The Extent of my Americanism...

Let me list of out the things I am doing now that I didnt when I was back in India


:: I eat Bread Jam Multiple times in the day... for breakfast, with the evening Tea....

:: I BUY Curds !!!

:: I wear trouser and shirt to Work... everyday !!

:: You will always see me in formal shoes.

:: I Wear LIPSTICK Everyday..

:: I have started thinking in terms of dollars!!



(will add more)

Happy Anniversary to me.

O Love of my life.. Here is a card for you.


Main Yahaan Tu Vahaan Zindagi Hai Kahaan
Tu Hi Tu Hai Sanam Dekhtaa Hoon Jahaan
Neend Aati Nahin Yaad Jaati Nahin
Neend Aati Nahin Yaad Jaati Nahin
Bin Tere Ab Jiyaa Jaaye Na
Main Yahaan Tu Vahaan Zindagi Hai Kahaan

it snowed today ...

Yaa it did,



It started snowing from afternnoon. and was snowing till we reached home at 6:30 pm.



Now its 8:30 pm and as i see outside its stopped snowing.



When I came out of office , it was sort of dark . (now .. thts normal for winters to have short days here) Yet I could see a layer of snow everywhere. The Cars were covered with snow. It was still snowing. Just as in the movies snowflakes were assimilating and One of my colleagues spent his time enjoying the snow on his head. when he came back in, his head had tiny snow flakes.



Of course it was extremely cold. I had on my thermals, my shirt,trousers, Plus a sweater and then a long knee length jacket. even then!!! i could feel the cold!! I of course had worn my gloves and a woollen cap on my head , but even then i was worried i would catch the cold. As fast as possible I jumped into the car and off were we on our way home.



The traffic was slow and no wonder. Everyone had snow on their windshield and was unable to see the road . everything was blurred due to the condensation and it reminded of of rainy days in Bangalore. The traffic had surely piled up but we still made it in good time home.



I missed my camera sorely. I was at a loss to understand how anyone else couldnt consider clicking snaps!!! after it was our first ever snow fall in New Jersey -Princeton !! Yet i will try and click some snaps tomorrow ...



see yaaaaaaaaaaaa.

The Adventure on a Sunday

Ha , so we all thought we should goto Apna Bazaar in Edison instead of Patels

Princeton and asked the GPS for the directions. Yeah we reached in 10 mins and

were dissapointed to see a small shop(ok supermarket) with prices thrice what the

same item would cost in Patel's!!! and welllllll we decided to scoot away. We had

to do that slowly and without drawing attention to ourselves. SO some of us slowly

snucked away and scooted out of the door. Two of the boys were still in and when

they realised taht wehad bolted, they coolly kept their wares back and made it to

the door. All the time the stern boss lady kept looking. When we gathered at the

car and got into it, we were hoping that Aunty wouldnt come badgering in.

So now we deceided that we should go back to Patels and set the GPS to take us

there. It showed the distance as 32 miles!!!!welllll!!!!

So there.... off were we chugging off the route as shown and i saw tht the fuel

indicator was in Empty. Raghu was driving and I reminded him on the fuel. He was

like "Dont worry we will fill gas on way" But somehow my mind was uneasy. We

missed two gas stations. The third we pulled in had "NO AMEX" clearly printed on

the fuel pump and well..... so off we went...

and lo behold we reached the HIGHWAY!!!! as we drove along chatting and enjoying,

raghu says ' O .. I think...' and i was like ' No dont...... ' OK now i coudlnt

say 'I told u so' and said ' take the car to the right. If it stops at least we

will nt be in the middle of the road. And the Car stopped in front of the Median

fr the police. Now All of us were in a quandry. I was the only one who has a

mobile. but.. tht particular day looked like I FORGOT it home!!! Also there was no

PCO nearby So there... here were were in a middle of nowhere.. strnded with no

mobile.. and heights of heights.... NO ONE excpt me had their passport on them.

SOOOOO wellllll...

We decided to wait it out... A State highway trooper was sure to make rounds rite?

Renuka and I remained back inside he car. the boys waited outside the car. It was

extremely windy. To top that the vehicles were whizzing by at 120 mpm and above!!

Even our heavy Voyager shook at times when a huge truck passed by.

Afetr around half an hour, the police car came. I prayed tht there would be a

understanding cop in it and not one who woudl fine us for not noticing our fuel

meter!! And my prayers were answered. The cop was a cute american guy who could

have actually been Santa by Spirit. When We told him tht our fuel tank is over ,

he said ' O u just missed a station by 1 mile!!' God how dismayed were we... The

good man assured us tht he would have the state service called and have a

personnel get us a gallon of fuel so tht we could then getinto the fuel station

right ahed and fill up some more. PHEW tht was a relief. We thanked him and Off he

wentttttttt.

