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.