Thursday, January 04, 2007

trip to NYC

Here I am in albuquerque today morning, with my prof missing... seems like he hasnt returned from his vacation in Europe....
anyways... i had a great 8 days away from school in the most happening city in the world... nyc rocks with all its high rise buildings and the environment that one is there in.... never sees day light... always dark... and during night, its darker... the lights of the buildings try hard to have enough lighting around, but the area is so much that they can't compete with it....
i landed there on 27th morning, went directly to Deepika's house(incase ppl wondering who that was, she is RO's niece).. met her grandparents and mom... had awesome grub... tamilian, indian, iyer veetu samayal.... want more than that 20K miles away from india? anyways.... Deepika was very hospitable... very sweet... took me and her bro all arnd nyc.... i took a lot of pics of the city.. will upload it tonight and send it to all... next day.... her bro wasnt well.. so she alone, took me to the empire state building and from there on the 86th floor.. i got to capture more of nyc... views were pretty awesome as well... then I had to leave to meet my dear turkey...
we had planned to meet at princeton, were Rajshekar was studying(for ppl who dont knw him, he was in CS-IITM and was one of the famous three prog. studds, the other two being our very own kabi and turkey)... anyways.. Princeton is an ancient place... with all those historical buildings in the campus and some signs of Albert Einstein too(I found Einstein's pic in an ice cream shop there licking an ice cream and stuff.. will send that pic too) the university had a beautiful campus.... it has deer too... and that was a striking feature... when i got nostaligic and started thinking about IIT.. anyways.. i did take a lot of pics inside the univ too... will upload that also...
then the next day, me, turkey, raza, Ed(CS-IITM day sci.. well knwn in TG as :D) and aavi(our very own avinash vaidyanathan)... set off towards philadelphia... a place of historical importance.... all the signing of the US constituition.. and stuff took place here.. roamed around... saw all the architecture... got monotonous beyond a certain limit.. and then we gave up and returned....
In middle of all this did I mention abt indian resturants... hmmm... well.. one thing i did pretty well was go to indian resturants and thulp... wat ever the city it may be... be it nyc, or princeton, or jersey city... i have eaten everywhere... and I spent a whooping 400$ just on grub in the tour.... compare with 350$ being my Airticket to and fro from abq to nyc.... kalluri corner at princeton being my favorite of them all... ate there thrice... twice was a south indian buffet.. and once dinner... and then i also ate at masalas at princeton... another dinner... and then... cafe spice at jersey city was great too.. and finally... Pongal at NYC.. i treated junta there on my budday.... the food, i must say was simply awesome in all these places... or should i say, i am missing indian grub a lot... well.. i am open to interpretations....
anyways... 31st dec was time to spend time at times square, nyc for the biggest new year party of the world... about 750,000 ppl around me.. it was one hell of an event... the ball coming down... and then bursting into crackers at 12:00 in the night... it was a wonderful site... words cant explain it.. did take a video of it... let me see, if it comes out well... will send that too...
Jan 1st... hmm... technically turning 22 hadnt made any difference to me... but I did spend most of my time there... answering fone calls... and making some myself to those near and dear ones, who couldnt reach me... :D
anyways... I woke up finally at 12:00 noon and then we watched a night at the museum in a theatre... and then shopped a bit and in the evening, ate at an indian resturant... this is becoming monotonous.. eating.. eating.. hee... hee...
anyways... jan 2nd was time to say good bye to turkey and others.... my mama was here from toronto... so he picked me up and then i stayed with him on 2nd and 3rd... was playing with my 3 year old niece... had a lot of fun with her... plus, got to eat indian food again....
I came back today morning at 03:00, thanks to continental airways and their mishappenings... 4 hrs of delay because the fuel was leaking from my flight... and to get a new aircraft it took 4 hrs...