New York New York!!!!!

I love to go places and i don't mean far off places ,but just any place .The previous post amply declares my love for wekend trips,so im gonna write about the countless unforgettable day trips i'v made.Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) all these trips were completely unplanned and were at the behest of every whim and fancy of my trip companion(when there was one) or mine . I guess what makes them special is that they have no restrictions of time or that touristy compulsion of visiting a particular place just because youv'e heard so much about , and you just could'nt go back home without a snap of at that place in the same pose and the same composition as taken by a thousand people before you. So here's describing one of the best daytrips i'v ever made

My sister and i had heard and seen about New York a lot ,and by that i mean we had seen every episode of FRIENDS about half a dozen times, seen Die Hard 3 about a dozen times and read about either Wall street or Times square in the newspaper every 2nd day. So i was pretty much confident that nothing would surprise me and thankfully i was wrong (i'd like to believe that doesnt happen too often).Perhaps the bus ride to NY city was the best idea cause i got to see most of the touristy attractions on the way to Port Authority Bus terminal.I saw the Yankee Stadium (even though i dont know the 'b' of baseball),i passed Times square, Broadway and i think we went over what i was sure at that time was Brooklyn bridge , but later when i saw three other bridges look the same way i was'nt that confident.It took us long enough to get out of the massive building and after that we had to wait at W42nd and 8th avenue for over an hour.This actually turned out to be kinda great cause i came to know ,that be it New York or Mumbai ,cabbies will always get in the wrong lane and then get out and start fighting mindlessly causing stupid jams.The language was different but the gist was pretty much the same.We were standing in front of this multicoloured building when the uncle who we were gonna stay with came and picked us up and we were off to Queens.

After freshening up and a prompt pet puja it was practically afternoon. we were (thankfully) advised to avoid the standard bus tours and just do the exploring part ourselves.So we set out with just a couple of dollars ,two delicious pita bread sandwhiches and a dozen maps.To complete our obviousness as tourists was the humungous borrowed Minolta camera.We gotta try the subway which was great,having already been to Hong Kong for a gizillion times ,prevented us from being wide eyed confused tourists and the whole system was very mangeable and easy.We changed trains and as luck would have it there was some problem in the last few stations but they had arranged for a bus to the last stop which for us was South ferry,yup our first stop was Statue of Liberty.It was a sunday so there was a decent crowd .We took the staten island ferry so we could just see the statue from away,cause anyway we could'nt go to the top.

Maybe the statue was this distinctly american thing ,and that 's why i didnt get it, but i found it dirty, meaning you could see the dust settled on the lime green statue which was kinda overrated according to me .Maybe if your an american you could feel some sense of pride looking at it but all i saw was a disproportionate statue.It was kinda like when i visited agra and ended up liking the Agra fort a tad more than Taj mahal.But anyway when we got back to solid land did i start enjoying Ney York the way i always wanted to enjoy it.We sat at the harbour which was really pretty and had sandwhiches and just saw people pass.

Dont you just love the times when you dont have to care about time.We could have sat over there for more than an hour or just 15 mins but not having any restrictions just felt great. Now we were supposed to go straight home ,but blame it on the fact that it does'nt become dark till 8 in august,we decide to do a little exploring.We just walked and stumbled on Wall street.Now i'm filmy,very filmy and so is my sister ,so there we stood with these humongous chocolate shakes(dirt cheap) in our hands and did this total 360 degree turn just like bruce willis in die hard3 (thinking "what does wall street have that no other street have???",money dude lots of money) and our eyes on the NSE .For me this was just ultracool. We both took photos with the bull ,it being a sunday there were so many people (holding up kids on its back,holding the bull in unmentionable places) and this is where our bambiya mentality came to use ,which is to politely squeeze in and jostle through to get a photo.

Now i'm not an architecture student but the buildings were just beautiful.Being a sunday(have i mentioned that before) the business district was only full of tourists. the immigration building was ugly enough (that awful lime green again) but on due course we stumbled on these art deco type buildings which had so much character(like those in south mumbai).We stumbled on this one building (i bet it had some spooky purpose) around 4th street which just didnt have any windows!I loved this black building near the ferry pier,the chrysler building(this one was my favourite ,even more than the empire state) ,rockfeller centre and even those residential ones(ok i know i,m gonna sound really stupid ,but like the ones in Friends). i loved all of them.

