God has been even...

I write this during my train journey from Kuopio to Helsinki within Finland. Its been now almost 12 days traveling within Germany, UK, Austria and Finland. This is my second visit to Finland. Last time when I came here it was in April. It was cold at that time but this time during June the weather was excellent. Clear sky and of course 24 hrs day. I have traveled some 17 countries so far and but Finland is amongst the best places to travel and visit. Its so fresh and refreshing here. The air is clean. It must be among one of the most beautiful natural places in the world. The tall pine trees between huge lakes. Its hard to describe – you only can see and feel it. I would strongly recommend any one who loves nature to come and visit this place. But more than the nature what touches you is the people. They are honest, true and that’s why may be happy. There is no inhibition. Nothing artificial. Its all “I am what I am”. Its so natural.Its so different from India. We try to be so cautious of others that we start becoming artificial. And the biggest problem we have is we are dishonest. We flaunt what we don’t own. We believe in not paying taxes. We believe in short term gains and don’t have a broader horizon. We try to be good and not are naturally good.

But then I believe God does not give everything to everybody. There are so few people here in Finland. Its just a country of 5 million people. The roads look so empty as if there is a strike going on. The trains I traveled were never fully occupied. They don’t have enough people to sale their products. The population is decreasing and there are more old people than young. This naturally means their products become expensive and affordability goes down. So less people buy and this is a vicious cycle. For an example a metallurgical test we conduct in India for 50 Euros , our customer pays 600 Euros for the same here. It will not be long before they will land in an economical mess. I am sure the process has already started and except for very high technical capabilities things have started moving to India, China or Brazil. In India we have such a huge market that any thing and every thing is consumed. Our biggest strength is our human resource. Its high time these countries should start importing manpower from India or China. It does not make any sense by stopping or slowing immigration. I was discussing this with my customer and he said the government does not have enough jobs for present citizens so it will add to more pressure. But then there will be more unemployment if the cost of living is too high and not all can afford it. This will result in less sales and more layoffs. Its so complex. This is Gods way of not giving everything at one place. He has made his distribution very even. We inherit great strength and wisdom in India. If only we are good to what we have and truthful and honest we will be much better off. I don’t know how this will happen. Once this starts happening we will be more strong as a nation and happy citizen of this world. During my next trip to Europe I would certainly like to go to Denmark and try to find out what they do different then the world that its worlds happiest country for many years.

Will we ever touch them

For the last many years I had been under the impression that the biggest competition for my business comes from China but this trip has really changed my prospective. LNM is presently making products for all the top OEM companies in Mining & Construction supplying products all across the globe. Couple of year back I used to listen from my customers that we are expensive then China etc but lately nobody was saying this. Now I realise that the chinese companies have taken a massive jump are not even competing with us but have gone a step further and were competing with my customers infact. There was this huge river basin project which all my customers had bid for and I was working closely with two of them as a potential partner. This was a huge project for all these companies and obviously LNM.  Every body had jacked up their capacity with huge investments to cope up the demand. And you know what the whole project has been given to a chinese company and the millions that these bigger players had invested in the project has just been a huge loss. What do the chinese do that we dont?  Can we ever reach the levels that they have created for themselves. The Olympics have been an eyeopener for the world about what China can do. The amount of money China is spending on infrastructure is mind boggling. 45% of there GDP . No country has ever done this. It is being said that by 2025, Sanghai will have more than 50000 skycrappers ie equivalent of 10 New York cities. China is doing in decades what the west did in centuries. I believe the democratic system in India or say other countries increases the cost and delays to projects.  But then their system of government increases privilege, corruption and special interest group. This results in major failures. The recent episodes with lead in children toys or the presently going on news on contaiminated milk causing numerous deaths of children are a testimony of damages the chinese system does. But then the positives are more than the negatives.  And China is taking massive steps to cut down on these failures. Their growth rate is really gravity defying growing more than 10% for last 15 years or more which is a dream for the rest of the world.  The fastest train in China takes just over four hours for the 800 mile plus Sanghai- Beijing journey.  By 2020 they have planned to have as many airports that each citizen will be living within 60 miles of an airport. By this year China will have around 40000 miles of expressway, India does not even have 1000. If you have been to London and seen the London Eye, china is building something similar in Beijing which will be almost twice as bigger than London eye.  What are we doing? Fighting for land in Kashmir, intelligence fails to unearth the terrorist bombings which is such a casual phenomenon and topic of the kitty parties - where next? We are so much busy in our caste system and reservations that we burn public property some where every day. I have been trying to get my name in the voters list for three years but still have been unable to do so despite efforts. Wake up India. Brand India has more pluses than China in the world as a brand which can be trusted. But why there are no efforts to grow on it? I will certainly try to understand China very closely when I travel there in November end.