Well we waited for another 45 minutes... all the time wondering whether they

forgot about us? we actually spotted a Service van on the other side of the

highway and presuemd tht it was for us. BUt it didnt turn up for quite sometime.

And justwhen we had given up, there it was !!! A nice rolly polly guy got down and

after some signing and paying (35$) for 1 gallon (Add some tax and servcie

charge) we had the car all heated up and raring to go...

We followed the service guy and he guided us to the nearest fuel station. If it was not for him we surely would have missed this too.

SO now tht we were "Full Tanked" off we chugged to the Patels by GPS. At last we reached A Patels and to our surprise found out tht We were in EDISON!!!!! What? we were supposed to reach the Princeton Patels and here we reached EDISON.

well.... now this was like a Mini India!!! Yaa Indians eveywhere, OIndian shops and Shopkeepers,Indian restautants. Some of us went to the supermarket while Kevin and raghu went for a quick bite.

When we met them later, they praised the Chicken Biryani that they ate and we were tempted to eat some thing too.

Surendra, Myself and Renuka went to a place called "VOLGA" and ordered Bhel, Puri Bhaaji and Chicken Biryani. Being a Veggie, I didnt eat teh biryani, but the bhel and the Puri were good. i tipped them 50 cents and off we went.

The drive back was rather subduded. We promised not to utter our fuel anecdote to anyone else for fear of being ridiclued.

HAHAHA.. SO tht was it.. Dont tell anyone i told you .. ok?

Off to Atlantic City

Sunday , Nov 16 was the day I went to Atlantic city. We started at around 12. Our Car was equipped with a good GPS system

which zoomed us on the Expressway and we reached Atlantic city at 2:30 pm. The Sky was clear and there was no rain. But yes

it was toooo chilly. It was cold when we started and was even more so when we reached Atlantic city(i will call it AC).

So what does AC have? Its famous for its casinos, its Beach and the Broadwalk.

Now, doesnt that sound like GOA? Yes except for the BROADWALK, AC has the look and charm (even more so) of GOA. I couldnt

help think that if the GOAN GOvt had to take more efforts, GOA would have the same look. I guess the similarity is becoz of

Portuguese styled buildings in GOa and Spanish styled buildings in AC.

AC had a lot of casinos.I havent been to a goan casino yet but I found the experience in the casino tht i visited very

exhilirating. We headed straight to the parking lot of TRUMP TAJ MAHAL. (Donald Trump owns most of the casinos here) This is

a 7 Star Hotel cum casino. The casino has 100s of small time gaming boxes like Jackpot and stuff and many big time gambling

things like Wheel Of fortune and Roulette Tables.

For small timers we can start gambling from 5$ onwards. The big timers are the Roulette tables where the minimum gamble

amount was 100$. But with the depression that has currently hit, they had started accepting minimum bids as 5$ !!!!!

Venkat(who has come here many times) told us that.

There were smoking areas and non smoking areas.

Most of the gamblers were "SENIOR CITIZENS'. yes I saw many of them on wheelchairs(now dont imagine the indian wheelchair ),

many with oxygentanks in their hands and tubes in their noses!!!! And all were busy GAMBLING big time.

There was this one guy who has a bundle of notes!!! and he was feeding it into the slot and i think mostly losing but not

worrying at all!!!!

well I tried my luck too.... Didnt have a note smaller than 20$ and so said "To hell with it" I can afford to lose 20$ if at

all..... ok after playing various game machine, i earned and lost (mostly lost) and had 50% losses. yeah in the end i had

only 10 $ remaining. Thankfully better sense prevailed and I cashed tht.

OK how do these gaming machines work? each accepts minimum 5$ notes. once you start then whether you earn or lose, the

machines return a ticket with the amount written on it. There are separate money vending machines which give you notes/cents

based on this ticket.

My other colleagues also seemed to have only lost in the gambling. Anil started with 5$ and made huge winnings upto 50$. But

then he started losing and ended up with what he started with.Vamsi lost 50$. Venkat lost 130$!!!! I lost only 15$ eventually

.

At 5 we set out to walk to the beach. Actually the beach was right behind the hotel but some people suggested otherwise and

we ended up walking a long way before coming to the beach. Of course it was dark by then and the view was lost. I didnt feel

mcush about it coz I am used to the vast goan beaches. But you should have heard the others cribbing...

But we walked some of the way in the Broadwalk. Now wht is this Broadwalk? Basically its nothing but a long walkway built

parallel to the shoreline. It has seats on one side and shops on the other. SO as you walk you can shop too. Ofcourse when we

reached, all the shops were closed . There were also some funny looking Hand Rickshaws for people to sit it and enjoy the

whole broadwalk while the driver would push the rickshaw.

