I had two interesting experiences with Uber at Salt Lake City recently. Actually they were both Lyft drivers as I recently switched to using Lyft from Uber because of the reputation Uber has developed lately.
The first is Marty. Marty is an elderly gentleman and must be in his 60s. Very friendly and cordial. He mentioned in our 15 minutes drive that he was a teacher for 9 years in New York when I mentioned that I was from New Jersey. He continued to mention that he and his wife just returned from a long trip from New Delhi and London recently. I asked about why he was in India, assuming that he must be traveling like most retirees do.
"Oh no, we go to India twice a week and spend few weeks with our grandchildren". He said
"We have a condo in Vasant Vihar in New Delhi". He continued.
I was now curious why he has an apartment in India. He is a white American and what is he doing in India twice a year? His daughter met and married an Indian while she was in grad school. She is a doctorate so is her husband. Then he mentioned that his son-in-law is from a well to do family in India. The family is owner of a well known conglomerate in India focusing on telecom. So he and his wife visit India twice a year to spend time with their grandchildren.
His son is married and lives in Salt Lake City so they return to SLC after their visits abroad. Then we switched to his hobby of fly fishing. I asked him how I can check out how to fly fish. He took my number and lo-behold that evening he sent me information where I can take fly-fishing classes. I am hoping to take them if I return to SLC in Spring.
The second driver is another elderly lady also in her 60s driving a Mini Cooper. She looked like and spoke like a grandmother. She was dropping me off at the airport and in those 20 minutes she mentioned that she travelled couple of times to India in her younger days with her daughter and travelled from Delhi all the way to south of India but not sure where. What took me by surprise about her is that she was very philosophical. Our conversation was about how having spare time makes us creative. Our conversation was around how life in US has made us busy with work and trying to survive to pay our insurance and mortgage that we have no time to explore ourselves and be creative. She mentioned that she lived in Paris and traveled with expats in Paris around the world.
Salt Lake City, in spite of its reputation as being conservative have lot interesting people. I met this interesting gentleman at a Sushi bar. He is actually from Wyoming and loves Sushi. A person in his mid-fifties and has unique taste for traveling. He never travels to expensive cities like London or Paris. He gets a month off twice a year and he picks cheaper cities and countries like Istanbul, Vietnam, Argentina, Chile and spends a month exploring. He once flew alone to Santiago in Chile, rented a motorbike and went driving around Chile pacific coast and up the Atlantic coast in Argentina. He says it changed his life for good after that trip and highly recommends me to do the same. I may take it up. Who knows. A Sushi loving biker from Wyoming inspires me to take up motor biking in South America.
The first is Marty. Marty is an elderly gentleman and must be in his 60s. Very friendly and cordial. He mentioned in our 15 minutes drive that he was a teacher for 9 years in New York when I mentioned that I was from New Jersey. He continued to mention that he and his wife just returned from a long trip from New Delhi and London recently. I asked about why he was in India, assuming that he must be traveling like most retirees do.
"Oh no, we go to India twice a week and spend few weeks with our grandchildren". He said
"We have a condo in Vasant Vihar in New Delhi". He continued.
I was now curious why he has an apartment in India. He is a white American and what is he doing in India twice a year? His daughter met and married an Indian while she was in grad school. She is a doctorate so is her husband. Then he mentioned that his son-in-law is from a well to do family in India. The family is owner of a well known conglomerate in India focusing on telecom. So he and his wife visit India twice a year to spend time with their grandchildren.
His son is married and lives in Salt Lake City so they return to SLC after their visits abroad. Then we switched to his hobby of fly fishing. I asked him how I can check out how to fly fish. He took my number and lo-behold that evening he sent me information where I can take fly-fishing classes. I am hoping to take them if I return to SLC in Spring.
The second driver is another elderly lady also in her 60s driving a Mini Cooper. She looked like and spoke like a grandmother. She was dropping me off at the airport and in those 20 minutes she mentioned that she travelled couple of times to India in her younger days with her daughter and travelled from Delhi all the way to south of India but not sure where. What took me by surprise about her is that she was very philosophical. Our conversation was about how having spare time makes us creative. Our conversation was around how life in US has made us busy with work and trying to survive to pay our insurance and mortgage that we have no time to explore ourselves and be creative. She mentioned that she lived in Paris and traveled with expats in Paris around the world.
Salt Lake City, in spite of its reputation as being conservative have lot interesting people. I met this interesting gentleman at a Sushi bar. He is actually from Wyoming and loves Sushi. A person in his mid-fifties and has unique taste for traveling. He never travels to expensive cities like London or Paris. He gets a month off twice a year and he picks cheaper cities and countries like Istanbul, Vietnam, Argentina, Chile and spends a month exploring. He once flew alone to Santiago in Chile, rented a motorbike and went driving around Chile pacific coast and up the Atlantic coast in Argentina. He says it changed his life for good after that trip and highly recommends me to do the same. I may take it up. Who knows. A Sushi loving biker from Wyoming inspires me to take up motor biking in South America.
1 comment:
A common thread in all of them ...Travelling. This may be the reason they took up cab driving, so that they can interact with people from various places.
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