Thats just what we did. We walked and walked and walked alll the way from the ferry pier till practically 14th street.We saw the remains of the World trade centre(i wish they'd get going with the memorial they plan to build there ,its been almost 7 yrs and one would think that a country like usa would'nt take time to build something. That time there was just a big khadda), we saw these big six footers playing basketball in a roadside park,we saw families having dinner in these cute roadside greek restaurants,we saw st.pauls cathedral(but only from the outside,we were late), we saw everything i wanted to see.

And then we saw a station fro the metro and our tired feet forced us to stop.We headed out to 42nd street [Times square woohoo!!!].Ever wondered how every city has a Regal theatre??? Well this one also did.The lights were pretty blinding and so we decided to skip Maddam tussads or any of the other touristy things and headed out to a park(i think it was battery park,but am not 2 sure) and there was a big screen set up. The cutest thing about it was they screened these old classics for free and people could just bring their mats and lie there and enjoy the movie.i found it extremely cute.By then however it was time to head home.

And so the day came to an end.I didnt understand it at that time but now that i look back,i probably loved that day so much a) cause it was New York and b) cause there was total freedom associated with it .i could go wherevr i wanted and lastly c)cause i had good chappals on,and when i have good chappals on i can go walking on and on(much like that duracell rabbit) I love that day and i'm happy that when i'm all grey and old ill be able to say that i saw NY my way.

beach bums

I love weekend trips. Period. I love the fact that they hardly need any planning and give me a break from the regular hum drum. Of late actually just hanging out with a couple of frnds and talking has been gr8 but a change of scenery is always welcome. Actually dhoondnewale ke to hazaron bahaane mil akte hain. My dear frnd of two years (my namesake) was gonna leave us all n so was made the grand (and mind you it was the 1st successful plan) of visiting and surprising her at DahanuDahanu can be described in three words, beach, beach and again the beach. Getting there was easy enuf with the ample Gujarat bound trains, and we chose to start early. Wonder of all wonders every1 was on tym n so we set out,with the weather being all wet n wonderful (haa……….the monsoons),with the six of us on the upper berths hoping our combined weight wudnt displace our faith in the strength of iron benches. Two years of passing vijaynagar in a bus has trained my eye for the occasional bhojpuri poster ,which I promptly spotted pasted outside the station, which quite literally was very unlike anything u wud expect in Mumbai.the poster by the way was of “Pyaasa Bhootraj”(mental note made for future games of dumb charades).After our gift to her was prepared n, we set out to her place ,but as luck wud have it, we bumped into her on the way. Thankfully surprised, she invited us to her place. After which my mango starved hostel frnds got to savour wat was probably the season’s last mangoes. By this tym however we had only one thng on our minds, and that was clean, clear unending sea .we set out to the 2nd beach(described as the beach for “sophisticated ppl only” by my frnd) the minute I laid my eyes on it ,I knew I cud just spend hours doing absolutely nothing other than just stare at the humungous waves beckoning any courageous being to plunge in to them. But then, that cud be done sum other tym. This was the time to completely immerse ourselves into the water and act like a couple of toddlers.Perhaps ,as it was probably the last tym the eight of us wud be together with no restrictions of tym or studies,every1 was in super high spirits. The thing is u can only get wet to a certain degree and then u just dnt care. Those 3 hrs in the water were absolute joy and ecstacy even tho they basically consisted of dropping each other in the salty water ,dancing and making a complete fool of ourselves in front of the locals, singing stupid songs and just sitting in the water under the sky which was completely over cast and grey giving it a completely surreal feeling, the kind u have in one of those moments which seem to just go on and stay with u forever even tho u dnt have any photos or videos to prove tht they happened. Sitting there in tht garbage less beach with 7 of the best of my frnds with the waves cuming and literally moving us was just fantastic.This was not however sufficiently appreciated by my maid who had to remove the kilos of sand which just refused to get out of my pants. The day ended for us at 3 nxt morning.The nxt day just flew by with hot cups of tea and coffee, sum rain (finally!!!!) and loads of idle gossip. And it was tym 2 go.The beach is always fun,but this tym it was extra special.This is especially dedicated to the person who ill miss so much in the cuming year. The person who completely epitomized the word fun,n truly bought a smile on the darkest of days.Mansi.