Learning German

I am just back from a good dinner - chinese. This trip I had only three meals - twice chinese and one spanish. At Fulda its good the restaurants have good veg food which makes my meal comfortable. Today I had a great company of Stefanie and her colleaue Nicole.  I had a free morning as my meeting was in the afternoon. The meeting was good with good future prospects for LNM. My host company had arranged for a dinner in the evening with two beautiful hosts. Frank, the Operations Manager jokingly mentioned that he is sending me for dinner with two beautiful girls and gonna take pictures which he will send to Minoo if I dont give him a better price. With this wonderful dinner I would be tempted to give them good price but I always give good price to my customers as I believe I am in business as long as my customers survive.

The weather was better today. My fortune cookie after the dinner said that I will inspire others and I am sure if not my accumen as manager but my luck with good hosts will always inspire people to work hard.  Nicole is working as an apprenticeship. After her schools she goes to college once in a week and works for four days. Her work is part of her studies. She would be completing her apprenticeship this November. Its such a betterway as she is able to complete her studies working for herself. She would learn more this way than she would in college studying. All the freshers that we hire in India are so immature about work culture because they have no practical knowledge when they join.  Here in India everyone is working so hard towards going to the best college and only a few are able to go to the government funded places and rest end up paying so much of money for there higher education which is a burden on the parents. This way atleast she is able to take care of her own expenses and learning. This November after she clears her exams she will be ready to take up permanent position in the company. Srves good for everybody. Also one more thing I liked about the culture here is the outdoor activities they do with sports and travel. Both Stefanie and Nicole are widely travelled across the globe. I was seing some pics of Stefanies last holidays with her fiance to US and was nice to see that they experimented on lot of things which we Indians usually dont try to do to save money. They would prefer to stay in cheaper hotels but try things which you get an opportunity to do rarely. Like at the grandcanyon they took the one hour journey on the Cessna plane or at Hawai they took the helicopter ride. They try there hands at so many adventure sports. I learnt couple of words in German like Thank you is said as Dankeschon and sorry is said " Es tut mir leid" pronounced "S toot meer lide". Very difficult to pronounce. Sorry is always difficult to say and specially Germans dont easily say sorry.

Sorry - Samvatsari

I reached Fulda from Rottweil in a four hour train journey. The journey on ICE is wonderful. Travelling at more than 200 kms hour in wonderful comfort. Indian Railways has lot to learn. But then its pretty cheap travelling in Indian Railways as compared to the 80 Euros I paid for this trip. The countryside train journey is beautiful with big farms all around and cattle and horses gazing.

I was going through all my mails of last week on the train and came across a mail from Ritu mentioning Samvatsari on 9th. I was curious about this and was really amazed about this annual Jain community 'Sorry Telling Day'.Samvatsari is considered as the most pious day of a year and Jain people do prayer on this day to ask for the forgiveness for anything they did to hurt someone by means of thoughts, words, acts or deeds. They would ask for pardon from all the living being - human, plants, animals etc. Any word , action that might have hurt anyone. It really takes guts to say sorry and that too for no reason (thats what everyone thinks). Just imagine what state this world would be without this single word and another word close to this could be Thanks. I have seen lot of misunderstandings, my sudden wrong actions - intentional or unintentional just getting sorted out when I said sorry. We copy so much from other culture like Thanksgiving day, Valentines day, mothers day ...... archies has created a day every day but I see no effort from these marketing companies to promote this great day. I think we should try more to look into our culture which is tried and tasted over the centuries. Lets take the first step to say sorry to atleast those we know we have hurt intentionally , forget about unintentional or to other living things. And lets also remember to say Thanks.

As I watch the news in my hotel room - the world economy looks in a mess. Lehman Bros has gone bankrupt, Merrill Lynch is being taken over by Bank of America, AIG is being funded. Share markets world wide has taken a beating. Currency fluctuations is mind boggling. Dollar from 45 to 39 to 46 , Euro from 55 to 70 to 64 against the rupee in a span of one year. I dont know how do we manage this at LNM as every time I tried to hedge I am loosing.

