They will be here next week !!!

All my friends around me would have already known my excitement, but writing it in my blog is always a special thing to me....

Last year around this time, I had returned from my India trip and this time , my parents are visiting us :-). It's been a year since we saw each other and so we are excited!

My mother has been preparing a long list of snacks to bring, and my sister is busy shopping clothes and already started her packing ;-).My father wraping up his work before the vacation, and I am cleaning our home one area everyday to make it more presentable ;-)

You can definitely expect a few travelogues in my blog in coming weeks :-)

Image source: cartoonstock.com

Dec 2006 ->July 2007->January 2008->Now

Running->Tennis ->Poker-> Chess

We have started playing chess now. Few weeks back we got a chess board and now playing one game of chess is the last thing we do before we sleep. I have to say Its very refreshing. All I do now is trying to learn all tactics of the game and beat Param. That's the goal of the month :-)

My new stash box

Personalised by me :-)

To us

For 1 more reason :-)

I say

our

Images Courtesy: Google Image search

Cake class - Finale

This weekend was hectic! With our last cake deco class on Sunday, I wanted to bake & take a 2-layer cake for the finale and so started baking on Friday night. The first cake I baked crumbled :-( So I had to bake all-over again and this time I decided to bake additional cake layers for back-up. Thus, finally I ended-up with a 3-layer cake after buring couple of extra hours on bake sessions :-) This time I did the cake leveling well. Then I did a joint frosting session with my friend on Saturay. Sunday's cake class went well as we learnt to do stems, leaves etc. At last we were left to decorate our cake the way we liked I am happy with the way mine came out :-).

I even got a course completion certificate!

Its a memorable experience which will stay in my diary bringing back sweet memories whenever I see it later. I am happy I tried this class.

Subha, now as I have little confidence,I promise to male a cake for you when you visit me :-)

B&W memories :-)

I wanted to do this tag long back, but I had to wait until I could get Param’s childhood pics from my SIL.

Aren't we cute when we are kids? :-)
Now coming to tag, all that comes to my mind are:
We both are Gemini.
Our names match with Hindu God and Goddess pair, coincidentally.
We both studied at Trichi.
Anyway as destined to meet, we met and got married in Sep 2005 A.D.
Whoever is reading this tag, please do it as well and post both you and your better half's childhood pics....It is interesting to play :-)

Another fun sunday with cakes!

To a great friend...

இருவரும் வேறு வேறு இடத்தில் பிறந்தோம்
கலாச்சாரம் வேறு குடும்பம் வேறு
ஆசைகள் வேறு குணங்கள் வேறு
எங்கேயோ பிறந்து எங்கேயோ சந்தித்தோம்
வார்த்தை பரிமாறுதலில் ஆரம்பித்த நட்பு
வாழ்கையை பற்றி பேசும் வரை நீண்டுது
கற்று கொண்டது பல பல
வார்த்தையில் எழுத தெரியவில்லை
இன்றும் நீங்கள் என்னிடம் பேசியதும்
நான் உங்களிடும் பேசியதும்
நமக்கு மட்டுமே தெரிந்த ரகசியங்கள்
இப்பொழுது பிரிந்தாலும்
மீண்டும் சந்திப்போம்
சில வருடங்களில் :-)

The above are straight from my heart to a friend who is returning back home.She is a great inspiration for me and We had good time together at NYC.

Dedicated to our good friendship and Probably she cannot read Tamil :-)

My killer cake !

Few days back, I came to know about Wilton Cake Decorating classes in Michales and decided to try my hands with it...(ஆசை யாரை விட்டுச்சு). On my first day, when the teacher wanted to know why I joined the class, I told I wanted to make a decent cake :-) There are only 4 persons in our class and all of them are Indians! Out teacher asked us to prepare and bring a frosted cake for our 2nd class this Sunday! I did a joint cake making session with my friend on Saturday ;-) Just like the group study at college, we baked our cake together, prepared and frosted it as we liked. But our cake didn't get a good shape. To add more trouble, we prepared a thick frosting while our teacher had actually instructed to make it thin!! I learnt about these mistakes when I showed my cake to the teacher..I am glad alteast I learnt how not to make a cake & frosting till now !! Anyhow learning basic cake decorating techniques was interesting. See my class 2 cake decorating attempt in below picture !

