Amsterdam

Hapsi ka mu, hamesha khula hi rahta hai

I have a tendency of planning things well in advance. If I have complete information, I'll book everything before hand. Actually, I'll plan out every minor detail as soon as plan is set. Hence I had a friend booked who will drop me from my home to airport, but he dropped out at last day. I had to call out my gang who left their office and came. 

3 Musketeers of US

I am lucky that I always get a gang of 3 musketeers right from school to company. This time, they were crazier than ever. I had to catch the flight for India, but traditions are above all such things. We have a tradition of eating Pizza whenever we meet. 

Our Fix Order: I used to take advantage of the scheme and add
lots of toppings. #Baniya Buddhi

We were already late, still ordered Pizza and then started for port. Bhati and Mehte were thinking that I am tensed and must be cursing them but guys, I was not worried at all. I think that whatever happens is going to happen, why to worry about it before it happens. 

Khan Sab, You were not missed.

Somehow we managed to be on time. Mehte came inside the port to drop me off. Now I was on the way to India, finally. There was a Dutch lady sitting next to me which makes sense as my first flight was to Amsterdam. She was going to see her parents. She reallocated to States long back and was going to see her parents. She was working in a company which manufactures Memory/RAM. I asked her, "so you make memories?". 

Amsterdam, one of the most beautiful places in world. I can't go out of port, but sitting at port and thinking about what's waiting for me in Indore was an awesome feeling. It was enough to compensate for me not going to explore Amsterdam.

Home Sweet Home

Dedicated to people of my age...
Best of luck.

It has been more than 3 years that I have left my home sweet home. It has been more than a year that I have left India. May be it was right time to meet and greet everyone at home. Many things have happened in past year, some are good, others bad. May be it was right time to take all those in. Many things lined up for future. May be it was right time to understand those. All these feelings arouse when you are at a prime age. In case you are staying away, things grow at rapid rate. There are many things/situations that today's youth has to go through. Two of them are listed here.

Shadi (Marriage): That's the hottest topic, I ever heard in India. Especially relatives do their best in match fixing. Thanks to all of em. Everyone will have at least one contact with an eligible candidate.

Whereas youth have no idea, what's going on? They understand that it's high time, that thy should settle but they gets afraid with the Shadi word itself. They want to live their life before getting settled. Even if they are earning in lakhs, they are afraid of the current economy. They also think that marriage will bring additional responsibilities. Also they need candidates who is perfect in many criteria such as working/non working/business, location, community, even sub community, culture and more. It's like the person should satisfy all the parameters to be eligible. Note, they apply in Love marriages as well, just that criteria s are different there. Even then it takes a lot of time of time to finalize, as it's a matter of lifetime. 

Job: If you do not get job, its a problem. if you do get job, you want to switch. If you have already switched, you want to go towards Startup. If you are in startup, you want to go in Business. In spite of all these, there are those as well, who are still struggling with their exams. So basically you are in a confused state of mind, wherever you are. One thing is for sure, wherever you are you want to move ahead from it. You want some change in life. Change is inevitable. Also you are afraid of the change, which reduces your speed of moving towards it. Above factor also contributes in this change. As per my thought, all of us need change and should bring it once in a while. For example, if you are working somewhere you should take leave from it at least a month in a year. You should meet 1 new person at  least in a week.

Funny thing among all these is, we might think "OK, we are in a job. We should settle now and get married". But the real thing starts right after that. Our society wants more now. First they want us to get good marks, then good job, good girl and now they want a good kid.
If you listen to me, I would say...
Their is no stoppage in this life, it wants more out of you. Just try to keep yourself on track. Take the life as it comes. STOP once in a while, take a deep breath, see around yourself and then move ahead. Else life will go very fast and you won't get time to live it. Life is precious. Stop surviving, start living.

Washington DC

Rocky

The second day of our trip was full of History, starting from Philadelphia to DC. We started from Baltimore Hotel towards  Philly, the largest city in Pennsylvania and famous of rich history. It has Liberty Bell and Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed. It was also the temporary US capital while DC was under construction. We wanted to cover more in DC, hence we skipped all these places and just visited Rocky Steps at the Philadelphia Museum of art. These steps have been immortalized by Sylvester Stallone’s triumphant run in the film "Rocky."

Bull Rider

Next we stopped at the actual US capital to meet our friend Obama. Many of us might not know that Washington was named after first President-George Washington and DC stands for District of Columbia. The fact is Washington was previously called as DC. Please do not get confused with Washington state, its different. We started exploring DC from 

Capitol

1. The United States Capitol, often called Capitol Hill, is the seat of the United States Congress, the legislative branch of the U.S. federal government. Moving towards ...

