Reflections on my trip to USA

So, two weeks in the USA have passed. Since it was my first visit there I want to share some thoughts on being there. Of course, in comparison to being here.

The first thing that got my attention, that everything is like scaled to be larger. They have larger cars, roads, hotel rooms, enormous shops (should I say “stores”?) and malls. With this there is no feeling of crowd, everyone have enough space.

People seem to be calmer, at the work no one talks loudly, phone ringers are mostly off and if it happens to person to answer a call, he moves far far away from the cubicles.

Weather and nature reminded me of Russia at summer, almost the same as in my birthtown. After 40 c, the 70 f was like a big relief. At Sunday I’ve been to lake Minnetonka and really enjoyed the place.

I visited Minneapolis. Skyscrapers, restaurants, cars, sky-walks. Nice houses, huge parking lots. Different people everywhere. I’ve guessed it’s like New York, but looks that my guess is not so good.

It was a quick run around the Twin Cities and their surrounding, I liked it. Nice place to visit, and may be nice place to stay for a while.

In couple of words about the job done there - one week as a configuration manager - writing and testing scripts, hunting minor bugs once in a while, and another was more like a run to clean installation - looking for issues with the infrastructure, and fixing them where possible. A lot of stuff learned, it felt like going out of the shell of electronic payments and terminals to database management, active directory integration, user authentication, printing engine. The feeling was that 24 hours a day are not enough to fix all the issues, but the marathon was really worth it.

By the way, I really enjoy flying. The long flight gives you the power to work without distractions from colleagues, internet, phone calls. Concentration is good, and you even don’t need to stand up to grab another beer :)

All in one, except being away from home. Almost good.