I had a wonderful dinner at a spanish lounge here. First time I had spanish food. It tasted awsome but had lot of cheese. Well I had reason to celebrate - I won a good order for my company today.

On my shortest International trip

Here I am at a place called Rottweil in Germany after two flight and two train changes. My ultimate destination is further 30 kms away and has no train or flight connectivity but my customer is good enough to provide me with a pick up. Well you can imagine how lonely i would be in this small town south of Germany near Switzerland border.

I am on a 48 hour trip to Germany for couple of meetings. It feels great to travel light with just the laptop bag. Its been a long day getting up at 5 in the morning for the flight and reaching my hotel after 16 hrs. Since my last trip to Munich last year the Lufthansa flight is better. Food was good. Saw couple of movies. I am forgetting the name of the English movie but I am pretty sure that Aditya Chopra must have been influenced by this movie for his DDLJ or may be viceversa - the director of this movie has copied DDLJ. Punjab is replaced by Scotland in this movie. By the way Scotland seems to be a beautiful place - have to find a customer there :-). another movie I saw was Zannat - the first time I dared to see Emran Hashmi - as I had no other choice. The movie was good but how can some one make this guy a hero and how can he have fans.

After my meeting tomorrow I have another 4 hours train journey to my next destination. My internet hour is gonna finish and I have to eat my home bought food before i sleep for the day. By the way its cold here - colder than Delhi's coldest.

To my roots

The last weekend was a long weekend here starting with the Indian Independence day on 15th. We decided to have a weekend break to our ancestral homes at Deshnoke and Bikaner. We left for Jaipur on way to Deshnoke on 14th August afternoon after the kids were back from school. The drive is max 5 hrs to cover the 300 kms but it took us 10 hrs and we reached past midnight at Jaipur. There was a huge traffic jam because of consistent and heavy rains. Next day we did another 5 hrs drive to reach Deshnoke - place famous for Karni mata temple. Deshnoke is also the place where my Great Great Grand Father lived before migrating to Purulia. We still own the plot of land where his hut is still there. The kids - 6 generations away from him got some pictures taken in front of that hut. My Grandmother was also with us and she told that she had spent 10 days here after her marriage in this hut some more than 60 years back. We plan to build a two room apartment in this piece of land now.

Our kuldevi or family God is Sri Karni Mata. Her temple is at Deshnoke. My everyday prayers are to her. I had not been able to visit this temple and town for last 8 years and so had planed this trip with the kids and Minoo. Goddess Karni has amazing faith following and you can see thousands of rate , called kabas, in the temple. These kabas are said to be descendants of Goddess Karni. Its so surprising that despite they moving around freely, there has never been a case of plague in this town. There are more than hundred thousand foreign tourist coming every year to this temple to see this miracle apart from millions of Indians. If you click on the link above you can see more details about this temple.

Well, I am not sure why my Great Great Grandfather Sri Thakurdas Mall, shifted out of Deshnoke but the best guess could be because of economic reasons. As this is in the Thar desert and source of daily earnings might have been limited so he must have moved out of this place. There is a very interesting story behind his move. Once his cousin who was working in Calcutta came to Deshnoke with a Dhaka silk Dhoti , Thakurdasji wanted it but his cousin joked and made fun saying that if he wants to wear this he must work hard and earn himself one. This Thakurdasji took as a challenge and travelled all the way from west India to eastern India using all various means like train, bullock cart and camel cart. That's how he moved out to Purulia.

We spent the day at Deshnoke. We had dinner at the home of one Mr. Anand Sharma. His father was cook to our family - my Great Grandfather and Grandfather. We visited a newly set up hospital which was inaugurated in the morning by Chief Minister of Rajasthan. Papa had humbly given some contribution to build the hospital. I am sure this shows his attachment to this place and a way of saying Thanks to the town and its people. Next day we were at Bikaner, 30 kms from this Deshnoke. We had a Haveli in this town which is listed in a recently published book on Indian Havelis. Unfortunately we had to sell it off to some unauthorised occupants who had taken over the property as we never lived here. I took the kids to see Junagadh palace, the kings fort. Wonderful Rajasthan architecture and heritage. Minoo went out for shopping - something women never give a miss.

We had a long drive back on Sunday - around 10 hrs plus to come home. The trip was a very hectic one but very refreshing - connecting me to my roots. For the last few years we have been trying to trace our ancestry. We have been able to find out details of at least last 14 generations. We are building a family website to save all this information for future generation. Its such a proud heritage that you would like to share with all.

