Our trip to United States of America - 1

Preparation and Visa procurement

Our son and daughter-in-law, living in the USA, have been asking us to visit them since sometime. I and my wife dodged for a while primarily because I felt that it would rather be little difficult to travel long distances at this age and secondly it will unnecessarily be a pressure on children’s’ routine life. However, they prevailed upon us. Accordingly, beginning of this year and suitably assisted by them, we filed Visa applications online, paid appropriate fees, attended interviews in the US consulate, Mumbai, and soon received our stamped travel visa at our hometown.  Travel visa procurement process to the USA is a systematic and well-organised exercise and everything went on easy for us.

Timing and travel

Since winter commences in November in the USA, we decided our visit to Sept-October. Gathering needful clothing, medicines and a few home-made eateries, we flew to Boston, via Mumbai and Doha, by Qatar Airways. It was nearly a 19 h long flight from Mumbai to Boston with 2½ h layover in Doha international airport. We were served with nice, Asian vegetarian meals on-board and both of us are quite pleased with the courteous in-flight services of Qatar Airways. Such pleasant was our flight that I and my wife would readily recommend Qatar Airways to anyone wanting to travel to any European or trans-Atlantic countries...

Arrival in Boston

Boston in Massachusetts is located in the east coast of USA and this time of the year it is 9½ h behind India. As our flight landed on time at Logan International airport Boston after a continuous 13½ h journey from Doha, with quick immigration check and customs clearance, we were fondly received by our son and daughter-in-law. Meeting dear ones after a long gap of time is simply a joyous moment. Children drove us to their home about 45 km west of Boston.  Slightly exhausted of the long travel, within two days we got relieved of jet-lag and quickly fine-tuned ourselves to the American time-regime.

We planned little over a month stay in the USA and time is steadily passing. It is nearly 2 weeks since we arrived here. Weather in Boston is very pleasant with chilly morning and evenings and beautiful, bright, sunny days. It is certainly a welcome change for us from that continuous, heavy monsoon rain of west-coast of India.

The city and surroundings of Boston is undoubtedly beautiful with clean, broad, well-built roads accompanied by well-laid foot-paths on both sides; orderly traffic, expansive greenery around and disciplined way of life. None litters on the roads or side-walks. I and my wife are very delighted and regularly undertake morning long walks and evening casual strolls in this eye-catching suburban.

Visit to Niagara Falls

End of first week, we were taken on a sight-seeing trip to the world famous Niagara Falls, located 750 km west of Boston, in the New York State. It was a long 8 h drive from Boston. Bordered by province of Ontario, Canada, on the other end, Niagara Falls is a group of 3 waterfalls, namely Horseshoe, American and Bridal Veil, and together it makes a spectacular view this time of the year. With more than 150,000 gallons/sec water gushing down and having a long history, the Niagara Falls, is undoubtedly valued for its sheer beauty and vast hydroelectric power generative capacity. Maid of the Mist boat cruise, walkways through the Prospect Point Observation Tower and Cave of the Winds, we enjoyed the place to the best. Guided boat cruise underneath the mighty waterfalls and steady walking through observation tower and along the cave of the winds are truly amazing.

This enjoyable visit of ours to Niagara Falls pushed my memory 28 years back to an earlier visit to the same sight but from the Canadian side when I had been to and spent 4 months in Waterloo University, Ontario in Feb-March 1993 as a Visiting Scientist. So, essentially this is my second visit to the same sight.  Niagara Falls is definitely picturesque and spectacular from both sides. Appended are a few pictures which speak in volumes of this natures’ great wonder of the world......

Corning Museum of Glass

On the way to Niagara Falls, 350 km from Boston, we made a brief stopover at Corning Museum of Glass which contains the art, history and science of glass at one place. Founded in 1951 by Corning Glass Factory, the museum currently has a collection of more than 50000 world famous, most comprehensive and celebrated glass collections at one place, some over 3500 years old. We went around the museum, saw a demo of actual glass-making and had a glimpse of varied glass products, viz. tumblers and crockery, historic glass artifacts, science glass wares, weird mirrors, variety of glass exhibits and numerous other glass items. Hitherto, I never knew glass has such an ancient and amazing history. The vast gift shop in Corning Museum contains varied glass products, which one is tempted to buy and carry back home as a treasure memento.

I was quite exited having visited the Corning Museum of Glass, for another pleasant reason. In my forty-years of service as a mycologist, I and my research team vastly used Corning-make glass-wares, viz. test-tubes, Petri-plates, conical flasks, pipettes and many more for fungal researches, especially for cultivation and maintenance of fungi in the laboratory. Obviously, I was thrilled seeing this amazing museum of glass art.

Live demo of glass-making

As we returned to Boston, silently, I thanked my son and daughter-in-law for having taken us to these wonderful sight-seeing places, in the first leg of our tour, which made our trip truly exiting and memorable.

D. Jayarama Bhat