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A view of Chicago from Navy Pier
This June I had the fabulous opportunity of visiting the windy city - Chicago.
My Lufthansa flight was via Chicago & I decided to give a halt there to visit my cousin Sudarshan Rao & family. Man, it indeed turned out to be a great experience. Never had I seen such a concentration of tall buildings (yet to visit The City).
I had the opportunity to fly over Lake Michigan & also to go on a motor boat on it. Even from flight, most of the times I couldn’t the shores of the lake. Water, water & water all the time. It’s a fresh water lake & its 494 Km in length & 190 KM in width! If only we had so much of fresh water in India 
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At the Clearwater beach, Tampa, Florida -Click to Zoom (for wallpaper)
I had been Florida in US during the early part of April this year for nearly a week. Florida is a damn amazing place.
My KREC class-mate Vasanth joined me over there. We had super time over there visiting theme park, driving along the sea, swimming in the beaches, dancing in the night clubs. There were babes, babes & babes all around Florida!!!
We initially landed at the Orlando airport, which is supposedly the busiest airport in US. Orlando has lots & lots of theme parks but we decided to visit Bush Gardens at Tampa instead. So, we drove down to Tampa in the mid-night. We had great time in Bush Gardens with all the dangerous rides & wild animals. It had the world’s highest vertical fall ride of which you can see the photos. The most memorable part was the movie at the 4-D theatre. We watched a movie called Pirates which was a 3-D movie. We were wearing 3-D glasses. But, the theatre has real 3-D effects. We used to really get drenched with water when the pirates were getting drenched in the movie! When the pirates fall into the pit of crabs we could really feel the crabs biting our feet! It was a wonderful experience.
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Last weekend I drove down to Atlanta. Met Anand, did shopping & the best part visited the world’s largest aquarium!
People watching the underwater city- Click to zoom
This is the first time that I went for a long drive in US driving alone. Driving on the interstate in US is quite cool. But, as I was approaching Atlanta I didn’t know what was coming. The interstate road was mostly 3 lane at most places. As, I approached Atlanta the number of lanes started increasing and the number of vehicles started multiplying! From 3 lane road to 8 lane I reached in no time. When Atlanta was some 20 miles away I suddenly saw myself drving on a 8 lane road with lots of vehicles around me. Even though the speed limit there was 55 miles/hour nobody was driving below 70 miles/hour. My heart beats picked up great speed. For a moment, I thought that I am not going to survive. & the worst part was that there was no way for me to stop there! I was on a middle lane & changing lanes was looking impossible there. Car were swiching lanes at great speed even with very less space available. It was like a video game! But, I held my calm and started learning how to switch lanes & finally I took my exit without missing it. Within Atlanta the traffic was quite slow & could find my way with Anand helping me on phone.
Click here for the photo album of Georgia Aquarium
Click here for the photo album of Atlanta visit
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Long drive in car, photography & skiiing…..these were the highlights of my weekend at Mt. Jackson in Virginia. This surely is one of the most memorable weekends for me. Also, this is the first time that I drove for long distance in US, so I am going to remember this trip for a long long time.
Lake at Mt. Jackson, Virginia -Click to zoom
Click here for the complete photo album.
We had a beautiful house reserved for us for the weekend at Mt. Jackson. Actually, this house was given for the weekend to Vishal as a gift cos’ he was the employee of the year at their company! We drove down from Charlotte and reached there late night. The house was located in forest and it was quite a scary place to be at night. It reminded me of the movie ‘Evil Dead’. But it was an awesome location and a damn good house loaded with everything that can be asked for — cooking materials, toileteries, indoor games, TV, dish antenna……etc…etc..etc. It had everything that a full fledged house will have! People from different cities arrived at different times. Finally we bacame a crowd of more than 10 people!
Saturday morning we went to the skiing resort. I did skiing for the first time in my life! Rahul initially taught me how to do skiing. But he forgot to mention how to turn and how to stop!! Thsi led to a big funny situation. First time I started from the top, I started picking up speed. Then I see I am about to crash into a woman & I don’t know how to turn or how to stop! I started shouting …..’heeeeeeyy’…. & somehow I missed her & proceeded ahead. Then I see her child is sitting on the snow and I am about to crash into it!! I once again started shouting…’heeeeeyyy’…but this time I couldn’t avoid crashing into the child. But I spread my legs & the child got through in between my legs (as the child was sitting) & then I fell down! It was a real comic situation!