My favourite vegetable manchurian

Yesterday when I came from office, I was craving for something spicy. So I quickly checked out few blogs and One of my favourite blogger had a recipe that exactly suited my taste buds

http://premascookbook.blogspot.com/2007/05/vegetable-manchurian.html

So My version of Vegetable manchurian (It was 100% tasty)

What do I want to become?

At an early age, all I dreamt was to become a teacher (may be a dance teacher)...I love to teach, even now.....Even while we were in college, I liked to explain subjects to my friends and help them with assignments. I have lots of good memories of those sessions ...I'll save that for another post. Even my FIL (who is a Retired Physics Professor) once commented that I am a better teacher than Param ... When somebody asks me to explain something I know, I explain it with full enthu and Param envies me for that ;-) But yes, I did not become a teacher...

When I came to US, I started using CNET and liked their reveiws...I even thought about applying for a job to become a phone reviewer ... Something in me told me to give it a shot...I still haven't figured out my first steps for applying or what they look for (in qualifications/experience). Yes, I didn't apply at all.

Nowadays I am impressed by HR dept colleagues :-) I like their busy schedule arranging travel, arranging facilities, arranging business cards, making hotel reservations and helping others.

So my career interest has changed from teacher->reviewer->HR while I am an Engineer ;-) How does that sound? I am still trying to figure out what I want to become!

Life in fact has free lunches :-)

Today was one of those days when I overslept (by weekday standards ;-). As I was already late, I packed a quick lunch and started to office in a hurry.

Once I reached my office, I realized I had left my lunch bag at home! I was totally irritated as we don't have a cafeteria at our office. Now if I have to eat lunch, I have to go out which I don’t like as restaurants are not very near.

But I was surprised to see an email from one my colleagues that he had won a free lunch at a Mexican restaurant (after having our team name on the raffle) and so our entire team get a free lunch!! I was happy to see veggie burritos in his order ;-) So I got my veggie burrito lunch with coke & dessert.

Sometimes, there are free lunches in life !

From seeds to flowers

Getting seeds from Walmart -> 2 hours & $1
Transferring them to India through In-laws -> 24 hours
Planting seeds and waiting for flowers to bloom-> 3 months
Clicking Photos and Sharing them over Internet-> 1 hour
Feeling happy that it bloomed and seeing the whole family excited about it - Priceless.

Tagged by a friend :-)

Daisy, Its for you... will do your other tag soon :-)

A - Available?: Just for a good talk :-)
B-Best friend: With few friends, I am really who I am, Don't want to list it here :-)
C-Cake or Pie?: Always Plum cake
Drink of choice: Hot coffee, but lately Frappucino
E- Essential thing used everyday: My Sony VAIO
F- Favourite colour: Blue and Black
G- Gummy bears or worms: Definitely Gummy bears all the time
H- Hometown: Halwakku famous Tirunelveli
Indulgence: Earrings and Chocolate Truffles
J-January or February: January for a fresh start
K-Kids and names: None, I haven't really thought about the names, but surely it will be a Tamil name.
L-Life: Life gives you an interesting twist always
M-Marriage date: September 5, 2005
N-Number of siblings:Younger naughty sis
Oranges or apples:Tangerine Oranges Please
P-Phobias: Sea/Swimming
Quote:Nothing is constant except change.
R-Reason to smile: Nice gestures from Param
S-Season: July-August in Tirunelveli due to Courtalam season..Ah,I love it :-)
T-Tag two people: Baru and Mohan
U-Unknown fact about me:I can get really quirky sometimes
V-Vegetable you do not like:Bitter gourd
W-Worst habit:Getting Angry for small reasons
X-x-rays you have had:Tooth
Y-Your favorite food:Always amma's idli and chutney, maggi noodles,panju mittai

Z-Zodiac:Gemini

Compliments

How do I accept compliments? I am fairly awkward in this department :-( When somebody compliments me, I really don't know how to react. I just freeze or change topic...I don't say a quick "Thanks" like other folks. It will be usually an awkward silence at my end with a blank expression in my face when someone pass a compliment. I sometimes even say something irrelevant to change topic and take attention off me. I feel embarrassed when somebody points this out (about me not accepting a compliment gracefully). Everybody likes compliments and so do I.

