DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN:

My journey in the United States has been absafreekinlootely awesome. I enjoyed all the get-togethers, games sessions and the cookery sessions we used to have almost all the weekends. The rest of the days we will be outing, visiting places and site seeing.

After so many discussions and researches I have been to:

1)      Niagara on May 2010: A beautiful place for all the couples. Another Kutralam for the Indians. May be a bigger version. It is nature everywhere and looks beautiful wherever it is.

I went to the Maid of the Mist and the Cave of the Wings, but enjoyed the Maid of the Mist a lot than any thing else. One of the many places I enjoyed being in.

2)      New York Trip on May 2010: A city that never sleeps. It is another Mumbai. Crowded, jammed, busy, and yet beautiful.

a)      Central Park: A symphony well maintained. A beautiful place, with all statues, castles and gardens. My most favorite is the Shakespeare garden and the Belvedere Castle.  

b)     Rocker Feller: Just a view from a tall building and it looks the same from everywhere else. Say the Empire State or any other tall building. Waste of money, may be not for a single visit. Yet the view and the experience in the elevator are different. Going to the top most floor in the lift makes you feel like a flight that is taking-off.

Trust me not more than once anywhere.

c)      Madam Tussauds: It is more like your dream come true. Another favorite place of mine. You will get to see and be with all your lifetime favorites under one roof; there are politicians, sports men, actors, pop-stars and others. It takes approximately 2-2 ½ hours to completely finish the tour in this museum trust me it is worth the money and time.

d)     Statue of Liberty: An independent woman standing with torch. Looking at her gives immense sense of freedom (I don’t know how guys feel) and pleasure. Unfortunately, I was not able to go to the Crown as it’s booking has to be done 2 months in advance.

Still, the experience and the visit till the head were too good.

e)      Grand Central: It is a highly well maintained and a sophisticated form of our Egmore Central. The paintings on the roof of this building were – I don’t know, every one asked me to see it and so did I. I saw nothing great in it. May be a painter or an artist could have figured it out. All I remember seeing was, there were two images wrongly drawn which made them popular I guess. Lol.

f)       Times Square: Ah! A lovely place, especially during nights. There are lights through out. And it’s experience can only be felt and not explained.

2.1) New Jersey since May - June 2010: East Hannover is where we were living in the begining. It was a beatiful time. The place where we statyed was in the center of the city. It had all the malls and super market within 5 mi radius.

         a)      South Mountain Reserve: A very beautiful reserv/park for trekking. A very nice place to visit. It had a very small water fall, walking in it was a nice experience.

3)      Boston trip on May 2010: New England is a beautiful place. It’s roads and the curves of it has it’s own story behind it (google it if you want to know). MASS is another place where there are high taxes.

a)      Freedom Trail: We need to walk on the footpath where the great freedom fighters walked I think. I have been there as well walked on the trail but I still don’t know why I went there. May be I am ignorant of it. I don’t know if we have a trail left behind by our freedom fighters.

What are we going to do by walking? May be implicating that we will follow their path?

Any ways, a tick in my list.

b)     Quincy Market:  A huge market, more like a food court in any mall. Nothing great to see or say. Yes, their Freedom Fries are too good.

c)      Boston Harbor: Yet another place to tick.

4)      Trip to Connecticut on May 2010: Not many place to visit. Went to see a cousin of mine. It is the journey and the experience I enjoyed the most.

5)      Skiing during March 2011: It is not a place to discuss about it’s appearance. It is a place of experience. Had a gala time in there. It was too good to see others a.k.a. our friends falling than to experience myself falling.

6)      Laser Tagging on March 2011: Another experience to be experienced. We were a group of 10 adults who went in a place where there were kids all over. The sight of it made us all feel --- puppy shame, lol. We waited till all the kids were gone so that only we 10 can get in and play. Else, we will be sent in with the kids. The worst part is when we get to loose with the kids. We got to know about it from a couple of already experienced people in our group.

Once we went in we were given laser guns and suits. All we need to do is to run in and around the maze and shoot the maximum number of people the maximum number of time. The highlight is that those whose were wearing white dress were glowing/illuminating in the beam of laser light.

I enjoyed it to the core. And at the end of it we were given a score sheet as in how many hits we got and how many hit us. I was last but one. Because I was laughing aloud and every one were able to figure me out from where ever they were. Dam you guys. Especially my husband.

7)      Washington Trip on April 2011: The capital, a beautiful place on its own. The journey to this place was awesome. We were 9 of us in a mini van – Kia. Had a gala time driving all the way from Waltham to Washington. The group was a total fun to be with.

a)      Bartholdi Park and the Conservatory: A garden and a green house. All well maintained. The atmosphere and the temperature of the area were maintained depending on the habitat of the respective plants.

In the beginning it was Wow!! Later it became; yey, it’s the same everywhere. We took pictures and came back.

It was nice.

b)     The Capitol: The parliament. We were taken on a general tour of the Capitol. They showed us an empty place that was supposed to be the monument of George Washington. It is not a monument because it has been so many years since his death and his relatives were against the fact.

Then they showed us the statues of many who were involved in some freedom act. And some paintings that were drawn up on the sealing about which they were explaining and the same which I was hardly able to see.

They took us on the first three steps where the presidents from G. Washington till Barack Obama after taking their post. I did not feel any thing while walking on it. It is jus any other step.