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Houses in US are quite well equipped and modern compared to India. It makes living very simple.
Let me list out things which comes along with the house for the house rent which we pay. Refrigerator, dishwasher, air-conditioner/heater, electric stove. There is an automatic water heating system here to which all the taps are connected. Water gets heated automatically. All the taps are designed to control both quantity of water flowing and the temperature of water. The floor everywhere has got carpet which comes with the house. House is wooded.
Kitchen and bathrooms have got required furnishings/cabinets. We have two bedrooms & 2 bath-rooms. Both have bath tubs. The drainage system here is quite advanced. Kitchen has got 2 sinks. One of these sinks is designed even to take extra kitchen waste & food material. Even if waste material gets stuck, the sink hole is fitted with an electricity powered device which can suck the waste material to the drainage! Even in bathrooms, the drainage is designed in such a way that all small materials other than water gets sucked into the drainage unlike in India where we need to keep cleaning. Its time that we improved the drainage system in India I guess.
We have got an open kitchen (no wall separation from other parts of the house) which makes the house look big. I kind of liked the way the houses are designed here.
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I have just landed in the Land of Dreams. Had quite a big journey of 40 hours from Bangalore to Charlotte.
My journey was something like this. Catch flight from Bangalore to Delhi. Then wait at the Delhi airport for 6.5 hours. Then fly to Paris. Wait in Paris for 6 hours. Fly to Atlanta. Have immigration and customs check. Spend 4 hours at airport. Fly to Charlotte in North Carolina, US.
My father and Madevi (our cook at Mysore & also my childhood caretaker) helped me pack my luggage & dropped me to the airport. I made sure that my ticket, passport, travel insurance & invite letter are with me. Checked in my baggage and boarded the Jet-Airways to Delhi. Got a window seat (got it in all the 4 flights). So, most of the time I was looking out of the window & it was quite interesting. It made me realize once again how small Earth really is.
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This New Year I partied at the most happening place for New Year in India. Yes, it was at Goa. I went to Goa with 5 of my college friends Vp, Maski, Mote, Aashik & Timloo. It was great fun all the way!
We reached Panjim pretty late, at 12:00 PM on Friday. This was due to the 18 hour travel Air Bus of Sharma Travels with a powerless engine. If we could have managed to get seats in Volvo bus our journey time could have been around 12 hours. Most of the time of Friday afternoon we spent in searching for vehicles. We couldn’t get 2 wheelers as all were booked because of the New Year Season. With great difficulty we managed to rent a Maruti 800. But we had to shell out Rs.2000 per day for it as rent ! I am sure it’ll be much lesser on other days. We had some good food at Maski’s brother in law’s house at Mapusa & then we started off towards beach!
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A nice website has been recently launched to help bloggers who travel. Visit the site www.canicrash.org. You can give space to travelers at your home or if you are traveling you can stay at some bloggers home in that town! I hope that this site becomes popular.
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I had a great weekend this time. When the weekend started I had no idea what was in store for me!
It looked like the continuous rain which has hit Bangalore badly this year has finally stopped. So, I decided that this weekend I am going to Mysore on Bike instead of train (which I started using after the rainy season started).
Saturday morning I got up early & the weather was looking great. I zoomed towards Mysore on my RX. On the way to Mysore I it suddenly occurred to me that it has been quite sometime that my old friend Natraj got posted to Gundlupet near Mysore. He has been inviting me to Gundlupet from the time he got posted there. This time I decided that I am going to give him a visit. After a short halt in Mysore, I went to Gundlupet on my bike.
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I had written this long long time back (in September). I am publishing it only now!
Cycling Log
What is this about: Cycling
Location: Mysore
Track: The newly completed ring road
Distance: 45 KM
Date:11/Sep/2005
Start time: 7:15 AM
End time: 10:15 AM
No of cyclists: 1
This time when I went to Mysore I decided to go cycling on the newly completed ring road of Mysore. This is a brand new road with zero potholes and very Read complete story
