Experiences

Baseball Game

2006-07-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

“Are you coming to watch a game of American football tomorrow?” A friend of mine called me up and asked me if I wanted to witness a football match. So, I quickly thought of the things that I was supposed to do and was thinking whether it would be possible for me to go for the game the next day evening. I had a lot of work, but what the heck? If I keep thinking of work, I will keep missing such opportunities. So I agreed to go along.
Next day two of my friends and I were on our way to witness our first live football match. None of us knew much about the game. We picked up another elderly American couple who were supposed to come along with us, and headed straight to Safeco Fields in Seattle. On our way we discussed a lot of things, and the couple had a lot of stories about their visits to different countries, including India. We also talked about games, when the old man told us something about baseball player. I was just confused as to why is he talking about baseball, when we are actually going to see a football match.
So finally we reached the Safeco fields after crossing the heavy traffic on the freeways. There are two fields just besides each other in Seattle downtown. Safeco Fields and Qwest Field. One of them is a baseball stadium and the other one is a football stadium. We were all excited to see a huge turnout for the match at Safeco fields. A stadium with a huge crowd of fans and I was going to witness all this for the first time. Though we Indians are cricket crazy, I was not crazy enough to actually book a ticket and to go to a stadium to watch a cricket match. Maybe I liked the comfort of my house and my TV more. So we reached our section and just got a glimpse of the ground. There was something wrong. What is it? The ground looks more like a baseball ground and not a football ground!!! You got it; we had a ticket for a baseball game and not a football game. And it was not a ‘Seahawks’ game, it was a ‘Mariners’ game. These are Seattle’s football and baseball teams. Who cares whether it is football or baseball? Both were equally new for me. I had not seen any of these games even on TV.

The match was about to start, but before that the complete audience had stood up for the US and Canadian National Anthem. It was a match between Seattle ‘Mariners’ and Toronto ‘Blue Jays’. We bought some garlic fries and Pepsi and moved to our place. The seating arrangement was such that everyone could see the match properly without anyone blocking anybody else’s view. But this arrangement made the stands very steep. Nevertheless we settled down in our places, with the beautiful stadium in front of us. We could see the players and their game properly and also had a proper view of the scoreboards. Not that it made much sense for us; but it did help us in understanding the rules of the game. Besides the view of the ground, we also had a good view of Seattle downtown, with Qwest field, all the towering buildings in downtown and Space needle of course.
The game started and seemed to have 9 innings (as we would call it in Cricket terminology). Each team bats till 3 of its players get out. And they complete one run when one batsman reaches to the original corner after going to all the four corners of the square. This makes the game low scoring, as it does not keep the ‘scoreboard ticking’. But we do have a ‘Home run’ that saves the batsmen from running all over the place and this ‘Home run’, a six in cricket, is counted as one run. The most amazing thing is when they hit a ball in the ground, they have to run!!! Now that is some problem for our cricketers, who just stop the ball after the bowler has trodden half the ground for his run-up. Wide balls are counted as ‘Balls’ and a correct ball which the batsmen cannot play is counted as ‘Strike’. And they don’t have wickets, so no chance of batsman getting out, clean bowled. So if a single batsmen gets 3 ‘Strikes’ against his name, he is out and if there are 3 ‘Balls’ from the bowling team, the batsmen can move to the next corner and a new batsmen will come to the batting position. So this is what I could get from the first 3-4 innings. There were some ambiguities about when it is a ‘Strike’, and when it is a ‘Ball’, but that’s fine, we were not going to get into those finer details. After knowing these rules we got a bit comfortable with the whole affair. That is when we started clapping with the audience, instead of looking at them with confused looks.

