My first US trip - Feb 2017 -Part 1. Erie-Pennsylvania

America. The land of opportunities. It is the dream of every person to visit this great country at least once in their life. Its the aura of visiting a developed country , the tales of which one hears since one's childhood. One wonders about the majestic structures , sights , exotic locations and the opportunity of interacting with people of a foreign country sharing your ideas with them.
With hopes and dreams of visiting USA someday , I applied for a passport during my Engineering days, soon I joined a reputed IT company after graduating . The work was good ,and I thought that soon I would get an opportunity to travel, but somehow the dream of visiting America somehow eluded me, just like what majority of fellow engineers face.
But , its in the most unexpected moments that life throws you surprises , finally after a wait of 8 years,I got a chance to visit USA.
My trip ,though short - just 10 days , was still a memorable one, and I lived it to the fullest , enjoying every moment there.
I work for General Electric-Transportation , and we have our center in Erie ,Pennsylvania. The journey from India was quite hectic. Bangalore - Doha - Chicago - finally Erie. And lots of security checks.
My experience with the Immigration officer unfortunately wasn't a very pleasant one. I had forgotten the hardcopy of my return ticket in Bangalore , which made him doubt my intentions about returning to India. Thankfully , I was able to convince him , and he agreed to "admit" me to his country.
Erie is a small quiet town , it was slightly snowing when I reached my hotel. To see snow falling from sky was a first time experience for me. Snow is pretty common in North India , but for having lived in Pune, Maharashtra,India all my life , I had never seen snow :) It was about 10.30pm there ,Saturday. So I had a Sunday to explore Erie leisurely.
As I was totally exhausted , I just finished off the remainder of a sandwich I had picked up at Chicago Airport and went to bed.
A phone call from a colleague (pic below)got me up next morning , after breakfast , and we decided to take a walk from the Erie bayfront area towards Peach street.

                                                      

Roads are clean , and there were virtually no one walking on the streets , with the exception of someone smoking ,waiting at a bus stop. It is good to understand the map and bus routes if you don't have a vehicle and you want to get around town.People prefer to move around in cars rather than walk. Maybe its the cold weather. We had large coats on , and though it was a bit windy ,with an afternoon temperature of -1 deg , we managed.We walked for quite some time , saw a beautiful church , and decided to visit it , also we got respite from the cold too.Soon , we decided to have lunch , and me being a huge fan of Pizzas , visited a place called Stevo's Pizza.             


      
  
Pizza was really nice, and its really different from the taste we get in India.

















As Erie is near the great lakes , it has a lighthouse. There is a museum too , near the lighthouse , but unfortunately it was closed.

After lunch , we roamed around the town , met a cyclist who gave us some directions and told us a few places to visit. we got into a dollar store , picked up something and left for our hotel , as it got dark quite fast , around 5.30pm.

Next day , Monday , and work begins.

We were here for a business meeting , and by evenings we were free
Took this pic ,and got a photo of a guy fishing here. If anyone wants to do fishing in the bay , they need to take permission from the authorities.There are a lot of seagulls we can see in the evening sky , and when water in the lake freezes , the fish get trapped in the ice , and the birds land on the lake , break the ice with their beaks , and take away the tiny fish.

We went to the famous Walmart store here in the evening, and then to Jimmy Johns , a small sub joint for dinner.Next evening , on the last day of the business event , our team went to a small pub in Erie , called Calamari's spice row , which serves awesome beer and chicken wings. Worth a visit.
We also had a locomotive visit planned at our office ,the next day and got an opportunity to witness the manufacturing and testing of huge locomotives in the GE plant.

Later at night , my US tech lead took us out for dinner to,one of a kind , Japanese restaurant , a "hibachi" style - named Aoyama.This restaurant is near a mall called Milcreek mall.This was a unique experience for me , and I hadnt witnessed a Japanese cook come over to our table and cook dinner ,right in front of us , and serve too , with some neat acrobatic tricks up his sleeve.

And my awesome hot dinner is served with cold beer. Tilapia fish with Veggies.
Simply wonderful and overwheming quantity. American food portions are huge.

One more place worth visiting , is picking up choclates from a place called "Romolo" Chocloates , and the speciality of Erie , called Sponge candy. Visit surely and pick up these premium chocs.

I stayed in Erie for about 7 days. 5 of them being weekdays , so couldnt visit a few places, most notably Presque Isle state park. I plan to cover this place ,and Niagara falls in my next visit.

From Erie , me and my colleagues and friends , Manish , Anand , Ashutosh , planned a leisure trip of 3 days to NYC - New York city - where we experienced , what its like to live in one of the greatest cities of the world. Watch out for my next blog ,where I cover my visit to NYC - the big apple.
Till then -- bye !! :D

-Vasant Prabhu
vasant_prabhu@yahoo.co.in