I LOVE NEW YORK

This afternoon after my return from work I was sitting idle and changing TV channels. One of the channels was showing the movie "Jaaneman" starring Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan and Priety Zinta. The movie is shot completely in NY and that reminded me of my last years holidays to New York. I remember my first trip to NY on 15th June 2001. I had gone to the World Trade Center, never imagining that this twin towers will not be around in my next trip. That was a very short one weekend trip to NY in between my business visits and some how I didnt like the city. It looked crowded, dirty and people were honking , something you dont see in US. Somhow over the years that I kept on visitng NY I started liking the place and infact loving it. Its happening, its vibrant, its real cosmopolitan and its colorful. I was at NY for almost 9 days during my last trip. As this was Minoo's first trip to NY so we visited some of the tourist places in NY like the Statue of Liberty , Times Square etc. But the real fun was our trip to the eateries, clubs, pubs or restaurants. As Sangeet Sumant were there at that time so we had a wonderful guide in Sangeet who knew all these wonderful places. The Michilada at Cafe Havana was the perfect start to our NY food festival. We had different cuisines like Japanese, Mexican, Italian, lebanese, Chinese, Cuban etc during the trip. Try out the roof top bar on the 20th floor at 230 on 5th Avenue with a view of the Empire state building on its north. Shopping - NY's the best place. For discounts - I prefered the outlet malls and its worth going that far away when you plan to buy a lot. You get lost at the worlds biggest store - MACY's. A walk on the 5th avenue from the Central park (59th street) to the 34th street with honey roasted peanuts is a wonderful experience. On both sides are lined the biggest brands in the world and exclusively designed windows. Rockefeller Center is a stopover for photo sessions in between. A walk on the board walk in New Jersey by the side of River Hudson is a treat. The view from Hoboken, place said to be the birth place of American Baseball, of the Manhatan is gorgeous. This can be along list of adjectives and revisiting NY as and when opportunity comes is part of my Bucket List. Never miss one if you get.

Day 3 & 4

Its been tiring with the amount of driving that we are doing so was unable to write the last two nights. We usually reach hotel late and just go bang - to bed. And then we have early morning meetings so it keeps on going.

Well today is the last day of our business trip. I am in Canada. The QEW expressway which runs along the Lake in Canada is superb - 16 lanes both side. Its a great sight.I believe QEW would be Queen Elizabeth Way. It was a long drive yesterday. I believe around 600 + miles staring from Indiana and then Kentucky, Ohio, PA,NY and then into Cananda. We started at around 12 o Clock in the noon and reached our hotel at around 9.30 pm which I believe was descent. Duane - I am sure must be tired driving all the way. I need to now start driving here. May be practise a bit and that I have an international driving license - so should not be a problem. The sun has been bright and sunny through out the day. We see so much back home in TV's or read about US recession. I dont see a damn here. There are as many people in the Malls or restaurants as there used to be. I mean there is absolutely no difference may be its increasing more - the spending habits. But yes one thing that I noticed changing is size of cars. Cars are getting smaller - its difficult to maintain the gallon gulping SUV's and trucks that people drove with oil at 4 USd per gallon here. Most of todays drive was flat - I mean there are no hills and its not a scenic drive till you enter into Canada. But the day before when we drove from Virginia at Kenucky - that was beautiful. We went across four states. Kentucky - we know in India for KFC, Kentucky is famour for its horses. Kentucky Derby is world renowned.SO you see miles and miles of farms with horses grazing around. Horses may be expensive here than people. Another thing for which Kentucky is famous is whiskey. Duane told that they make the best whickeys but surprisingly most of the state is dry like we have in Gujarat. I was not aware that US has dry states but there are a few. Its a religious state also with most people go for Bible reading on wednesdays. By the way we had dinner at Olive Gardens here - one of my best dining places.

In couple of hours we will leave this hotel for our meeting in Canada. And after that Duane drops me into Buffalo airport and I fly back to NY over the weekend - need to get myself some clothes. I am having some backache for last two days and I hope it gets over or will kill the weekend. Duane drives back home to be withhis family and its a long weekend with Memorial day holiday on Monday. Its a five hour drive for him. I would be ungrateful if I dont mention Duane's help to me personally and LNM in business. He is such a good sport and I believe we have built up such a great understanding amongst each other which makes the business smooth. Thanks Duane for everything and you made this trip very comfortable.

Catch you guys later - may be from India.