We walked back to the casino since that was where we had parked and left for NJ at 7:45 pm. Along the way we stopped for

dinner at 8:30. Everything seemed to be closing . Thankfully i got a veggie burger and pepsi. I also found a New Jersey Info

desk where i picked up a lot of brochures on NJ tourism. Hope to use them.

The drive back was otherwise uneventful. We reached home by 10:30 pm.

Our First Weekend Party

Yes we had it yesterday..

Come on its Friday and all of us had this weekend mood.

OK The drinkers had been waiting for a chance to drink and the teetotalers were ready to freak out on coke. SO there....

Vamsi and Venkat went off and came back with a trunk full of Beer,Vodka,Wine and Chips.

In the meantime we decided on potluck

So Sridevi+ Shashi = Veg Pulao
Me,Snehal+ Renuka = Chapatis
Suket+ Anil(??) = Aloo Matar
Surendra + Kevin+ Raghu(???) = Chicken
Mukundan = CURD RICE

The hosts were ofcourse Suket and Anil since their's was the only apartment which was duplex and we thot we could have the party and noise on the top floor.

Although we reached at 8 pm , the others only reached by 9 pm.

The party started with shooters and everyone settled down with beer. I tried one.

There were songs and dances.

I sang quite a few peppy numbers as much as romantic numbers.

By the time we could pull out the people on too much drink and make them stop drinking it was 12 pm. It was then that we had our Dinner.

The Heights....

Raghu , the Dancer taking the floor and doing one step repeatedly
Anil , The Cool Getting Hyper and scolding Vamsi
Suket , The Geek Giving Beauty Tips


All in all it was a good party.

We will have another soooooon maybe without the drinks...

A Shopping Adventure

My body seems to have adjusted as of now to the timings here. Although I did wake up early in the morning at 3 and phone krish
using keerthi's calling card. After that i was awake for quite some time before drifting off to sleep. I managed to watch some
TV and found a tele shop where they were selling houses for 250$. !!!!!!

now in the morning at 8 , snehal woke me up saying "everyone is going shopping for groceries. we need to be ready in 15
mins!!!" Gosh tht was a hurry hurry session. I brushed and freshened up in 5 mins(wow) we prepared tea and Maggi. gobbled tht
and set out. Boy !! was it cold???

The group of 6 of us set off walking towards wht we thoght was the right direction to the supermarket. Sridevi had read tht
it was just 15 mins walk and hence we were all geared up for a walk. We liked the surroundings. The trees were showing FALL
colours. the hues were ranging from yellow to pink to red and i missed having my camera. I ought to buy one sooooooon. The
apartments dissolved into quaint houses. Many of them had signs of Trick O Treating. Seemingly scary hollowed out pumpkins
were seen in most houses while a few more had ghosts and skeletons. i missed my camera again. :-( I hope i get one soon
before ppl clear out there halloween decorations.

My colleagues were not aware of Haloween!!! I was surprised!! I guess I must thank my reading for this knowledge.
Anyways, walking and walking didnt yield to any success. we took many wrong turns and entered and reentered lanes and
eventually managed to come out of our complex. A lady when asked told us that a shoping area was tooooo far to wlk to.
Another lady pointed to another direction and said tht tht would be nearer and why doesnt she drop us there?? How nice of her
to offer to drop a bunch of people to some place pretty far!!! She went home and met us in her car at the entrance of the
complex. It was a Lexus. we trooped in and she took us to this place called "WHOLE MART" and boy we realise dtht it was not
possible to reach here by walk not coz of the distance but also because we would touch the highway and that had no pedestrain
walks!!!!!!

We thanked her profusely and she offered to wait for us!! WOW were we lucky????

So off we entered the supermarket. We entered the veggie and fruits section. I was so overwhelmed by the display of the
veggies and fruits. They looked to inviting!!! every item was sooooooooooo fresh and alluring. I missed my camera again!!!!
The prices were equally high. One cauliflower for 2.99 $ = 150 Rs!!!!!!!!!!!!! tomatoes - 6$ potato -5.99 $ you name it and everything in $$$$ nothing in cents!!!! we bought 2 jugs of milk, 2 boxes of curd, cornflakes, Sunflower Oil - half lt for 4$ i think!!! and lotsaa fresh veggies and fruits. total bill was guess how much 140$ WHOOPS do the maths.

So there we were with three troleys full of stuff and we waited for the good lady who dropped us. we searched the parking lot for her and she was nowheere to be seen. So we booked a cab and went back.

This was our first shopping expedition in the US.

in the evening when prasad called up, i mentione dtht we went shopping to this place WholeMart and he said "thats a premium shopping place" . I thiough no wonder everything was priced soooo high.

