The Hangover

That’s what I call a chapter in my life, when I woke up one fine morning and incidentally brushed by teeth with my face-wash, instead of my favorite mint flavored toothpaste.  It’s been exactly a week since I moved to Texas and it’s only now that the hangover kinda feeling seems to fade away slowly from my system. Long extended flights, unbalanced diet, and lack of sleep are certainly not my kinda way of living. Well, thank God I’ve gotten over it now.

Besides the jetlag, I still face the ‘not-going-my-way’ kinda challenges in Texas. The one topmost on my list is the helplessness of moving around the city like I did in my home city, Mumbai. Since local transportation is a bare minimum here, it becomes mandatory to hone some left-handed driving skills and drive around the city to make the most of it. Doubly, missing family, homemade food, and friends together sum up to my blues. But as they say time is a healer and I’m sure I’ll get over this too.

From the little I have seen of it, I can say Texas is a beautiful state in the United States of America with everything available in super large size. People drive big cars, drink in big mugs, have bigger personalities and also have this bigger than life attitude. The best part about them is that they simply speak their mind. There’s nothing hidden beneath the carpet. And as they say, everything is bigger in Texas…Texas-sized!

Apparently Texas is the second largest U.S. state in both area and population, with an area of 696,200 sq km and a growing population of 23.9 million, unlike the city I come from, Mumbai, with an area of 603 sq km, but an almost equivalent population of Texas of over 20.5 million. And this is exactly what explains the ‘there’s-no-one-on-the-streets’ kinda feeling that I get here. Like someone said to me in Konkani, “ek khuddo moos pun dischena’, which means, you’ll not even find a blind insect on the streets. How true, I must say :-)

Well, one challenge that doesn’t bother me is the Texan weather. The city of Denton's climate is characterized as humid subtropical. With its hot, humid summers and cool winters, the weather is pretty much what I call 'my-type'. Right now, it’s really-really hot in the afternoons, but it gets pretty pleasant in the mornings and evenings, these being the best times to go for a jog down county side.

Another interesting thing about being here at this time of the year is the presidential elections 2012 that is churning out lot of excitement in the country. Nobody is really sure of who’s going to be the President yet. There’s a clear fifty-fifty chance between both the presidential candidates - Obama and Romney - this time around. On one side, Obama manufactures campaign mugs with his birth certificate printed on it, while on the other side, Romney fights back going the Hollywood style by producing a movie 'The Hope And The Change' to fight Obama. From what I see, it’s tough competition. Just hope that the best one wins.

This is my brief one-week experience of this place for now. I’ll share lots more as I get along.

Talk to you soon!

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