Day 2- I am gonna work till I retire

I had a good meeting in the morning with my customers. It has been raining since morning and before setting out of Bedford Duane and me had a luncheon meeting with our former buyer of this company in Bedford. He had retired since I came last time and we thought it will be good to catch up with him. Speaking to him during lunch I enquired about how he spends his day - and he said he walks till 1 pm every day and at times 19 miles. I found this crazy way to spend your time. I have been always talking that I am going to retire pretty early in my career but seeing him I felt this might be a bad decision. I now understand how important it is to keep on working - may be not always at work but things which will keep me creatively busy. So I am now decided that I am not gonna stop working early as I had planned out and am sure I would keep working at LNM for much longer than I thought I will do. Its pretty important to keep yourself busy and I know I will be the last one to keep walking.

Well, I am at my hotel room in Bristol. It has been a long day with this more than 6 hrs of driving. We crossed 4 states - Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and then Virginia. This trip is going to take me into nine US states and then Canada. As I had mentioned earlier it was lousy weather when I started the day- raining and raining but as we reached into Virginia - it became bright and sunny. Duane had a surprise visit for me in Bristol. I went to see the stadium where they have the NASCAR races. A huge stadium which accommodates 1,00,000 people and it was great to be in there after having seen all this on TV. Duane and me had the whole stadium to us and I could hear the echo of 100000 people roaring in my ears. It was a great experience to be there and I thank Duane for this. I have taken some good pictures there but some body has made a mess of the card reader in my laptop and I am unable to upload this now. But I will share this as soon as I get a replacement. One of the best things for some one in a marketing job is that it allows you to see great places and meet exciting people. The last one month has really rekindled the spark within and I am enjoying it. But travelling on US roads is so monotonous with no holes or bad roads. Miles and Miles of great expressways and its great that Duane keeps on driving wonderfully on these roads - I would have gone to sleep as there's no excitement like we have back home - no rickshaws or cows coming , no human gay walking in the middle. Add to that I have Duane on my side for five long days. Hope I had Keera driving me around :-) Catch you tomorrow as we travel from here to Kentucky.

Summing up the trip

Today is my last night in Europe. I am at Stuttgart and fly to Frankfurt tomorrow morning for further connection home. This has been a great trip as I got an opportunity to go to places which you usually dont travel. In my last trips to Europe I had visited only the metros but this time I got an opportunity to go inside small towns, villages - places like Bad Salzungen, Leimbach, Fulda,Burghaun, Rottweil, Aichhalden in Germany - Graz, Zeltweg in Austria, Turku, Tampere, Lahti in Finland. I travelled on planes, cars, trains and buses. This gave me a great perspective about the continent. I went into mines 800 meters into the ground and 110 meters up on the tower. I went into the Eastern part of Germany , the historic border which at one time was making so much of tension in the world. How removing the borders has bought peace and triumph. Is it not so unfortunate that how much trouble we create with these man made borders. The trip in the mine was so enthralling. How difficult it is for some people who work there in the dark. Such a hard job some part of the society is doing to make our life comfortable. Touched World war 2 history there. Theres a cave in the mine where Hitler had hidden tons of Gold, Billions of Dollars and best paintings of Berlin Museum but unfortunately US noticed it and after the war dug out every thing. Its said they carried every thing and till recently have been returning to the different countries there Gold and money. I saw a Crystal mine there with sparkling crystals and they do a light and sound show there. So dazzling.

I got an opportunity to try different food. Things I don't eat at home. It was difficult to get lot of choices in vegetarian food but never slept hungry and unsatisfied. Drove motorboat in Baltic sea and Dakota bike - so much like our bullet. Was so close to nature. Air never breathed so fresh. By the way I had mentioned name of a place above Bad Salzungen. Bad does not mean BAD but Bath. At all places in Germany where they use Bad before the name of the place means there is a natural water source which cures diseases. The walk around one of these source - gives you such a wonderful feel. It really feels something has touched you in.

but the biggest gain has been the people with whom I interacted. They were so nice and homely. The hospitality was so great that we don't even do anything like this in India though we call ourselves good hosts. How happy these guys live - not creating unhappiness by there own doing. They accept the situation as it is not trying to worry about things not in there control. I am really bowled over by the touch. Another lesson I learn was punctuality. How I was able to plan every thing nicely as every thing moved in time. A train, a bus, an appointment, a taxi call. If we can do this back home how much more we can deliver. I have a whole day journey tomorrow and it will be tiring. I hope I carry on this writing once back to the daily chores at work and home. I also look forward to my trip to US which starts in a fortnight.

