaking Millennium Park in the heart of city. WY (We + Yashasvi) then minutely explored the coast of Lake Michigan at a level that can shame even the likes of Holmes. WY found the place where Great Swami Vivekananda gave enthralling speech at World Parliament of religion in 1893. The old building had been renovated many times; without even asking about Vivekananda the old lady official of the museum gave us the document containing that famous speech :)
From Chicago we moved to Riverside where we had 2 weeks of study program organized by University of California with site visits to Federal Reserve - LA, Transit Agency, Hollywood, Getty Museum and the District Attorney Office. WY-1 enjoyed every evening with shopping in different stores (Walmart, Target, Ontario Mills etc) and we became very close to each other. We also skipped one night to see Las Vegas from close quarter :)
There were 5 highlights of the tour:
Re-selection of our comrades in Civil Services of India
The camaraderie of WY-1
National Anthem rendition at District Attorney Office
The Shopping spree
Chicago exploration
The tour ended on a sad note with the departing of IDAS friends to their Pune Academy. In last 6 months i came very close to IDAS guys and made some very good friends and i will surely miss their company, their discussions and above all their sheer presence in classroom, library, mess and in sports complex. Friends, i will miss you all.
