Last few days in NYC

Life is the name of changes and so a new change was coming into my life. I had to leave NYC and go back to home in a short while. Since I had few days left in my trip, I decided to use them to see some less famous but worth visiting things in New York. One of them being “The Heartland Brewery” famous for the excellent beers it brewed and for its unique beer tasting sessions. There were various options available but we chose the one where all the 8 different famous beers of the brewery are served on a platter costing around 15 USD. They are numbered #1 to #8 and each beer has its unique taste, aroma, and bitterness with a totally special way of preparation from different sources. The bitterness and strength of alcohol went up with the numbers till #5 and then went down with a smooth and little sweetie finish at #8. Though each glass of beer measured only 5 fl oz. but after having drowned all 8 glasses I realized why people say “Never mix alcohols”.

Another such joyful jaunt was visiting China Town and Little Italy. Chinatown is a small area near Grant Street Metro station in Manhattan and is home to mostly Chinese people. You can listen to Chinese music and see Chinese billboards and posters all along the streets. There the scene looks perfectly like a town of China with mostly Chinese people around you, everybody speaking Chinese and even the shops have everything displayed in Chinese. Little Italy is just a block or two away from Chinatown. It is famous for the special Italian Cuisine restaurants spread all across the streets where you can enjoy the Pasta or Pizza with famous Italian wines while sitting in the street and watching all the people roaming. New York restaurants are famous for their snooty hospitality but in Little Italy, you will find the best waiters in the town with the food being extra delicious with real Italian taste. We went there on my last night in NYC for my farewell and the taste of delicious pasta lingered in my mouth till I landed in India.

Sweet memories filled up my mind when I took off from the Liberty Int’l Airport in Newark in my flight back home. In the plane, I was thinking of my time spent in US and I felt that the whole trip was wonderful and sweet, with funny and enjoyable experiences, be it my Long Weekend in NYC, or my birthday bash or visit to Raleigh. In such a short trip I saw and experienced so many new things, made so many new friends and enjoyed life to the fullest. There are many other experiences that I have not been able to write about in this blog because of time crunch (another name for my laziness :D) but they all will go down the memory lane as some of the sweetest moments of my life.

Raleigh Trip-My last weekend in USofA

It was my last weekend in US as am going to fly next week back to my beloved India and was there any better way to enjoy it than visiting a friend and seeing more of the wonderful place called USofA. So I went to Raleigh, a small University Town in North Carolina State which hosts the University with the state's name. Rachana (Rags) my friend is a PhD student there in NCSU and is making some good robots with her sweet Chinese professor, and it was she who gave me the idea to visit Raleigh.

I don’t know whether it was excitement or joy of going to Raleigh, I got a little late to reach Newark Airport and though I could've got the flight, the grumpy agent at the check-in counter denied to have me on-board my flight. On top of that she broke all hopes when she told me that there is not seat available on any flight till 6 more hours and even after that, I'll have to pray to God to let me get a seat. surely they don't allow standing passengers otherwise I would rather happily have hopped on it than to cancel my trip. I was about to cancel my trip and call Rags to break the news. But my sixth sense (yes, I got one at that time) called me to try once more at the check-in counter. Now my luck was playing for me and I bumped into a nice agent this time. She was a god-send for me and found another flight through Pittsburgh which made me late by an hour and half, but I reached Charlotte and avoided all the disappointment. After seeing the smiles in Raleigh, I thanked my incidental sixth-sense and also God for giving it to me at right time.

Raleigh is a sweet calm small town with many lakes, beautiful row houses and sweet people (only few present on this earth who give a nice smile even to a total stranger on road). My first day went into chatting and meeting new people (Rags’ friends in Raleigh) some of whom were really interesting and amazing persons to know. We even went to a nice Indian Restaurant called “Royal India” which had a huge collection of Pictures of Indian Maharajas and Rajas where the food was also as amazing as the collection and name itself. My second day started with a bike (cycle) ride to Johnson lake and then a full 2 hour of canoeing in a small boat. It was the first time I was riding a boat independently and found out that it is a pretty easy job (no no….I am not thinking of a full-time career here: D). It was such a great fun that we didn’t noticed the hardship until after we reach back home on bikes and sat on a couch. I also saw the new Centennial campus of NCSU which was very beautifully situated near Lake Raleigh and was very spacious with nice buildings. The campus even housed many companies like Red Hat, ABB and others in joint venture which is a really nice idea, because if someone likes Raleigh and the campus, he/she can stay there even after graduating :)

I know you all must be mad at me that why am I writing about Raleigh in my New York blog, but this was my only weekend in USofA when I was out of NY and I felt the reason was worth mentioning. I had a great time there and in fact realized only in the airplane back to NY, from where I am writing this blog, that my lovely weekend has already finished and I have to prepare for my exit from USofA in less than a week. Thanks to Tanu, Pritesh, Harsh and Gayatri for the time they gave me and I know that I don’t need to thank Rags for letting me know these people and Raleigh.

more abt that long weekend

Final day of our long weekend was the most hectic one. Actually after searching through the net, I found out a wonderful way of sightseeing in New York and saving some money too. New York Pass gave us free admissions to most sought-after sights in NY and around and was quite affordable at USD 54 for a day. A 2 day pass might have been better but didn’t have so much time so we tried to manage most in 1 day and were fairly successful. The first thing we hit that day was Madame Tussaud's wax museum. It was good and had statues of many well known people from Mahatma Gandhi to Donald Trump and from Lance Armstrong to Charlie Chaplin to Merlyn Munroe. Inside the museum, the statues were so life-like that many a time we were confused between them and real people. And you know what, Britney was even breathing :O

Then it was the time for the most famous tourist spot of America, yes you got it right, it was Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Museum(from where almost 80% of Americas initial immigrants entered and have there names registered and displayed). Statue is on an island close to New Jersey and can be reached both from NY and NJ by a ferry. The green statue looks great and if many of you like me dint know that it was originally made of copper(golden-yellow) and turned green because of chemical rxns with water. Previously you could go up to the top of torch that the green lady holds but it was stopped because of various threats. Even the way up to the throne was closed after 9/11. Ellis island also holds historical importance as many Americans can go there and check-out the names of their grand-fathers and great grand-fathers if they entered through Ellis island.

