New Hope

If you are thinking that this has something to do with philosophy or life.....or i have suddenly realised some truth about my life....then you are mistaken. This has nothing to do with hope....and its far from being some renewed hope in life.

Log on to google maps and search for New Hope, PA. New Hope (NH) is a small town in Pennsylvania and one of most beautiful one in the Buck's County.

The town is about 18 miles from home, so the easiest way to get there is to drive. We started at about 8p.m., which was a stroke of luck. Today being a Saturday we woke up at around 1:00p.m. in the after noon, the reson being that yesterday we all were at JB's (a local pub) till around 3a.m. playing pool and listening to the live band. So finally we managed to wake up at 1:00 and after getting thru the morning chores, we headed, obviously for lunch. Flavours of India, an indian restarurant nearby was the place where we were headed. The lunch was great, especially for Milind, hes got here from Bombay and he was more than happy to eat all the tandori chicken and chicken tikka, coz he couldnt eat it in Bombay, due to the bird flue. We all wanted to hit the bed after the lunch but then milind and nitin were visiting us from NY and would have killed us if we would have taken them back home. So we headed to Franklin Mills, a huge shopping mall.

After doing some tp (timepass) for a couple of hours we headed back home. On the way back we planned to visit NH in the evening. As we didnt want to reach there late every one took their showers within 10 mins. I guess we set a new record, three guys taking shower and getting ready in under 10 mins, man beat that....

Ashu and AJ had already been to NH but for the rest of us it was our first time. Vish too had been there once but, during the day, so technically it was his first time too in the evening. NH is kind of a bikers heaven, coz when you enter the town you see a lot of Harley's and Honda's. But then the first impression that i got after getting to NH was a lot different. It felt as if i was walking in Mahabaleshwar, it seemed like a hill station in India. The entire town or atleast the part of town that has all the action is just on street, called the Main Street. You will see a large number of shops, jewelery, clothing, antiques, gift shops and other stuff lined on both the sides of the street. You can find a pub, restaurant, bar & grill every 10 steps, each one having its one unique life and ambience. So we walked the main steet and then walked to one of the famous pub "Hawana". It had a live band playing all retro stuff, it was fun to listen to the music while we had dinner. If you ever visit Hawana, dont miss out on the Chicken Fajhita, one of the best i have ever had, too good.......I am surely gonna have it again, someday.

After the dinner we settled in the pub, the real pub. The live band palyed until 12 and then the DJ took over and spinned some good music to dance....so we were 6 bachelors dancing the cool bombay moves in a small town in US. And the locals joined us a couple of times to have fun too. Before we knew it was already 2:00a.m. so we had to hit the road and get back home. And now after writing this post i am gonna sleep......my favourite sport!!!

The first step in Bombay

Nope, this has got nothing to do with Bombay. I have never felt the joy of stepping out of the train and breathe the Bombay air. Maybe not, actually I have felt the joy of stepping into Bombay on more than one occassions, but here I am trying to describe a different experience. I have a lot of cousins who live in my hometown in gujarat and most of them are really excited about visiting us in bombay and never understood the reason of such excitement or joy, until now.

Yep I felt the same excitement, the same wierd happy feeling of taking my first step in the big city, and if you are still guessing which city am I talking about, its NY. Yep the city of blinding lights, the city that never sleeps, a city full of people, a city of sidewalks, coffee shops, restaurants, hot-dogs, sheish kabak (yep you get it at most of the hot-dog stall, and its good too). The first step i walked into NY was a great experience but the best was yet to come.....

Thanks jigi for checking out my blog and poking at me that i havent updated it in a long time...thanks for getting here and reading it, and most of all thanks for the NY tour and ofcourse thanks to everyone else who accompanied us in NY (Shailes you too).

I know i am not going to be able to write everything about my weekend in NY, but i will give it a shot.

So i landed in NY (or rather stepped out of the train in NY, but "landed" gives it the style) after a comfortable journey of 3hrs appx. Jigi had chalked out the entire route for me, what trains i need to take from what station, where to get down and everything, but thats jigi, always well organised. One things for sure, if we had the subways/PATH in india it would have been much simpler for tourists to figure the directions, but then who needs them, we have got ppl (manpower) in india. You can ask any panwalla for directions and they will tell you the shortest and the fatest route to go places.

So then jigar cooked up a hearty meal for us, mung-masala and garlic bread. The dinner was a rush as we had a movie to catch "Ice age 2: Meltdown". for the first time after coming to US did i see 25+ indians sitting together in a movie theater and passing commentts and having fun. The movie was great, in fact the shot that i liked the most is the one where the mammoth is walking away from his girl and the 2 possoms (i am sure this is not the correct spelling) walk along with their sis. Then one of them whistles at the mammoth and gestures the peace sign (v fingers) at him and turns back in style. Man its the best scene in the movie, its got more style than what John Woo could have directed ;)

Day 1:
We had planned to wake up early and visit SoL (Statue of Liberty) and then a couple of other places. But then plans are ment to go awry. So we woke up late and reached SoL but on our way we visited the American Stock Exchange, the Trinity church, Ground Zero, NYSE.
The boat ride to the SoL was great, looking at the city from the sea was a great view and so was the tour of SoL. We couldnt climb the stairs to the foot of SoL coz that requires prior reservations, so if you are planning to visit it then make the reservations well in advance.

In the evening we walked the Brooklyn bridge end-to-end and then headed to Darshan's place, where Mukul had made us wonderful uttapas. Then we all took off to the Times Square, visited a couple of cool malls/shops on our way there and then ended up in Hollywood Planet. We had a great discussion over dinner (those who were at the table, know what I am talking about) and then headed back home. I have missed out a lot of details but this is all i could cramup in this post, just to mention we also rode the bull and hung by the Dot.

All in all it was one hell of a day....

Day2:
We met up with Sandy and had lunch with couple of his friends at an Indian restaurant, i guess the name was Amia's or something like that. But the most imp thing of all was that we played XBOX on a 62" TV or was it 53" whatever it was a huge television set. Man it was tooo.......mind boggling ;) It was soon time to return.....so i guess thats all.