Weekend in Bloomington & Champaign

This weekend I drove down to Bloomington to visit my friends Preeti & Vikram who were moving to Pittsburgh for Vikram's new job assignment.
I got to Bloomington in time for dinner where Preeti had made these awesome mushroom & cheese hors d'oeuvres. After a long day at work and a seemingly longer drive through the traffic - these were the best surprise and truly heavenly.
The next morning I drove to Alok's University in Urbana Champaign. We met up for lunch and ended up going to the Red Lobster for some awesome grilled lobster and shrimp. After some more delicious tiramisu cake at Moonstruck the local U of I cafe with Alok & his friends - I headed back to Bloomington, for some good Thai dinner at a place Preeti and Vikram had stumbled on. It was good. :)
After dinner we went for a drive to Leroy in Preeti & Vikram's Jetta. The road to Leroy is lined by corn fields on either side. The Jetta has a fantastic sun/ moonroof. I stood up in the car and peeped out of the roof - It was a fantastic feeling. The cool wind on my face, for a moment - it felt like riding a bike with the wind in your hair and watching the stars in the sky, smelling the fresh corn fields of grass and corn and the typical meadow scent - far away from the city, far away from everything ... Just being able to stand up in the car and look out through the roof, was amazing and it seemed to blow any negative thoughts away.

Visit from the STL-ians...

Last weekend, two of my friends from St. Louis, Aparna & Shantanu finally drove to Chicago. They were joined by two more friends, Parry & Avanti. Avanti was visiting Chicago for the first time, but Parry had been here before.

They reached here on Friday night - and then we were chatting until the early hours of Saturday! Managed to drag ourselves out of the house by noon, and made our way to a place in Wisconsin called Lake Geneva. This is a picturesque lake, but it was a too hot a day to really enjoy the lake front. En route - we stopped by to pick water and juice and ended up buying enough stuff for an army! Since we'd skipped breakfast, the provisions were put to good use. :)

Lake Geneva has a lot of speedboats and water scooters, but sadly, most of them were booked for the day. After checking some out - we walked into a nearby restaurant for lunch. This was a non chain place, where the ambience was relaxing and the service extremely hospitable. Sitting there - watching the lake, and the boats go by was an experience in itself.

After this leisurely lunch, we looked out for some boats to rent, but didn't find anything suitable. Since Parry had to meet a friend in Chicago downtown for dinner, and Avanti had still not visited the typical tourist places like Navy Pier we decided to head back.

After we got home, Shantanu, Aparna, Neel & myself decided to stay at home and relax after being out in the hot sun the entire day. So we cooked some chicken gravy - ekdam Indian style (It turned out decent - guess I can cook chicken ;)), some delicious Bengali style daal - (recipe thanks to Shantanu) and rice. Parry missed this dinner. :( That was ironical, since he was the one who had requested that we eat home-cooked chicken atleast once when he visited and here we were eating some awesome chicken curry without him! After a relaxed dinner we decided to walk down by the lake. The gentle summer breeze was refreshing.

Parry & Avanti got back by 1 am - after a short stint of wandering the streets of Chicago (when trying to get onto the correct freeway) - with a bit of online help (thanks to google maps) they were soon on track.

The next day - we decided to go shopping to a mall in Aurora. Aparna, Avanti & myself left for the mall while the guys decided to get there later - after giving us about 3 hrs of a head start. :)
Shopped for clothes, and then I spotted Rocky mountain chocolate factory - famous for it's chocolate dipped strawberries ... Since Parry had missed the Taste of Chicago festival, when I told him about the chocolate place, he was thrilled. After munching on these delicious treats (yes - I really need to learn to make these at home), it was time for Neel and myself to return to Chicago, while the rest went to St. Louis. A memorable fun weekend - spent with friends, with some good food and shopping too ...! :)