I was happy that it was a free tour and not happy because we wasted so many hours on the same.

c)      The Supreme Court and the Library: These were located just behind the Capitol. We did not want to waste our time going inside rather we decided to take a picture of us with it and gave a satisfying tick mark.

d)     Fire Works on April 2^nd: During the Cherry Blossom festival each week will have some event or the other. We were there on the fire works day. I did a lot of research and found the apt. spot to see the extravagant fire works.

I was not sure if it would be beautiful or not. We were on the roof of the Arena building from where we saw the whole event. It was an event that lasted for about 10 minutes. The last 2 minutes was splendid. It was as of we were watching a 3D show. The fire works started from one place and seemed to advance to us.

We all felt as if the Americans were celebrating the victory of India winning the World Cup 2011.

e)      Spy Museum: Another experience, rather an amazing experience where we were the spies and we were given a mission to solve with our teammates. Each of us will be split in to groups and there will be a different task assigned to each team. We will be given hidden cameras to follow some person. Radio tracker to listen to what people is speaking. Scanning machines to scan the files of the President secretly. We will escape in trucks, use lie detectors, etc.

Amazing experience. There were three to four experiences, we chose Operation Spy.

f)       Cherry Blossom: Man!! An amazing site to look at those flowers. Was looking dam beautiful. No words can explain. Another place where I thoroughly enjoyed.

g)      Monuments and Memorials: All the same again and again. Just going to that place visiting all the statues saying a Hi, taking a picture and leaving. Nothing great to discuss about it.

h)      Smithsonian’s Museum: We did not intend to go there, as we had no time. But, some how we managed to go. It was a nice place and can be visited once.

8)      New York Again in April 2011: This trip to NY was awesome. We thoroughly enjoyed the journey. We were 5 of us in our Mazda. We started from our place at around 6 am. I carried breakfast for all of us. It was 8 am and there was bell ringing in all our stomach. We took an exit to halt somewhere and have food. This exit took us to some national park and beach. Our guys named it “The US pallikarnai”. There were marshlands all over the place and looked good. We did not plan this out and did not expect it to be so beautiful.

There were so many PJ’s and funny conversations, we were listening to music and had a madly fun time. It was the best gang to be with. We had our lunch in Pomona temple – Ranganathar Temple by the Ahobela Matt. And then drove to Central Park as the rest of us had not been there.

Dam it was so different to see the place back then and now. It was summer when I was there last and now, we were just at the end of winter. Then I told the guys, it is not the right time for you guys to judge this place.

Then we went to Times Square and spent some time there. And had dinner in some pizza store in one exit at around 11:00 pm. And got back home at 2 pm ~

The whole trip was about $2 per head. The cheapest trip ever made by any one to NY.

9)      Prospect Hill Park during April 2011: A park just 0.3 mi from our place. We have not been there since our time here. We had nothing to do on a weekday and decided to go there. 4 of us. Unfortunately the park was closed for the vehicles after 7:00 pm. So we thought of walking for a while. We did not walk longer, but it was again a nice experience to be with our close friends. We came back as early as possible as these people had to go to work the next day.

10)  White Mountains in April 2011: Dam it was summer everywhere but there were snow all over this place. It was 2 months behind other cities. We went for trekking. We had actually planned to cover some 3 – 4 places. Unfortunately the trekking in the first place took us ~4 hrs. It was 3 mi to and fro to the waterfall. We had our lunch and then went to the other places where we were supposed to go for trekking but went till the board gave attendance, took some pictures and came back.

11)  Salem visit in May 2011: After so many discussions and researches we decided to go to the Salem Witch museum. The museum experience was not that great. But, the city as a whole was dam beautiful. It was not like any other city. It’s appearance and the people and their dresses every thing looked as if they were living in the 18^th centaury.

Even the shops, they had all the spells, crystals, the potions to be taken – for those who are not married, those who had to buy house, those who need love, etc.

I suggest, no need to go and visit any museum. Just go to that city have a long walk on the roads observing the surroundings and doing window-shopping on those shops if you want. Will be a wonderful experience on it’s own.

This place is just ½ hour drive from our place. Not to forget to mention an old lady we came across, we were on our way to parking lot to go back home and came across this lady. She said, “ Welcome to Salem”. She was beautiful, her dress was old fashioned and elegant. We were discussing whether to take a picture of her or with her. By the time we discussed and decided she was gone.

12)  Boston Aquarium and Whale watch in May 2011: The Aquarium was not quite as I expected it to be. But, it was nice to see all different types of sea creatures. May be just for once.

Unfortunately the day we went to see the Whales the sea was spiky and harsh and so we returned with a voucher for seeing the whales some other day. And we are yet to see whales till now. There has been bad weather reported since then.

13)  Cape Cod Trip in May 2011: The end of US. It is another scenic area with beaches and landscapes. To our amusement there were sand dunes everywhere. It looked as if we were entering a dessert. It was too good to see water, sand dunes and grasslands.

The beach water was green in color, clear and so beautiful. The sight of it was too good. Bikers, surfers and others came to this place on weekends.

A very very nice place to visit. Unfortunately, we thought it would be cold there looking at the weather forecast and got dressed up accordingly; it was not cold but hot. Good thing we had spares and substitutes to cope up with the heat.

I do not know if I will be back or not. But, the journey of my life, a part of my journey in this country as said earlier is unforgettable. I will not say, I love this place and I want to stay permanently. But, I will miss it.

As always said, “It’s the journey and not the destination.”

Well my journey is to be continued and not end with this. My destination is destined. Destined in India.

There is nothing like my country. Here I come.