17th Dec 2004...

...3rd Jan 2005

17th Dec: Drove to Memphis with Manoj and his cousin to catch my flight to Baltimore. Ended up going to the airport just 10 minutes before my departure time only to miss my flight. Luckily for me I managed to get another one after a 3 hr wait in Memphis. Reached Baltimore that night at 11 to be picked up by Panda and Duh in a rental Taurus that Duh was driving was one broken leg. Met golu only later that night cuz he was busy playing 'strip poker' with his bunch of guy friends!

18th Dec: Woke up to find duhs car broken into...the miscreant took away the passenger side window clean...without so much leaving a tiny shred of glass. But luckily nothing was taken from the car. We thought...prolly someone walked into the theft and the person fled before he could take anything except the window pane!
So much for conspiracy theories affecting our minds...we found duh simply forgot to put the window up before locking the car! Extremely lucky nothing got stolen considering we were in Baltimore!
Had a nice lunch at Kumari's and then we(duh me panda and golu) went to see Johns Hopkins University. Also played cricket with some of Dheerajs friends. Met Buffy too that day. Gatecrashed into his house (more of a mansion) he shares with 4 others for dinner. We also watched 'Around the world in 80 days there' (silly movie)

19th Dec: Went Baltimore sight seeing...Inner Harbour in particular. Good Fun. That evening we set off to drive to Richmond in duhs car. We being golu duh and me. A snow storm was happening while we were driving. Duh and golu were quite worried about the car skiding but I had my share of fun :) Reached Richmond that night to meet one of duhs friends from Capone (Tambay) and ate at TGIF. BTW Duh has very very gaaawd parallel parking abilities ;)

20th Dec: Duh had to work that day so me and golu took the Greyhound to visit Nishant at the Univerisity of Virginia in Charlottesville, an hour away. Saw the univ and then went to nishants house. Had quite a controversial time at his place! Returned that evening to Richmond (again Greyhound) to meetup with KN and a bunch of other 'Al Capones' and a sumptuous dinner prepared by them was waiting for us. Watched "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" during dinner. Very nice movie. Called it a day at duhs house. Learnt a life ka funda that picking up snow with ur bare hands (even for purposes of vengeance) can hurt quite bad!

21st Dec: The next morning we (duh, golu and me) drove to DC. I was convinced at this point that road trips with good music and great friends are the best. Duh had to work again that day too so after lunching at the (or a) Hard Rock Cafe in DC he left us to see the DC's famous museums. We saw the Natural History Museum and Aviation museum before it was closing time. A reunion with duh happened not before long and amongst the many things we did that evening, worth mentioning are our an hour long attempts to find a theatre that didnt exist and in the process driving to a different state and getting lost and driving into the White House so often that the cops had to tell us to stop loitering. The evening in DC was polished off with dinner at a exotic place where they sold hukkas and then back to the pseud hotel that duh puts up in whenever he is in DC.

22nd Dec: Golu had some work so we returned the next morning to Baltimore using the MARC (its a train service). Golu was busy with his work while I lukkhaed at his house, checked out the fitness centre in his building and watched 'Dude! Wheres my car?', and an RHCP concert.

23rd Dec: Got up in the afternoon to find out that duh was goin to pick us up sometime in the evening and we(duh me golu and panda) were going to drive to NYC. Managed to watch "Wonderland" before we left Baltimore. (Very interesting movie). Most of the evening was spent in duhs car going towards NYC. We finally pulled up outside maddim's bro's (Ravi) house at about 12 in the night. KN and others were also driving with us to NYC in another car. Ravis house in New Jersey is a fantastic apartment with a wonderful view.

24th Dec: Got up in the morning to drop duh off to the nearest train station (cuz he was goin further north to meet his relatives) and then went off to TIMES SQUARE to pick rabbi up who had just come from Cornell. Now it was me golu maddim and rabbi that made up this gang in New York :P We spent the day admiring Times Square, visiting Madam Toussads, Rockefeller Centre and watching Oceans 12.

25th Dec: Wanted to check out Statue of Liberty that day but it being Xmas day was closed down. So we had to be content with Empire State Building for the day. Wanted to but couldnt catch a Broadway show. Also, apparently there were talks of a white Xmas in NYC but there was no snow to see!

26th Dec: This was the coldest day of my entire trip. The temperature felt like -25 deg C. We had gone to see the Statue of Liberty and it was freaking freezing! Yet managed to have a good day going to the WTC site and Wall Street also.

27th Dec: 3 days in NYC were up and all of us caught a greyhound to Boston to visit Akya (Dheeraj's sister). Arrived in Boston that evening and then went on to see what I think will be the biggest and most luxurious house that I will ever see!

28th Dec: Went for a trip to MIT to meet up with some friends. Basically day was filled with meeting junta, visiting MIT science museum and a Godmaxx snow fight! Came back home in the evening to eat a fundaxxx home cooked dinner that akya had prepared :)


29th Dec: Visited the local hospital there and spent most of the day there taking care of rabbi cuz poor chap dislocated his shoulder (yet again) while stretching in the morning This sort of became a rest day after days of hectic sightseeing so we all welcomed it!

30th Dec:Boston Museum of Science ruled the greater part of the day! Steve Zissou's Life Aquatic took up the evening!

31st Dec: Akya had planned out a big day for us and it turned out to be quite nice. Visited most of Bostons major landmarks (including Quincy Market, Boston Harbour, Harvard and Prudential Building) during the day and in the evening all of us ( we 4, akya and a couple of her friends) watched the New Years Parade and then after brief halt at one of Akyas friends house (where maddim and I watched a good part of 'Green Card Fever') we reached Boston Harbour to watch the New Years fireworks.

1st Jan: Met more of akyas friends, went to a temple and following a dinner of dosa at a tam retaurant, me maddim and golu took the night train to Baltimore. We had put Rabbi on a flight to Syracuse that afternoon!

2nd Jan: Movie Marathon in Baltimore: Wimbledon, Wicker Park and Rush Hour. Nishant had joined us for that day.

3rd Jan: Took the flight back home while humming "This is the end..." ;)
All in all had an amazing time!

An arbitrary...

...threesome.

1. Had a wonderful time this december visiting lots of places and people. Will try and make a seperate, more exclusive 'captains log' entry!

2. Went to watch 'Balu ABCDEFG' yesterday evening. Wasnt worth the 2 hours drive up and down to Memphis. Pawan Kalyan isnt entertaining anymore and the movie got very painful at times. Saw many people getting up and leaving halfway! And the lamest part being ABCDEFG stands for 'A Boy Can Do Everything For a Girl'...if you are going to capitalize the first A why the heck is the second one left out!!!!!!!! And as Golu would prolly say "it could have simply been named 'Balu CKD' "!(esoteric joke...so dont think too hard :P)

3. Was watching Jay Leno some days back...Ill try and quote him verbatim
" In India apparently theres a video of two school kids having sex doing the rounds on the Internet and people are very shocked....cuz they are conservative over there and these kind of things dont happen. And Paris Hilton is heard to be quite angry that her job too is now being outsourced!" :)