I.Here comes the sun ******************** Passing through the customs, the butterflies started flapping inside me. Rightly so. After all, how would you approach your siblings you hadn’t met for seven long years? A sense of comfort besieged me when the officer shocked me by greeting with a “Namaste” in his Aussie accent when he went over my passport. Wow! There is still a place where people don’t cross-question you like Uncle Sam’s army. On my way out, I crossed my fingers hoping there’d be minimum emotional outburst at the airport, but fate willed it otherwise. Before I could even hug them at the airport, my siblings burst into a boisterous laughter. They scrutinized me from head to toe. The laughter grew louder. “Your hair is still the same!” One cried. “Oh my god. Look at his baggy jeans. What’s with the jacket? Oh the shoes! What has US made you bro?” The next hour that we waited for the cab, the only tears I saw was in my younger sibling through her non-stop laughter. Honestly, speaking, I have never enjoyed two females laugh at me that hard. The only second they were serious was when they motioned to each other with authority trying to spike up my frizzled hair “Ok! the goatee can stay but we have a lot of work to do.” After fourteen hours of grueling flight, the view of Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House seemed like little fantastic dreams of childhood. Even half asleep, I felt good that I was finally off the blindfold of Uncle Sam. If reuniting with my sisters was already embarrassing, I was even more nervous to meet my Bhinaju I hadn’t seen before. Having made so many didis and dais effortlessly, I had forgotten that other relations also exist in life. Somehow, I have been unable to utter “bhinaju” on my own so far. In my excitement, Jetlag skipped me, and my sisters pressed me on to freshen up and head to the city (downtown if you are in US). There is something very soothing and a sense of security about this city. Though at first glance, you might see people rushing off like those maniacs in Manhattan but in reality, the pace is much relaxing. The harbour and architecture has made quite an impression on me. If I had to compare this to any of the cities in US, I’d like to call it a hybrid of Chicago and San Francisco. The cold winter of down under I had been warned about seemed like a distant myth. The winter here is closer to the late spring of New England. Except for the chilly mornings and evenings, the warm sun breaks through everyday reminiscent of days in Nepal. I feel for the folks currently enjoying the scorching heat wave of the east coast (smiley face) Just like they had jokingly promised over the years, to my horror, the first place I happen to go in the city was a hair-salon. When the barber asked what kind of hairstyle I wanted, I just closed my eyes and told him to ask my siblings closely watching behind. He laughed and understood what I was trying to convey. Nobody really understands that my hair is more conservative than any of my relatives. “Do you want to highlight your hair too?” my sister asked. I squealed and said, “ I am not quite ready for that yet.” All right then, she marched “we need to get you some REAL clothes. My extreme makeover had started. Forget about the seven years of catching up we had to do. I realized I had seven centuries of fashion to catch up in this vicinity. Goodluck to me!