My Trip To America In 2024

June 27, 2024

Introduction

My trip to America from April 29th to June 2nd was very fruitful, yet I was very busy. From Sri Lanka, I traveled to Chicago, Boston, Connecticut, and Orlando, Florida. The main reason for traveling was to see my mother and family for Mother’s Day during my break. However, I also wanted to check out two places that might be interesting if I need to stay in the USA for some reason or another.

Getting There

Getting to America was not easy. Below is a time table:

2:30 pm - Leave IIT and go to a monastery near the airport (3 hours)
10:30 pm - Go to the airport (30 minutes)
3:15 am - Fly to Dubai (4 hours)
~7:15 am to 11 am - Layover (exact times uncertain)
11 am - Fly to Chicago (15 hours)
2:30 pm - Arrive in Chicago

Getting Food While Traveling

Getting food was not easy. Although food is provided on the plane, the first leg was at night, so I could not eat then. I was able to get one meal at the very beginning of the leg to Chicago, but afterwards, for the entire trip, the local time was somewhere between 1 and 3 pm since we were chasing the Sun the whole time.

You will see that one of the flights was 15 hours. That was not fun at all. However, my brother booked the tickets and he picked an economy seat with 5 feet of extra legroom. It was nice for the long flight, but it was risky. Why? I usually check to see if I’m seated next to a woman at the gate before my flight and tell the desk I’m willing to give up my seat as a solution. So far so good and I was well taken care of. The Emirates staff were able to find me a similar quality seat in another location during one or two of the flights.

Welcome To The USA

Upon my arrival, it took 2 hours to clear US immigration. It was my worst experience coming into the USA. Apparently, this busy airport often has long lines to cross through immigration. I’m not sure how the other travelers managed, as they likely missed their connecting domestic flights. Luckily, I was at my 12 day destination and I was picked up by the chief lay supporter of the monastery in Elgin

While I was there, I gave many dhamma talks and answered questions. It was a good time to stay there. The monks were friendly to me and I was the senior most monk there with 17 vassa. I also tried going for alms at an Asian Food Market which was only 1.3 miles away. It worked out well and you can read that post here.

Boston and My Bro

From Chicago, I went to Boston. There, I was able to see my brother’s new house in South Boston. We had a good visit and walked around quite a bit. It was a little cold for me, but I managed to stay warm with my double robe wrapped around me. I was really impressed with his house and the pedestrian parks that were right by his house. He is very lucky. Although we stayed in touch via video for the past four years, I felt a deeper connection during our in-person visit.

From Boston, we drove to my mother’s house for Mother’s Day. It was nice to see my mother and family, especially on Mother’s Day. I ended up staying at my parent’s house for 12 additional days. It was a good visit.

Sleeping In A House With Women

It is not permitted for monks to sleep in a house with women present, including one’s own mother. To accommodate these rules (and myself), the sunroom was modified so that the doors were blocked so that there were no internal entrances to the house. By doing this I was able to have my own place that was technically and physically not connected. I would mostly use the room only for sleeping, but I could also go there when I wanted to be alone.

Mother’s Home Cooking

My mother was nervous about cooking for me and thought I needed Asian food, but I told her that it would be good to have some of the old dishes she used to make for me as a child. That worked out well and I think it made her happy in the process. The main part of the daily meal was a large salad, which is rare to get in Asia. This is easy for my mother to make for me and also made her happy that I wanted healthy food.

There were other old mother’s home cooked favorites, but I’ll keep those to myself.

The Aging Parents

My brother warned me that my parents have gotten a lot older and that I might not have noticed so much in the videos. It was true. My parents indeed have aged over the past 5 years since I have last seen them. The problem with video calls is that I really only see them when they are sitting down. I didn’t get a chance to really see them walk or how they interact with the world. They both have indeed gotten older, but they are still active and even drive themselves wherever they need to go. So that was good, especially since I don’t drive.

Trip To Cromwell, CT

My Family has a family reunion every year the weekend after Mother’s day. That weekend, I needed to be gone, and luckily I was invited by Mr. Lee to stay at his house/temple and that he would drive me anywhere I wanted to go. “I will be your personal Uber”. We ended up scheduling a one day retreat and it went well. One thing that was really cool was that we offered plates of flowers to the Buddha just like we normally do in Sri Lanka. I also took advantage of the Uber service and drove for a 90 minute visit with the extended family to see how they have been. I have not seen many of the family for 25 years. It was nice to see some of them.

Back to West Hartford and To Orlando

I went back to West Hartford, and stayed another 5 days and then went to Orlando for the last leg of the trip. I should give an honorable mention to my sister who cooked up a storm for me during the two legs of my West Hartford trip. She was able to spend many nights during my visit. Since I was in the sunroom, it was fine for her to sleep in the main house. We had many nice visits together.

I flew to Orlando from Tweed Airport which is an extremely small airport. It is so small, the residents have been trying to stop the commercial flights from there but lost. The airport was so nice and easy to fly from. Everyone was really nice and it was the first place I didn’t get body searched. If you didn’t notice, I look a little suspicious!

Orlando Monastery

I stayed at a virtually unknown monastery called Thayzawbatha Vihara near Orlando for 1 week. I was supposed to meet up with Czech Ashin Sarana, but he had some visa problems and quickly went away to Vietnam to get his Educational Visa (which was resolved). It is a small monastery originally started by the late Sayadaw Tejobhasa. I gave quite a few dhamma talks and even led a retreat for a few days. The committee appreciated the time I gave them, and I had fun while I was there. It is looking like I will be back there this November.

Return Back

The flight was easier coming back to Sri Lanka than the flight going to America. However, since we lost a day traveling eastward, the jet lag felt stronger. It took well over a week for me to feel normal again.

Conclusion

Overall, it was a great trip. I ended up being busier than I expected. I was supposed to memorize a few Buddhist Scriptures (suttas) during my travels, but I didn’t have any time to make such progress. I’ll have to do this another time. Will I return? We will see in due time.