Taste of Chicago

This weekend we went to the Taste of Chicago festival. This is a food festival in the heart of downtown Chicago.
Walked around a lot - just soaking in the charged up air - it almost feels abuzz ... you see people of all ages from 5 to 75, enjoying all the various kinds of food.
The atmosphere was relaxed and pleasant aromas of food wafting from each stall ... I even got a tatoo! (Well, a temporary one, the ones that wear off on washing) It was great. Ate a variety of dishes ranging from the Indian Samosa to the Middle Eastern humus to grilled shrimp. Also had some heavenly chocolate dipped strawberries - these were just phenomenal - and I need to learn the art of making these at home. They were heavenly. (Come to think of it, how could a combination of chocolate and strawberries ever taste bad?? - but whatever ... )

New York Reunion

The next morning - or whatever you can call it after 3 hrs of sleep ... Avni reached Adele's place right on schedule. Thanks to the minimal sleep, we were quite groggy and barely made it to the station on time for the rain to NYC.

We made it to NYC by 12.00 pm. Adele barely made it... in her excitement to get to the mall (where we were all supposed to meet) Madam looks in the wrong direction of a one-way street and happily walks into the path of an incoming bus! After dragging her back to safety. we literally ran towards the mall in our excitement. Meeting everyone else was fabulous. Disha, Shameen, Kinjal, Shilpa...they all looked fabulous! Shameen and me immediately whipped out our cameras... Avni was the designated gal who accosted random New Yorkers and Chinese tourists to take our group pictures. We then proceeded towards a Mexican place for brunch. I think they guessed in advance that we were going to create a racket...because they gave us a table as far away from the other patrons as possible :)

After a couple of hours of reminiscing and drinking Mimosas we finally got our brunch! We went through some old pictures that Disha had brought along. Really funny to see the old "puffy" hairstyles ... Adele has threatened everyone with dire consequences if we post those pics online! We then walked over to Central Park, where I accosted some more people to take our photos. Unfortunately as all good things do... this had to end too. Shameen and Disha split up to get Coach and Gucci bags (oh yes .. talk about living in the lap of luxury) . The rest of us went to pick up magnets (75 cents) and I LOVE NEW YORK T-shirts ($3.00) from Times Square. Walked around in Times Square. It was so hot - we all felt rather dehydrated. We kept stopping in all the "air conditioned" showrooms to avoid the heat. I am sure we had suspicious cops following us after a while... We then went our own ways with promises of another reunion soon. Shameen has offered to host a chaat party in Boston if the rest of us can make it there!

The funny part if that it did NOT feel as if we were meeting after 13 years! We were all so comfortable and completely at ease with each other....it was great.

New York By Night ...

Armed with directions and train route information from Adele, I got onto the correct train and reached Perth Amboy station by 8:30 pm. Adele was at the station to meet me with a big grin on her face. She was driving a huge SUV and I must admit I was paranoid to see her drive it. Looked like a small kid trying to control a hulk of a vehicle!

Met Adele's fiance Steven and we both shared our paranoia over Adele's driving skills and pulled her leg about it. We then decided to go into downtown NY (again ???) for dinner. After driving through the notorious Jersey traffic, we were back in Times Square by 11pm. After a quick dinner of some delicious Kathi rolls, we went to a nightclub to sample the NY nightlife. I found the place rather loud, and so did Adele, so we spent the time sitting in the lobby catching up. Once we were done - we got back to our parking lot at 2:30 am, only to be told that the lot was closed until 6 am. Now we were stuck. Left with no other option - we decided to spend the night at 33rd & Penn station. There were a lot of people like us, either stranded or just waiting for their train there. I spent time there chatting with Avril, Steven & Adele.
Soon it was morning, and we strolled out at 5 am, to the nearest MacDonalds for a sumptuous breakfast. Got back home at 7 am ... Had a mini school reunion planned for brunch, but just could not help catching up on a few hours of sleep .... :)

