Now that I have accidentally (or perhaps it was destined to be) landed on the Rediff blogging site, let me blog a little more and occupy hard disk space on some server somewhere in the world. I just hope Rediff keeps doing well in their business unlike Go.com that went down a few years ago, taking down with them the homepage I had put up on their free servers.
Reached DC – June of 2004 saw me catching a flight from Seattle to Chicago, tickets sponsored by my generous brother. I met him at the Chicago airport (he was in Chicago working with his client Motorola) from where we took another flight and landed in Washington D.C. Out of the airport we came and took a cab to the Hilton hotel. The cab driver was a Pakistani and was a friendly guy. Anyways, at the hotel I met who would soon be the newest member of our family – my Bhabhi-to-be. It was late already and I guess we either skipped dinner or went out to IHOP across the road, unable to recall very well.
DC Day 1 – The next morning our day started as tourists in the political capital of the United States of America. Though we did not leave the hotel until about 2 in the afternoon as big brother had some work to be taken care of. We took the subway train to the Central station (actually a couple of stations before Central but I don’t recall the names now). Off we got and walked up the stairs, out of the subway, to see the DC day. Brother made it appear as if this was our first entry into the US, like DC was US, he was happy about it and me too. We walked around in search of the Whitehouse, admiring other buildings like the supreme court on the way and with the camera clicking away to capture our glorious visit to the US capital. We finally reached the Whitehouse as well but it was not at all impressive as I would have imagined it to be. It looked just like a small house, not grand at all like our Rashtrapati Bhavan. We then walked around the city, clicked a couple of pictures of the Capitol (US Parliament), Central station and its outsides – also had Indian lunch at the station, before finally catching a train back to the hotel to retire for the day.
DC Day 2 – Bhabhi joined us the second day as the first day she was busy in some seminar. We went to more places like the Lincoln memorial (very grand), Washington monument, Vietnam war memorial (which I later saw referred in John Grisham’s Firm) and the White House again as well. More pictures, and even video recording on bhabhi’s handycam. A cool thing we saw that day was a marching band on the streets.
Starting for NYC – DC tour was over and the next destination was NYC – we would be driving down. Before picking up the car at the rental company, in the morning we went to one of Bhabhi’s friend Amit’s house for breakfast where I thoroughly relished the Poha and also had orange juice. The car we got was a Ford Taurus and something that I saw for the first time was a GPS, and a GPS in action. It was an amazing little gadget and would be our guide to the Best Western group hotel that we had already booked in New Jersey. The drive from DC to NJ was mostly uneventful, though big brother actually went on the wrong tracks in spite of the poor GPS trying its best to keep us on track. We reached NJ after dark and checked into the hotel room. Late night we went to return the car to the rental company at the airport which was near the hotel only, though we took an exceptionally long route.
NYC Day 1 – Checked out from the hotel in the morning, all set to visit the great New York City. I called up Radhika to say Hi as she was in Maryland, a place we passed before reaching NJ the previous night. We reached the Newark Penn station, bought tickets and waited around 25 minutes for the train to arrive. It was a steel silvery train (the same kind I had seen in the movie Money Train). We hurriedly boarded the train which was almost jampacked. We were going to New York City! Finally we reached the station where we were supposed to get off. Took the stairs up the subway and got out on a sidewalk in NYC. A picture of me was clicked. Well, we then walked to the hotel which was located on a nearby street. Needless to say but it turned out to be a shady hotel but regardless we checked in. We were ready to start our tour of the New York city. First we had lunch at an Indian restaurant. And the different places we went to were Times Square (glitter everywhere), Broadway, the famous Empire State Building, Central Park etc. ESB was too cool – it took us around 2-3 hours to reach the top, owing to long queues and all, but the view was fabulous.
NYC Day 2 – It was a gloomy day with the sun hidden behind the dripping clouds. We went to see Statue of Liberty and it was a great experience to see the symbol which represents America. Like at ESB on Day 1, big brother bought the audio tour and it was 3 of us circling the green lady with headphones on our heads, and cameras round our necks. After the liberty island we took a ferry to the Aliss island (not any longer sure how they spell it) where most immigration to the US took place around 100 years ago. We then walked the Wall street and also visited Ground Zero.
Back to Seattle – Next day I had an early morning flight to Seattle and I reached my new home in Bellevue safe and sound. This was the memorable trip I had on memorial day weekend of 2004.