A semi-circular, 2 hour, Harbor lights cruise was our next adventure where we clicked a lot of pictures. Our boat captain was very good and kept telling us about all the attractions that we were passing/gazing through and included charming Brooklyn bridge, steely Manhattan Bridge, Chrysler Tower, Empire State Building(lit in American colors-blue,white,red), and newly constructed International Trump Tower. We got thrilled when the captain asked for our attention to show us the famed F.R.I.E.N.D.S. building where Monica, Chandler,Rachel,Phoebe,Ross and my fav Joe used to stay :)It was a beautiful sight as sun was slowly settling down and till we caught the shore again it was night all around. Lit up buildings of NYC were welcoming us again and we went straight to the highest one-The Empire State Building. You can see 5 US states from the observatory situated at 86th floor and that was the highest that I have ever gone above earth without taking-off. The view was amazing and it was all lights all around. We also went for a simulation ride in ESB called New York Sky Ride which was another way of seeing all of New York in 10 minutes.

At the end we were so tired that we headed back to home and slept off the last night of our long weekend. That was an amazing weekend and I enjoyed it so much that next day while traveling in NYC to my office, I was feeling that I am done with US, now go back to India. But Uncle Sam always has some surprises to offer which I felt afterwards.

long weekend continued.....

Since we had four full days of continuous chutti and freedom to do dhamaal in NYC, we tried to utilize it at the fullest. We started with the Manhattan Downtown where we roamed in Wall Street, tried to control the razing bull there and also marveled at the buildings named NYSE and AMEX where the strongest currency of this world is traded. WTC site reminded us of a tragedy that took lives of numerous people from all over the world. It was really tough, not to get a little sentimental and feel a little anguished after seeing the blank spot on earth's surface.

After wading our way thru the cramped but not incommodious streets of downtown, we reached the fabulous and roomy Times Square{TS}. I had been to that place before as it was very close to my office but when I reached there for the first time, I could not held my mouth from gaping. TS is the place where 7th Avenue and Broadway meets and it streches till 8-10 blocks. It is surrounded by big offices (Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Nasdaq, ABC, Dow Jones etc), Broadway Theatres, huge shops and over and above all numerous-large-extra lighted bill boards which catches your attention the most. When you reach TS, you feel that all the light used (or wasted) at TS in one night can lit an Indian town for a month. But still it feels good to be a part of crowd enjoying at TS. I have already written enuf about Atlantic City and Fanaa which were the other things that we did on first two days.

On Sunday night we saw "Chicago the Musical", my first Broadway show and even after spending fairly high for it (around 80 USD for a ticket), I felt it was worth every penny, a really wonderful experience. All the actors, there actions, coordination, dances, music and light-effects were amazing. In fact the opening song "All that Jazz" held me so spellbound that I kept humming it for the rest of the show. It has won many Tony Awards, is one of the longest running shows and even has a movie made on the theme with the same name starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renée Zellweger.

The loooooong weekend....

In itself weekend is a boon to people like us who do nothing but wait throughout the week for the enticing friday night to come and to embark on our lazy(if all u wanna do in 2 days is rest) or exciting (if u have any plans) weekend. This time my weekend was going to start one day earlier (took a leave on friday :D ) and stretched till tuesday morning (ohh yes, I had a holiday on monday). It was the awaited Memorial day weekend and after sleeping off many weekends in Sam's-land, I decided to get out of my living-room couch and wander out.

You can say that doing so was kind of forced on me as Rags was visiting me in NY and was so excited that had I not shared her excitement, she could have killed herself with an overdose of it. So I had no choice but to show her around and see something for myself too, so that I can tell people that I dint return from US of A without clicking a photo with Madam Liberty or dint see NYC from top of Empire State. Other than that we did many fun things like watching Fanaa at a Times Square Leowe multiplex (Kajol is still very very sweet and it really doesn't matter whether she can see or not, though the movie wasn't great. An advice to YRC : please make only love stories, u are not very good at anything else). We went on a Harbor Lights Cruise trip around Manhattan Island, saw a Broadway show, the famous and one of the longest running shows on Broadway - "Chicago the Musical", which was more colorful then all the color you can see at Times Square.

Will write in detail about many of the things hinted above later in the blogs, but one ting needs an early mention and it is our trip to Atlantic City. This city is on the Atlantic sea-shore in New Jersey state and can be called as LA of the east coast. This city is famous for its Casinos and resorts and a many mile long boardwalk. We went there on saturday and it was full with people which included many desis who took their parents with them to show the chamak-damak of America. All major casinos were lined up along the board walk so that you can drench yourself in the salty water, play with sand, have a sip at various bikini beach bars at the coast and then hit the slot machines or roulette tables at casinos to test your luck. Our group which included my other IVP friends covered all of this and had great time together. Since we dint plan for the Water Games that we played at the shore, everybody was complaining about there deeply-wet clothes while roaming through the casinos. Almost at the end of the aisle was standing The Trump Taj Mahal, one of the biggest Casinos on earth and was so bright and colorful and artistic, that one can do nothing but gape at the grandeur.