Aha.. i'll be going home after 5 long weeks here in US..
can't wait to go back to familiar surroundings..
to talk to my parents and sis without a phone between us..
to eat home cooked food..
to ride on familiar roads...
to ride my bike..(boy did i miss it?)...
to meet my friends...
to visit STYX...
to play snooker..
to fight with sis..
to party on saturday nights.. and get back home at 1 am..
to wake up on a lazy sunday and accompany dad on the weekly shopping trip...
..and many many more things ...
Oh.. yeah .. i am waiting to board that plane home..It's gonna be great ..
It was an awesome trip though..Some part of me is gonna miss doing all the things i did here..
i made a few friends here.. whom i will surely miss when i go back..
I found some nice help from unexpected quarters.. Most of all i learnt that i do not have the US craze that a lot of my brethern have..i don't think this place will ever be home.... there are too many things i will have to give up.. and i definitely don't want to give them up...
I even got a chance to ride bikes on these roads...oh and speaking of bikes.. i am definitely looking forward to riding my bike back home.. i definitely need to go on a long ride soon..maybe i will be a part of the himalayan expedition that RE is planning....that would be so cool.. i would get to celebrate my birthday..literally while being on top of the world..
meanwhile... 3 more days to go!!!
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
make a wish?
Remember this?
I had this eyelash experience again..and i COULDN'T think of anything i wanted to wish for...
Am i getting too content or am i finally letting go of this superstition too??
And if you are wondering why most of my recent posts have titles ending with questions..its because i like it.. and not because i am on an inner quest or something deep like that..
I had this eyelash experience again..and i COULDN'T think of anything i wanted to wish for...
Am i getting too content or am i finally letting go of this superstition too??
And if you are wondering why most of my recent posts have titles ending with questions..its because i like it.. and not because i am on an inner quest or something deep like that..
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Multnomah Falls
Sunday was a good day out...I was dying to go out.. evn though i did not have company and would have to do my explorations on my own...Homesickness was kicking in big time, and luckily I found out about this Falls.. I set out at about 9:00 or so in the morning..and reached the Falls in quick time..in just about an hour.. and i lost me way only once...
The drive was really scenic..There was greenery al around and it was drizzling too.. This added to the beauty of the whole place...The highway was designed to take you right next to the Hood river too... The actual falls is in two steps.. the water lands on a platform and travels for about 50 feet or so and then cascades again..It was a awesome sight... decided to trek to the top of the falls.. it was a pretty steep trek and i guess it was in excess of a mile.. I thought i would need a few breaks.. but was happy to find myself able to take on the terrain.. Not in as bad shape as i thought i'll beThe view from the top of the mountain was really fabulous.. on the way down i saw this couple who had got their 2 dogs along..and the wife was having an anxiety attack..she apparently had this fear of heights.and after going half the distance she lost it.. she totally freaked out..and hardly anybody stopped to help them..they all just assumed she was nuts i guess.
So being the good samartian i offered to help.. the husband was controlling both the dogs. so i offered to accompany the lady to the base of the falls and he could go up the trail and return back soon..The lady was totally freaked out in the beginning..but i managed to talk to her and calm her down.. she did make an immense effort to not feel scared and we managed to reach the bottom after some gruelling time.. And in return i did get more info about the place and about some other places i might be able to check out next weekend.
So. finished with my good deed for the day, it was time for lunch at the restaurant situated the base of the falls.. It was expensive but totally worth it...After lunch i headed to the mountains where i was supposed to find the river Hood..and there was also a scenic highway of about 100 miles that i wanted to drive through.. but sadly the weather got worse.and the rain that was expected here started coming in pretty hard.. This made driving very difficult and i HAD to come back..even though i had some more places n my agenda..guess i can try going there again next weekend
All said and done.. my happiest moment is going to be when i get on that plane 13 days from now...
The drive was really scenic..There was greenery al around and it was drizzling too.. This added to the beauty of the whole place...The highway was designed to take you right next to the Hood river too... The actual falls is in two steps.. the water lands on a platform and travels for about 50 feet or so and then cascades again..It was a awesome sight... decided to trek to the top of the falls.. it was a pretty steep trek and i guess it was in excess of a mile.. I thought i would need a few breaks.. but was happy to find myself able to take on the terrain.. Not in as bad shape as i thought i'll beThe view from the top of the mountain was really fabulous.. on the way down i saw this couple who had got their 2 dogs along..and the wife was having an anxiety attack..she apparently had this fear of heights.and after going half the distance she lost it.. she totally freaked out..and hardly anybody stopped to help them..they all just assumed she was nuts i guess.
So being the good samartian i offered to help.. the husband was controlling both the dogs. so i offered to accompany the lady to the base of the falls and he could go up the trail and return back soon..The lady was totally freaked out in the beginning..but i managed to talk to her and calm her down.. she did make an immense effort to not feel scared and we managed to reach the bottom after some gruelling time.. And in return i did get more info about the place and about some other places i might be able to check out next weekend.