Heloooooooooooooooooooo People...

Heloooooooooooooooooo

its me back after a looooooooooooooooooooonggggggggggggg hiatus again.

Yes have been busy now tht i m not just a working woman but a working mom!!

there is no time to blog now...

but heyyyyyy heres some news. I am out to NJ on a work assignment.

My love and my baby are back in India while i sweat it out over here. Wish they were here with me. Anyways... thts just sometime. They willl join me soon once they wind up.

In the meantime, lemme blog this visit to the US...

Read on if interested.......

The Trip..

The Journey has been without any hitches and so far things are good.

Our flight from Bangalore to Brussels started on time at 1:30 am on Nov1, Indian Time(IST). The flight was mostly empty
especially in the economy area. The business area too looked empty when i entered the plane but then, that was in the front
of the plane and I didnt have much view to it once i was seated. BTW the checkin was with no problem. Although my cabin bag
was weighing 10 kg when we checked outside, they never weighed it!!!! or atleast i never saw them. so i sat in the flight
with my 10 kg bad and laptop bag tucked in the hold.
I was waiting for goodies and great food. But was dissapointed. First they gave us socks and brush+paste.after waiting a
lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng time they brought us some breakfast -> Upma(not good) + Vada(tasted of preservatives) +tea+ juice.
there was inflight movies. I watched Ugly and Pugli. The movie is good.
I slept for a while and kept looking at the watch. It was showing indian time and i spent much time wondering what you guys
muct be doing. The lunch/dinner(??) came after much waiting by which time my hunger was gone. It was Kerala Paratha and
Babycorn vegetable.I liked them.

We reached Brussels at 7:15 am Nov 1 (Brussels time) which is 11:45 am IST Nov1 in India. It was raining and the temp was 6
deg. The Airport was huge I guess twice the size of Bangalore Airport. We waited in a queue for the security check. They made
me remove my watch,coat and open the laptop bag and thankfully i didnt have to open the cabin bag. one of my colleagues was
made to open all her bags!!! she was carrying some pastes,liquids and metal spoons in her cabin baggage!!!! and these things
are not allowed so she had to open and show them. they took away the paste and threw the water bottle.

After that it was a wait for 2 hours for the next flight. The waiting lounge was mostly filled with indians. It was Jet
airways again, but a different plane . This was sort off full. considering that most of the people were indians from
different jet airways flights. This flight was also not uneventful. They didnt give us socks; food was also given very
sparingly. We waited and waited and hunger died and then came the food. it was not so good either and hence i dnt even
remember it!!!

I started watching Mere Baap Pehle AAp but unfortuntely couldnt complete it. But the movie seemed good.but we landed before
it finished. I landed here at newark airport at 12 am nov 2 IST which is 2:30 pm here. I had a long wait in the immigration
check it was a long queue. But once i came in front of the officer, it was fast. He asked me to be back to india by Jan
30th,(my visa is b1 and tht is the duration you are allow ed in US for tht ie 3 months). From there i proceeded to collect my
bags. I had to pay 3 dollars for the trolley!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Thus i spent my first dollars, on a stupid
luggage troley!! my mind was saying "150 rs" for a trolley!!!! anyways there was no other check now and we came out of the
airport to colect a taxi. 3 of us got into a taxi .

We gave the taxiwala the printout with directions and even though he had GPS on, he couldnt locate the place that well.
instead we ended up in the wrong colony and passed the same set of houses for 4-5 times before he actually could get out and
off to the right road. We finally reached at 5:30 pm. the taxi bill was 95 $ (basic)+ 2.4 $(toll fee) + luggage + tip = 110 $

Thus we reached the apartment.

My apartment is on the third floor. no lifts and tht sthe last floor.
Its very posh and a 2BHK. My colleague Snehal is sharing it with me. Its fully furnished with quessn beds, sofa, dining set, study table, phone, modem. The kitchen has Blender(mixer), coffee maker, toaster, plates, spoons,bowls, pans, knives, microvave, 4 burner electriv stove, dishwasher. The taps have hot water also. They have provided towels, toileteries,blankets. its great.

hello allllllll

yes i m back after a looooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnng hiatus....

but then i m vry busy...

earlier i was only a working woman, but now i am a working mother.

blogging is not easy anymore. :-)

But now currently i m in NJ while my hubby and baby are in India...

But they will be joining me soon. Waiting eagerly for both to join me.

til then i will blog my stay in NJ.

read on......

Its A BOY

I am pleased to announce that Me and my Hubby have been blessed with a bonny baby boy.

HE was born premature by 1 and 1/2 months pm April 23, 2007

But now all's well. Today he is a healthy 9 month old.

hence forth you will see many posts on him.


(BTW does this explain the 1 year hiatus I was on. :-)