Finland - a great place to see

For most of us in India Finland is famous for Nokia. I thought I will buy a Nokia phone here as it may be cheaper but its expensive then India. Any way, I am not sure why the name Finland but my wild throw on this may be because theres lot of fish these guys eat :-)

Finland is in northern Europe with Sweden on its west and Russia on its east. It has some 6 million people and is a beautiful country. Finland landscape is covered with pine trees, hills and lakes. My host mentioned that there are more than 10000 lakes. Every family here must be having a summer home near the water. Most of the people as I understood leave in the southern part of the country with the capital Helsinki, Turku, Tampere all in the south. The most popular sport here is Ice Hockey and people follow F1 racing in a big way. Naturally the present world no 1 is from Finland. My travel took me to Turku, Tampere and Lahti. My days were in my meetings but got some time in the evening to see the places in this places and also on my drives between these cities. My first night was at Turku which is one of the oldest city in Finland. I had mentioned about my day at Turku in another blog so now I start about Tampere. Tampere is the third largest city of Finland and is surrounded by lakes, ponds and ridges. There are more then 200 lakes and ponds in Tampere. After my business meetings I strolled along the city , its parks, water bodies. Weather was superb and sunny. For dinner I went with Teppo and Kirsi, my hosts to a revolving restaurant on a 110 meter high tower by the sea. What a view. The sun setting at 10 pm into the sea, Great five course meal and a wonderful company made the evening a memorable one. Any one visiting this city must go to this restaurant for a dinner. great food, great ambiance. I am attaching some pictures taken there. And if you want to get close to nature make FInland your next tourist destination.

So Here I am at Turku in Finland. This is the 15th country I have seen in my life time and except for Dubai all has been business related.It was a two hour flight from Frankfurt to Helsinki and then three hours bus journey to this place. Helsinki looks like an old airport. The bus drive was great and I think the best time to come here is may be one more month from now. Still there are no leaves on the trees after the winter onslaught. I recollect participating in my school drama when I was in 5th standard on Indian Freedom struggle and the starting lines of the drama were "The sun never sets in the British Empire" but even if the sun sets here it is for really small time. At 10.00 pm when I reached this place the sun was still out like we have around 5.00 pm in India. The birds were flying to there nests. So that means it was going to set shortly and till the time I went to bed it was still not completely dark. The hotel I am staying here is great. They have English channels on the TV. And the most important the internet is free. Using internet has been the most expensive thing for me here. You pay almost 10-12 Euro for an hr. or you need to take daily packages which i usually took for 30 -40Euros. This brings me to the topic I wanted to write. Having been to almost 6 countries In Europe in my four trips here I have found travelling and leaving in Europe more tough and some what not as carefree as you find in US for Vegotarian Indian like me. One of the major reasons is the cost. Its really expensive in Europe and I dont know how they survive with this kind of cost and working just 40 odd hours in a week. What I found that things cost same in US and Europe just the currency changes and thats a 60% effect. Hotel rooms here average 80-100 Euros and same in US but in dollars. Gas here is 1.5 Euros as compared to .80 Euro in India or now alsmost same in US. A taxi ride of almost 40-50 kms can kill your days budget. The secod biggest problem is language. I mean its so funny they have no signboards in English or no announcements in English and its different language every where like here its Finnish and German in Germany. There was a bus change to my ride yesterday and the driver announced about it but I didnt understand a bit and when I saw everyone getting out I just got out and then found out that for this bus this was the last stop. So you feel very unfriendly type. In US its so different - Any place You go you can understand every thing and relate with them. Its more adventures here like you dont know whats going to happen next. Infrastructure both palces is same. Superb, something I dont know India will ever have. Systems superb and everyone follows the law and respects it. The better thing in Europe is the History. You can feel History here and old buildings with typical European architecture. Its same from a small village to Munich or Vienna. While travelling to Europe you feel a bit out of place where as in US its so much like i know this place. And to top it you end up seing every 7th to 8th guy Desi in US.Food - absoultely no problems in US. I will be travelling to US in another 2 weeks and will be driving with Duane may be 2000 kms in 5 days but its nice and enjoyable. In next 15 minutes my host is going to pick me up from the hotel for a sight seing to this town, Turku look like a beautiful place. My hotel is by the side of a river and great view. I am taking my camera today and hopefully will be able to share some of the pictures of Turku. Enjoy your Sunday. But one think I must confess about Europe - the people are good and help you out.