So. finished with my good deed for the day, it was time for lunch at the restaurant situated the base of the falls.. It was expensive but totally worth it...After lunch i headed to the mountains where i was supposed to find the river Hood..and there was also a scenic highway of about 100 miles that i wanted to drive through.. but sadly the weather got worse.and the rain that was expected here started coming in pretty hard.. This made driving very difficult and i HAD to come back..even though i had some more places n my agenda..guess i can try going there again next weekend
All said and done.. my happiest moment is going to be when i get on that plane 13 days from now...
Thursday, March 17, 2005
New city....
Well i am in a new city now..and it is much much smaller than San Jose and i hardly know anybody here.... I do have work to keep me occupied during the day but the evenings get really boring..with nothing to do but watch TV...and i can't do that for very long...hope that the weekend is more interesting at least...
After all the fun i had in San Jose..it is pretty difficult to be doing nothing.. I do have a car at my disposal..but not much fun when i have to drive and explore places on my own...
Hopefully i will come up with something to keep me occupied..
After all the fun i had in San Jose..it is pretty difficult to be doing nothing.. I do have a car at my disposal..but not much fun when i have to drive and explore places on my own...
Hopefully i will come up with something to keep me occupied..
Thursday, March 10, 2005
U S yeah?
This is gonna be a post after a looong time..and this is gonna be my first post while in the US..or San Jose to be more precise.. Been here since almost two weeks..it has definitely been a hectic two weeks..what with me being the official"driver" for our gang of 4 guys and 2 gals...
the training and work here has been very good and has met my expectations..and our weeeknd getaway was worth every bit of money spent...
Fortunately we have all stopped converting dolars into rupees whenever we buy something...else this would have hampered most of the fun we are otherwise having..The past week we have been working till late evening and then we head off to some nearby place..and most of the time it is to some shopping centre!!!
We all landed here on Sunday and it was not as great a cultural shock as portrayed in a lot of our "crossover" movies.. or maybe we knew what we were geting into and so it did not hit us hard....and anyway we had A, who had arrived 2 weeks before us and "educated' us on alot of american stuff...we did notice that mostly peple were very cordial with each other..and the roads were just awesome...being a biker..the roads are the first thing i observe..and they were just too good..so i was definitely looking forward to driving/riding on these roads..
We got a car..or rather Mini van on Tuesday..and A & i went to get it from the rental place..We had prepared for the return journey by equipping ourselves with some yahoo maps..but we should have known better.. We did make it to the Rental and took the van..then began my fast-track initiation into driving in the US!!! the rental guy gave me a couple of tips and watched apprehensively as I took off..A was my navigator and so i was paying more attention to staying in the right lane and not looking much at signboards...We thought the map would help us get back soon..but then we were so hopelssly lost that we had to rely on homing instincts!!.the roadsigns here do not follow the pattern that we follow back home ..and it did take us some time to get used to it...So we were learning more abut the lanes and signals and stuff..and also getting more hopelessly lost.. The upside was that we did get to see most of San Jose!! Finally after about an hour of U-turns and wrong turns..we did manage to get bck to where we started from...
Now that we had a car and an "able' navigator and a more "able" driver who could respond properly to the navigator's signals...we could see San Jose without any hiccups..and most of the eveneing we ended up in some mall or the other..we saw The great Mall,Wallmart,Frys (electronic stuff)..and many more ..oh and more roads also..most of the stuff unitentional ..we had made losing our way an art form by now..and we were getting to be really good at it..
So with our obvious navigational talents we decided to check out a few far flung places on the weekend. Luckily On Saturday we had P, who could drove us down to Lake Tahoe. He is such a cool person....We left at around 5:00 in the morning, so that we could reach the place by around 9:00 and start off early on our skiing lesons....and ski we did..this too was pretty much like our road experience..we kept fumbling and losing our way..we started off on a small slope and, boy we tried hard..after a lot of..ouch..falls, we did manage to get it right..
We had ski lifts to take us to the top of the slopes and we would ski down the slopes..and one of the times(the navigation skils again)...i managed to take the wrong lift...and wound up on the advanced slope...this was right after lunch..so i had got time to go over my skills in my mind and go all gaga about me geting it right.. Boy was this slope a leveller or what..literally ..just after a few minutes I was in level with the slope..down on all fours..looking like a cat with buttered paws on a waxed floor...The next time though i managed to get the right ski lift and the going was good...so there was another next time and another next time and so on..until my feet began to hurt and I could not ski anymore...
After all the skiing we went on a drive around Lake Tahoe..some parts of the lake were frozen and it was so beautiful to look at..The lake was so huge and awesome that we all could not help going gaga over it... The roads around the lake were just too good..it was a bikers dream...wish I get to ride on this road someday...
