Much of about 36 hours after arriving in US were used, effectively to a certain extent, to get done quite a few things: a short research meeting, working on some SMEAGOL related issues, meeting Dave Tobias for GSC website related work, short stops at MTU Telecom office & Victoria’s Kitchen, a hair cut, Changgong Zhou’s graduation party in Ambassador, configuring my new T-Mobile phone, arranging much of the view-worthy photographs from trip to India, trying to install MS Office on group laptop, getting some things ready for Spokane workshop/conference and such. Needless to mention, I was kinda starting to feel severe shortage of time and some shortage of sleep - but I was just glad to have travelled West a few days ago giving me longer days to work…

Towards Pacific North West…

As was planned some looong time ago, Wil was at my apartment around 5.40ish on 15th morning and after finishing up some last minute works (leaving the group laptop in office and printing boarding pass, etc), we were in CMX airport with more than sufficient time for security check and such. Journey, with the introduction of Jet service, has been quite short & very pleasant and this one wasn’t any exception. Flight reached Minneapolis/St. Paul quite early and I had about 4 hours before our next flight.

I got to use MSP’s WiFi to finish some pending work and Maui Cafe-Dunn Bros combo worked pretty well for my stomach Did I say there were four hours before the next flight? Well, I was to be wrong pretty soon. Since I hadn’t got any appointment for Saturday (why, what for? Ask me in person) and time was my friend, I gladly accepted the bump off offer made by NWA agents. As per their suggestion, /me waited in the terminal until everybody boards the flight and couple minutes before gates close, I was asked to board the flight. Disappointingly I got in and this was the fourth such time - /me being the last one to board the flight when I was hoping for a bump off When I was about to take my seat, another NWA agent takes me out of the flight with less than a minute before door closed - much like a fairy tale. I had always hoped for such an experience and here I was, experiencing it

As a result of bump off, I opted for $300 credit towards my next ticket and spent the next 10 hours surfing the net, getting some work done and napping - to make up for some lost sleep. While waiting for the next flight in the terminal, I spent some time with Dr. Orlando - who is one of the instructors for Spokane workshop and will be visiting Tech afterwards. There seemed to be some obvious advantage for traveling on this day - even the 9.30 pm flight to Spokane was over-booked - I very gladly accepted another bump-off offer and a free upgrade to first class the next day So, now I have to pick at least two places that I would like to visit in US!

After a night’s stay in Minneapolis’ Holiday Inn and a first class journey later, I was finally in Spokane - a moderately bigger town near Washington-Idaho border. After completing some formalities at the hotel, I walked around the downtown area with Wil, noting some places to eat, buy books, etc. I was very glad to find a camera shop (well, you should know by now - I am a sucker for camera gear) in the vicinity of where I am staying Guess I am liking this part of the world - much of Sunday’s morning was spent roaming around the architecturally pleasant streets and near a canal/river front shooting pictures of birds, scenary, and such. Some of my camera’s findings are below:

Montvale Hotel - where we stayed - shot around 5.30am

Interiors of Montvale Hotel

Interiors of Montvale Hotel

Downtown Spokane

Downtown Spokane

Downtown Spokane

Near the river front park, Downtown Spokane

Rriver front park, Downtown Spokane

Bird feeders, river front park, Downtown Spokane

River front park, Downtown Spokane

Downtown Spokane

As of now, I like the area and all that it has to offer - nice buildings, pleasant weather, not so busy (it’s weekend - got to wait for a work week to revise my opinion), good roads, lot of nice places to eat (have tried Our Daily Bread and Onions so far and will definitely try more during the week to follow), picturesque scenary, book shops and an authentic (Nikon/Canon) camera shop. I just returned from the social and hoping to have a good learning week ahead…