All the people around were really enjoying, maybe because they knew they were going to see a baseball game and not a football game. We had barely started understanding the rules, when suddenly some Japanese youngsters in front row started shouting “Ichiro…Ichiro…Ichiro…” We moved back from our ‘comfortable’ state to ‘confused’ state. Now what is Ichiro? Well the screen helped us in understanding this. They displayed the photo of this guy called Ichiro Suzuki, on their screen. He is a batsman of Japanese origin who plays with the Mariners. And man, this guy has a huge fan following. They had got placards with his name, many of them were wearing ’51 Ichiro’ shirts. It was like you would see the ’10 Tendulkar’ shirts all across the stadium in a cricket match when Tendulkar is playing. So this person, Ichiro, seems to be their star batsman. And he did play well. Seattle was leading from the very beginning. And as obvious, the home team had got a huge support. The organizers also encouraged the home team, by turning on the music, beats, and animation on the screen which made the audience more enthusiastic and noisier. All this was missing when the ‘Blue Jays’ came in to bat. They also had some time pass games on their screen, in between the innings, in those 2-3 minutes. At one point it looked like the Blue Jays were going to surge ahead of the Mariners, but a ‘Double play’ in one of the innings turned the match in favor of Mariners. Double play is like you can run out two different players, at two different corners, if your fielder is quick enough. Finally at the end of 9 innings Toronto had scored 4 runs where as Seattle had scored 7. It seems very amusing how only 11 runs were scored when both the teams batted 9 times and 54 batsmen got out. But it is difficult to score even a single run in baseball.
We all Seattlers were happy for our team. Our team had won. This was the third game in the series which was leveled 1-1 before this match. This was my first game in a stadium, and the first football, oops…baseball game that I witnessed. It is fun watching this game, which looks similar to cricket but with longer run, no pitch, and a cylindrical bat.

The Heathrow

2006-07-04T14:55:00.000-07:00

I came out of the plane, along with my cabin luggage. I had to clear one security check before I could be allowed in the airport terminal. There I came to know that I could not carry things like scissors, nail cutter and blades. After my luggage was cleaned off these harmful things, I was allowed to go to the terminal. This was Terminal 4 of the Heathrow airport. I was lucky that my next flight was from the same terminal. I was supposed to wait there for another 7 hours. I had company with me, the person from my company, who was supposed to go to Boston from the same terminal. He had a stop over of 3 hours at the terminal. We made apt use of the facilities provided at the terminal. Once we were done, we had lot of time to spend on the terminal.
This terminal had some 25 gates, and there were many such terminals in the Heathrow airport. I also came to know that there was some Gatwick airport in addition to the Heathrow. That proved that this place was visited by thousands of people, every day. It was also evident from the long list of the departures that were being screened on different screens on the terminal. Neither my plane nor the other person’s plane details had appeared on the screen when we came on the terminal. We spent some time seeing the BBC broadcast of the Tsunami again. The big windows made it possible for us to keep a watch on the air traffic on the airport. We saw many airlines besides British Airways, like South Africa airlines, Royal Kenya airlines, etc. I also saw some planes of ‘Red cross’. As per BBC, Red Cross was sending a lot of help to the Tsunami affected areas, from London. This made me jump to the conclusion that even these planes were going to the Tsunami affected places.