2. National Gallery of Art-American & European works in 2 buildings & a sculpture garden.

3. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History-The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution. With free admission and open doors 364 days a year, it is the third most visited museum in the world. Crazy, Right.

4. Washington Monument-Landmark obelisk rising from the National Mall that honors America's first president.

Outside Museum

Now we were tired of walking, hence we directly visited the most important place-White House. Clicked few and then moved to Hotel after dinner.

Last day was basically, just travel from Hotel to home sweet home Minnesota.

New York

Downtown

After travelling around 1200 miles (2000kms) we reached the costliest and time pass hotel of our journey. We booked this hotel, as it was near to Times Square as well as China Town. Hotel rent was 150$ for 2 Queen Beds. As soon as we powered on the TV, C grade movies started, which confirmed our hotel choice.

White House @ Madam Tussads

As we had to just rest for a while and head on towards Square, we didn’t mind any of these things. We were hell tired so everyone slept for some time, refreshed and then started looking for bus stop. We took bus 4.85$/person from South Hackensack to port authority and near to that we have times square. It’s better to take bus to avoid parking in downtown. Note that Times Square is @ 7th and 42^nd, but the cops closed the streets up to 57^th street when we reached and they kept on closing streets one by one to control people. We tried for some time to get as near as possible, but our crew was more worried about returning and wanted to see pub/dance bar. Hence we left before 2016 hits and tried for a dance bar. Unfortunately bar had strict policies for shoes and we didn’t had proper ones, so we were not allowed. In all this mess, it strikes 12 and we were not even able to see fireworks. Well then we tried for club and they were also closed. Still we call it as Happy New Year. It's all about being happy whatever the situation is. This bullshit is called as maturity.

View from Empire State

Next day we had a pre booked New York tour by Tours4fun.com. So we traveled by Uber cab after using first time referral discount from hotel to China Town. Tour girl (Vikki) took some amount from us to cover entry fee of the attractions. Our first attraction was Empire State Building, a 102-story skyscrapper and world's tallest building for at least 40 years. It;s name is derived from New York's nick name The Empire State. It gives a good view of Manhattan downtown from top. To know more and view a good video visit http://www.esbnyc.com/.

Deep Thinking

Our next stop was Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum-a Military and Maritime History Museum with a collection of Museum Ships. If you would like to see planes like F16, you should visit this place. Museum houses legendary aircraft carrier Intrepid, the space shuttle Enterprise, the world’s fastest jets and a guided missile submarine. USS Intrepid served tours of duty in World War II and the Vietnam War. Enterprise, the world’s first space shuttle that paved the way for America’s successful Space Shuttle Program. Also on display are 28 authentically restored aircraft, including the Lockheed A-12 Blackbird, the world’s fastest military jet and spy plane, and the British Airways Concorde, the fastest commercial aircraft to ever cross the Atlantic Ocean. Rounding out the Museum are the submarine Growler, the only American diesel-powered strategic missile submarine open to the public.

Wall Street

We took lot of time in Intrepid so Vikki was quite angry and decided to just drop us @ Madam Tussad's Wax Museum. Else we were supposed to spend sometime at Times Square and then to Madam. Anyways, they are close, so it's fine. Madam Tussad's wax museum was started from London and now has branches in major cities throughout the world. It is called as "wax museum" but not everywhere we have wax sculptures. Most of the sculptures in New York were plastic but their setup was bit realistic. Environment, background, colors, dresses, music combined made us feel like they are real and sometimes if a real person is statue for sometime, we may feel that its a sculpture. Strange feeling. we took lots of pictures with celebrities and moved on to last but not the least the famous Times Square. Last night, we were not able to witness what Times Square is, but today we saw all the big screens and madness of it. It's truly a light city. Then we walked towards port authority to catch a bus to New Jersey. I was hoping to get a good veggies instead of having something time pass. So I waited till our hotel and found nearby subway.

White House

We got a warm welcome @ Subway by a Spanish girl Merlyn. She greeted us with famous quote "Kya haal hai ?". I also replied with same enthusiasm "badiya, aap kaise hai". Since most of the shops, restaurants and hotels of New Jersey are owned/run by Indians, we get such greetings. A nice welcome increases taste and make us feel homely. Within 5 minutes of time span, we got mixed with the owner and Merlyn, hence took the photo.

New York Stock Exchange

Next we moved towards Baltimore, where we had our 2nd hotel booked.

Famous F16 @ Intrepid

Warm Welcome Restaurant