Sunday we were gonna do some more shopping and then go over to see Stanford and San Francisco.. Stanford was so impressive and we managed to leave the place only by around 4:00 in the evening ..this was when we actually perfected our navigational art form about which i have been talking all this while.. We managed to take 2 and a half hours for a 40 minute drive..most of the times we would take the wrong exit and enter some city and be even more lost.. Gas stations were our saviours and one time even a liquour shop!!..At one point i was sticking to my lane which we thought headed to San Francisco..and we suddenly saw the road branching and we were on a new freeway and the freeway we were supposed to be on was below us somewhere....
With all these pitfalls we did manage to reach SF and got on to the Golden Gate bridge also..man it was beautiful..with all the lights on and in all its splendour..hope i can see it one more time before leaving this place...
Next update as time permits..and the next one should be interesting..cause i am going on a bike ride in the US..that ought to be something special...
the training and work here has been very good and has met my expectations..and our weeeknd getaway was worth every bit of money spent...
Fortunately we have all stopped converting dolars into rupees whenever we buy something...else this would have hampered most of the fun we are otherwise having..The past week we have been working till late evening and then we head off to some nearby place..and most of the time it is to some shopping centre!!!
We all landed here on Sunday and it was not as great a cultural shock as portrayed in a lot of our "crossover" movies.. or maybe we knew what we were geting into and so it did not hit us hard....and anyway we had A, who had arrived 2 weeks before us and "educated' us on alot of american stuff...we did notice that mostly peple were very cordial with each other..and the roads were just awesome...being a biker..the roads are the first thing i observe..and they were just too good..so i was definitely looking forward to driving/riding on these roads..
We got a car..or rather Mini van on Tuesday..and A & i went to get it from the rental place..We had prepared for the return journey by equipping ourselves with some yahoo maps..but we should have known better.. We did make it to the Rental and took the van..then began my fast-track initiation into driving in the US!!! the rental guy gave me a couple of tips and watched apprehensively as I took off..A was my navigator and so i was paying more attention to staying in the right lane and not looking much at signboards...We thought the map would help us get back soon..but then we were so hopelssly lost that we had to rely on homing instincts!!.the roadsigns here do not follow the pattern that we follow back home ..and it did take us some time to get used to it...So we were learning more abut the lanes and signals and stuff..and also getting more hopelessly lost.. The upside was that we did get to see most of San Jose!! Finally after about an hour of U-turns and wrong turns..we did manage to get bck to where we started from...
Now that we had a car and an "able' navigator and a more "able" driver who could respond properly to the navigator's signals...we could see San Jose without any hiccups..and most of the eveneing we ended up in some mall or the other..we saw The great Mall,Wallmart,Frys (electronic stuff)..and many more ..oh and more roads also..most of the stuff unitentional ..we had made losing our way an art form by now..and we were getting to be really good at it..
So with our obvious navigational talents we decided to check out a few far flung places on the weekend. Luckily On Saturday we had P, who could drove us down to Lake Tahoe. He is such a cool person....We left at around 5:00 in the morning, so that we could reach the place by around 9:00 and start off early on our skiing lesons....and ski we did..this too was pretty much like our road experience..we kept fumbling and losing our way..we started off on a small slope and, boy we tried hard..after a lot of..ouch..falls, we did manage to get it right..
We had ski lifts to take us to the top of the slopes and we would ski down the slopes..and one of the times(the navigation skils again)...i managed to take the wrong lift...and wound up on the advanced slope...this was right after lunch..so i had got time to go over my skills in my mind and go all gaga about me geting it right.. Boy was this slope a leveller or what..literally ..just after a few minutes I was in level with the slope..down on all fours..looking like a cat with buttered paws on a waxed floor...The next time though i managed to get the right ski lift and the going was good...so there was another next time and another next time and so on..until my feet began to hurt and I could not ski anymore...
After all the skiing we went on a drive around Lake Tahoe..some parts of the lake were frozen and it was so beautiful to look at..The lake was so huge and awesome that we all could not help going gaga over it... The roads around the lake were just too good..it was a bikers dream...wish I get to ride on this road someday...
Sunday we were gonna do some more shopping and then go over to see Stanford and San Francisco.. Stanford was so impressive and we managed to leave the place only by around 4:00 in the evening ..this was when we actually perfected our navigational art form about which i have been talking all this while.. We managed to take 2 and a half hours for a 40 minute drive..most of the times we would take the wrong exit and enter some city and be even more lost.. Gas stations were our saviours and one time even a liquour shop!!..At one point i was sticking to my lane which we thought headed to San Francisco..and we suddenly saw the road branching and we were on a new freeway and the freeway we were supposed to be on was below us somewhere....
With all these pitfalls we did manage to reach SF and got on to the Golden Gate bridge also..man it was beautiful..with all the lights on and in all its splendour..hope i can see it one more time before leaving this place...
Next update as time permits..and the next one should be interesting..cause i am going on a bike ride in the US..that ought to be something special...
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