First week in Atlanta

    Just to jot our experience so far in Atlanta.We arrived this Saturday and today is a thursday.Things have been improving - Yesterday, Jacob helped setup a VOIP call with Divya's parents back in India, two days earlier Brijesh had lended his office cell for me to call home , Tuesday, I had received my relocation allowance cheque and had opened my bank account and am no longer someone with neither a debit/credit card nor even a hundred dollars on me.And yes, joining the office on Monday was great as there were quite a few folks here whom I knew already and they did extend a warm welcome.The Induction session was also very friendly.

       On the work front, all my team-mates(Pramod,Sreekanth,Preethi,Debasmitha,Chaz) have been very cooperative and have been helping me setup my work environment.I have also to some extent started fulfilling my tasks.Had a call with India team as well and spoke with Anoop.I feel pretty comfortable on the work front as I am doing the same tasks as I had been doing in India.My daughter had been pretty ill initially but has been getting better consistently.Here again, my manager Mahesh has been very helpful and quickly linked me to Prashant who in turn had pro-actively mailed me the route map to the nearest doctor in case required.

        We are put up at residence Inn and this offers a complimentary breakfast and a happy hour early evening which translates as dinner.I have liked the number of options available at breakfast and have been trying my hand at everything.Looks like I have been challenging my digestion though and intend to mellow down a bit on the non-veg items. Divya has been preparing me chappathi lunches that I eat with Sandeep/Mahesh/Mouly at office.Residence Inn also offers cab to and from office which sort of dictates your day routine.You need to catch the cab at nine, so you have breakfast at 8:30 , you leave your room by 8:20 , iron your clothes , dress up Niya , wake up Niya , pack lunch for office , make chappathis for lunch , take your bath , wake up , sleep , setup a wakeup call.Then you have a day at office, you set a reminder for your return cab, reach room , dress up Niya for dinner , go to the breakout area for your early dinner , come back home by 730 , spend a couple of hours of unplanned time on tv/net/phone and go to sleep.

          Amit Kumar Panjiyar, my office mate has been kind enough to take me places while we do  not have a car.The first trip had been to the Indian store - Shivam to make good the rice that had been taken away at the airport.Unfortunately, that trip was done on a Monday when the shop is off.So we returned back to the farmer's market from where Divya chose her groceries while I carried a sleeping Niya.Amit was our first guest at our room.The next day, he again took me to the bank of america where I opened an account.Yesterday, we went again to the Indian store to get the rice and also to the Micro store to get a headphone with mike to call home.

       So that is how we have been surviving - things look better definitely from the first day we arrived here with the bother of our child's illness and the general haplessness.But yes, things need to improve a lot as well - we are not in the driver's seat yet. It was also good to have been able talk to quite a few friends here in the US - Jacob, David , Aslam and also Divya's cousin Sheebachechi/Prakashettan who have extended a very supportive hand , a hand that we might soon have have to hold :)