Sitting and waiting at the airport was as boring as it is to wait at the bus stand. Only thing is, these airports are air conditioned and you don’t see a person carrying ‘chai’ on the terminal, you just see ‘Starbucks’ coffee, clothing and other accessories from Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger, many different Swiss watches, Parker and other well known pens, Hallmark cards, cosmetics from L’Oreal, big book stores, etc… I did pass some time going through many of these shops. But I did not dare to buy any costly thing because I was not aware how much I will have to spend once I reach the US. One thing was for sure, the terminal at the Mumbai airport and the one where I was currently waiting, were very different, not only in the number of planes that they catered to, but also in the overall look and feel. Mumbai airport had many people, but this terminal surely had more people and was flashier. I did not see many international brands at the Mumbai terminal. While I saw ‘Sholay’ in Mumbai, I saw BBC and ‘Aladdin’ from Walt Disney at London.
I was left alone after my friend left after three hours. I used to sit for some time and then again start going through the same shops. After some time I think I had gone to every nook and corner of the terminal. I had to keep an eye on the departures, my flight details had started appearing. But it did not show at which gate. Finally after a long-long wait and just a few minutes before the departure of my plane, I saw my gate number and it was Gate 24. This meant that I had to go through a long tunnel that would bring me to the other end of the terminal. After rushing through the tunnel, I saw that my fellow passengers were still waiting as they were not being sent in. Soon the airport staff started their procedure of checking the boarding passes and the passport and letting the people on the plane.
The second part of my journey was pretty much the same, as I came by the plane which was of the same make and the same airlines. Though there were a few differences like, I did not see the familiar, Hindi channels, Indian airhostesses and neither did I get Indian food aboard this plane. I was served some food with chicken and fish. When I told that I had asked for a “Hindu Vegetarian” meal, I was told that “Hindu Vegetarian” meal contains Chicken and Fish!!! Now that was news to me. Later I got some food which consisted of boiled vegetables and some pasta like thing. So, this was a glimpse of what it would be like, in the USA.

I landed in Seattle at around 4 PM in the afternoon. It was very dark by that time. It was winter and the days were very short in this part of the world. Since Seattle was my “Port of Entry” to the United States, I was supposed to undergo emigration check at Seattle. A couple of questions from the emigration authority person and I was through, in the US, for the first time…

First Flight

2006-07-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

Here I was, in a hurry to finish off the formalities that I had to complete before I left for my first trip to the US. Though, most of the things were done, I had to go to the office to get some emergency contacts, and say bye to my friends. After these things were over, I had to meet one of my friends who had just come from US, and was here for his vacations. Though I had a very tight schedule, I made it to the place where I was supposed to meet him. I was waiting for him, and was also keeping an eye on my watch, because I had to leave for Mumbai, in another hour. After a brief greeting and some tips from him about what I would need to do on the airport, I came back home. In almost half an hour the cab came to my place and I left for Mumbai.

I had never traveled by plane before, so was excited about my first plane journey, and that too was an International flight. I had some idea, that the airport would be very big, and would find it difficult to reach my terminal. But thanks to my driver, who somewhat knew this airport area and to Airports authority of India, who had put sufficient boards to guide us to the correct terminal. We reached airport well in advance, some three hours before the flight. But, that is what they recommend for International flights. My flight bookings were from Mumbai to London and from there to Seattle. I met another person from my company, who was also going to travel with me till London in the same plane. My parents were happy to see that I had somebody with me at least till London. The luggage was scanned, as per the rituals at the airports, after all these are the places from where many expensive things are smuggled, aren’t they? That is what we see in the movies. I was also told to show my passport, tickets and visa. The lady who was checking my passport, tickets and visa, immediately noticed that I was traveling for the first time. She confirmed that with me and made some arrangements to give me a seat in a better cabin, so that I would enjoy my first flight, in their airlines.

My luggage was already gone, and I was told that I would get it directly at the Seattle airport. I was left with only my cabin luggage and ample of time to spend before my flight. I spent some time alone at the duty free shops on the airport. There were many shops, some selling Indian handicrafts. These people very well knew what the foreign tourists would like to take back with them. I saw that this place was buzzing even at 2:00 AM at night, when most of the people outside this airport must be sleeping. Oops, not on this day, even the people outside won’t be asleep, as it was 31st Dec and people would be celebrating the arrival of the New Year. I was actually leaving on an odd day. I also spent some time chatting with this colleague of mine, about office. I also came to know about his earlier US and Canada trips. I also came to know about his native place, where all he has been in the US before, and where he is going now. He was going to Boston, and as I came to know, it would be very cold at this time of the year. He was a very talkative person. In between I also tried to grab some moments of ‘Sholay’, it was being screened on the many television sets across the airport. You could easily notice how popular this movie must have been in those days, because all the Indians were watching this movie with interest at 2:00 AM, and that too after around 29 years. But the foreigners were least bothered about Jai,Veeru and the Thakur, and they were eagerly waiting for their flight which would probably take them back to their motherland.

