Sushrut

Now I have spent more than 3 weeks here and yet there is no single local resident who knows me by name or knows who I am. Excluding the work-place off-course, though that does not matter beyond 8-6.

And yet I am in no discomfort and still vocal about how great this place (and this phase) is.

Davis is one little town with outstanding mix of businesses, people and attitudes. Its not a super small super warm town where everyone knows everyone and so on. Its a biggish town, swells incredibly due to college students during semesters and then almost dries up summer, both literally and figuratively.

And this reflects. Everything around here is like a typical college town. But just to make this place different, the attitude of people is not the same. Many times I have seen landlords, business owners and people, not treating the "college students" well. But Davis isn't that way. Even the government, city council, police and the business owners take special care of the students and are open to accepting them. May be its the California's open nature or may be a conscious effort. But this is striking.

There are special bike routes in Davis, which are dedicated bike roads built and can be used by bikers (cyclists) and pedestrians ONLY. Its not just like a bike lane. Bike lanes are present too, but these roads, which literally go through back yards and lanes etc. are small 8 ft wide roads which greatly make biker's life easy, safe and ride-able. Davis is anyway on a flat land to encourage biking and these distance saving, safe, shadow bearing short-cuts (aka Davis bike loop) make it special.

Talking about businesses, I have seen all the "chain-restaurants" in here, from Wendy's to McD to every single one of them. But along with them, Davis has incredible number of special, one branch, (mostly) family owned restaurants. This little town has more than 7-8 Sushi places, a bunch of Thai, Mexican, Italian places for the savors. I just saw an Ethiopian place which is to open soon. I think its just fantastic. Even in the third week now, I continue living my dream of thinking of a type of cuisine and then walking into that restaurant a few steps away somewhere in the downtown to treat myself to a great meal! And I have never been disappointed. (If interested read about Davis' Murder Burger, a place which was and is popular for its burgers yet had this terrible name - and the residents made them change it.)

The life is pretty peaceful though. Perhaps as peaceful as it was in the final years in IIT. Largely due to this hotel stay, where everything is taken care of (thanks to DTL) and with no study after coming home, I have almost everything very peaceful out here except...

Anyway, so that's how the time goes, and with the new toy that I've got, I now feel the urge to explore beyond just the walking-distance-Davis that I now know pretty well.