New York - Day 1

The visit to New York city, the next day began with a train ride from Connecticut's New Haven terminal to New York's famous Grand Central station. The first impression of Grand Central is just awe inspiring. This terminal has about 130 tracks that serve routes all over mainland USA. The main lobby is this huge expanse of space - that could probably contain a station in itself. It has some neat decorative motifs on the ceiling - the pictures don't quite do justice to that(but I've added them here just the same)

We walked from Grand Central station to Times Square - passing Bryant Park and the New York public library (another huge building) on the way. As I walked along the sidewalk - the first thing that hits you is the sheer number of people on the street. It is crowded and noisy and for someone from Bombay - feels just like home! You have hawkers selling their wares on the street - selling stuff ranging from hotdogs & kababs to water bottles. Some other selling sunglasses and caps and other NYC memorabilia ... It has a very Mumbai downtown feel to it!

Times Square - The place where the New Year ball drops - a phenomenal area that buzzes with activity round the clock. This place has some of the most amazing stores and restaurants, most of the "trendy" chains and some others are here. You see Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood jostling for space with MacDonald's and other burger and pizza places. Around the Times Square area - you also have a few kebab and grill places tucked away into corners.

After a quick run through of Times Square - we headed out to do the No.1 touristy thing in NY - visit the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty is located on an island, and you need to take a Circle Line ferry to visit this one. After a long long wait in the hot scorching sun - we finally got onto a ferry - one of my friends referred to it as a rat box since it had a lot of people crammed on it. After a 20 minute ride - where you can see some breathtaking views of the Manhattan skyline, we reached Staten Island. This island has the huge imposing Statue of Liberty. This statue is made of copper and was originally brown in color, but oxidation of the statue has now turned it green. Any coincidence that US dollars are also green? ;)

Since the tours to the top of the statue - into the crown are no longer permitted, we clicked pictures from the base of the statue and moved on to Ellis island in another ferry.

Ellis island was the first immigration port in the US. This place is now a museum with pictures of immgrants in the 1900s.

Walked around Ellis island and boarded the ferry back to mainland NY. Once again - the view of the Manhattan skyline - is awesome. It is like the skyscrapers are all competing with each other to gain your attention. I've tried to get some decent pictures of this - but the overcast day didn't quite help my cause. Switched to black & white effects on my camera in the effort to get some different kind of pictures instead.


The next thing we did was walked down to the famous Brooklyn bridge. This bridge looks rather unimposing compared to the other large bridges around, but has its own charm.

After walking around the Hudson river area, it was time for me to take a subway and head out to Adele's place for the much awaited school reunion. I was going to meet some of my classmates after 13 years ... wow!

New York Tales ....

Yes ... Finally managed to plan a visit to New York city! Started out on Friday, June 30 ... The previous weeks had been quite crazy workwise, so was more than ready for a holiday.

For a change, my flight out of Chicago's O'Hare airport was on schedule. I mean - isn't that rare? Well, I wasn't complaining.... :) After about 90 minutes of flying, I suddenly saw this airstrip that ends into a river! Yes, that was the one we had to land on. La Guardia airport is located such that you almost think that the aircraft is going to land on water, but miraculously - they make it to the runway. Well, talk about precision flying! The flight attendant on this Delta flight was one with a pretty good sense of humor. He kept up the wisecracks right until we disembarked... Some of them - "We hope you have enjoyed this flight and thank you for flying Delta." followed by "If you have not enjoyed this flight, we thank you for flying Continental!" When reminding passengers to take all their belongings with them, his announcement was - "Please ensure you remember to take all your belongings with you. Anything left behind will find it's way into Renee's garage sale tomorrow. (Renee - being the other flight attendant.)

Met one of my friends at the airport and was driven to New Haven, Connecticut. This is the place where you find the famous Yale University. This town has a typical college feel to it - quaint restaurants and cafes, roadside art shops selling some work by student artists - It almost gives a British rather than the typical stereotyped big block monotonous American impression.