Eager, as I was, to get on the flight, I had also tried to clear another security check at around 12:00 AM. But later came to know that this check was being done for some other flight, which was going to leave from the same gate, but for some other destination, Nairobi. But finally I cleared the last of the security checks and boarded the flight at 2:40 AM. The interiors of the plane were really good. I had already come to know from some people that British Airways is a good airline, and my company does not generally get a ticket of BA as it costs them a lot. But both my tickets were BA. So I was one of the lucky people. The seats were cozy and were also equipped with small television sets for everyone. It also had some radio channels, but they were clever enough to promote BBC, as their first channel was BBC. It was interesting to note that there were two types of airhostesses, one in Indian sarees and the other in English dress, skirts and tops. This was indeed good, as there were many Indians to whom these Indian airhostesses would serve better as they understood Hindi. This journey was a ten hour journey. I had an elderly Indian person sitting besides me. I could see the small TV screen in front of me, but there was something unusual, something which was not like the TV at my home. Yes, it was the audio, I searched for the earphones, which were lying besides my seat. But now there was an even bigger problem, where do I plug it? I looked all round the screen looking for a place to plug the earphone. Finally I decided, to ask the person besides me, who did not seem very friendly. After all what could I do? I could not spend the next ten hours watching the TV without audio. But he told me that I could plug the earphones in a place just to the left of my seat. All the news channels were providing 24 hours coverage of the recent earthquake and the Tsunami disaster. The epicenter was somewhere close to Indonesia and the Tsunami waves had caused havoc in many places, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and coastal parts of Tamil Nadu. The media along with the newspapers were giving the details of how many million dollars help was being provided by the United States and the British. Coming back to the plane, I discovered one more thing there. This TV had a remote with a phone on the back side!!! That too was properly embedded in the seat. What all could they club in such a small place. This reminds me of another cabin in the plane called ‘Club class’ or something. We had to pass this cabin before we reached our cabin. Our cabin was very similar to any bus. I mean the arrangements were similar, apart from the cozy seat and fundo things like a small TV and stuff like that. But this Club class was something special. These seats were even more comfortable. Two seats arranged in opposite directions and these seats seemed to have even more things embedded in it. They were also served with a welcome drink and may be some more stuff at a later stage in the journey. Later, I also discovered, from their information brochures that they had something like Club class membership and a concession for the members who traveled frequently.

As the plane started, they had a small video clip informing us about fastening our seat belts, emergency exits and oxygen masks, etc. We got food twice or thrice during the journey. Actually one of them was supposed to be the breakfast and other was to be the lunch, I guess. But, since we were continuously changing the time zones, I could not call one as breakfast and other as lunch. In between surfing the channels, I also slept for a few hours, as it was night for me after a hectic day. I also kept an eye on the channel, which constantly was showing where I was on this globe and the plane’s route, along with important cities that we were flying over. It was also giving information about how high we were flying, time at origin, time at destination, wind velocity and temperature outside the plane. I was most interested in knowing this temperature outside the plane. It kept on varying between -50degrees (at 32000ft) to -60 degrees (at 36000ft)!!! The first time I saw this temperature, I started feeling cold even though I was feeling comfortable before that. That made me pull on the shawl that they had provided.

After some 9 hours or so, I could see we were coming close to the destination, London. It was something like 6:45 am in London. We were probably flying over London, as I could see the clouds below being pampered from both the sides, by the dim sunlight from the top and the city lights from below. And suddenly our plane came at a lower altitude and I could see a blanket of lights right below our plane. This was my first glimpse of London!!! It was like the Britishers were celebrating Diwali. And surely, they must be celebrating a few hours before, because what I was seeing was the first dawn of the year 2005 on London city. After flying round and round for three four times our pilot got a signal to land. Slowly our plane neared this place where I could see many other planes. And then I could feel our plane touching the ground on the Heathrow airport.