I feel that genuinely complimenting others is a great thing. But to add to my misery, I usually mess it up when I try to pass a compliment to someone else. I don't put it right words and end up saying something embarrassing again ;-( Even Wikihow has something to say abt this: http://www.wikihow.com/Take-Compliments

How good are you in this department?

Today.....

Today I went for driver training at a raceway with my team as arranged by our office. I was little bit anxious and eager to do it as they would expect me to do stuff which I would normally not do in my driving (like braking hard, accelerating quick etc). But I think I did pretty OK. We were asked to accelerate quickly and change lane without braking, accelerate and brake hard, avoiding skidding and drive in a S-curve etc. It was all fun and exciting. Moreover rain added spice to the outing. Another day to note in my personal diary :-)

Here and There

[Sunday]
Spontaneous road trips are always interesting. Without much planning, we did a 1 day ski trip this weekend to Alpine meadows with my friends. It was really enjoyable though I did not ski ;-) Param was in full enthusiasm to learn ski. Since we went late to ski lessons, we could not join the class. We searched for instructor for more than an hour and so i did not want to ski until I get full lesson . Somehow Param & co caught an instructor for 10 minutes to learn the basics and even managed to use the lift once. Maybe I'll also do it next time...Talking old stories with college friends is always fun. We had good brunch and nice dinner and Talk, Talk, Talk.... What more could I ask for?

image source: cartoonstock.com
And to top it off, my best friend from college has come to US and I was happily surprised when she called me…Hurray! There are few friends with whom you don't have to explain things but they still understand each and every bit and byte of you. She is always such a friend of mine :-)

[Saturday]
I think every gal has complaints about her hair and secret wishes for the same. I had mine too and decided to do a hair make-over. My hair was little curly and I did not like it that way. Anyhow I was not good at doing-stuff-you-need-to-do-to-have-good-hair….
When I read that there is a chance to straighten your hair permanently, I wanted to try it soon. So finally I tried it this weekend. I spent 4 hours patiently while my hair dresser applied chemicals and straighted my hair in this eloborate process. They also promised me it will be straight for long time and I only need to retouch new hair growth when needed. When I saw the final outcome, I was happy and no more curly hair. Let's see how long it stays :-)
image source: cartoonstock.com

Life -2

Previous moment here

Time is 5:00 pm..No cold weather, jus bright and warm....Driving the car with moon roof open...Nice Breeze on the face..Ilayaraja's 80's songs playing...No red signal through out the drive back home...Enjoying thanimai...Life is beautiful

Would like to hear your beautiful moments again..Has it changed?

Monsoon Diary

If you had steaming Idli with fresh filter Coffee everyday you went to school, read this book.

If you have memories of your grandmother laying vadams and kuzhvathals, you'll enjoy reading the book.

If you had seen your great grandmother grinding the batter with her hand, add it to your "books to read " list.

If you have interesting memories of travelling in sleeper class train with idly and chutney packed, reminisce it by reading this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book which reminded me many of my fond memories, especially with food :-)

P.S: Subha, I strongly recommend this book to you.

In marriage

Few days back, I saw a discussion in Vijay TV on whether folks are happy before or after marriage. People who claimed they are happy before marriage justified they had time for themselves- things like getting up late, do things they like etc., Those who are happily married argued they are leading a disciplined life etc., I got curious and asked Param on his opinon knowing what his answer would be ;-)

For me , I would say without any hesitation that life after marriage is more adventurous and knowing-myself thing. I started realizing my likes & dislike, tried new things I never knew about. Also my partner changes his mind so spontaneosuly that my life is like a roller coaster- but I enjoy my ride. As my friend said "tirunelveliyil kadalai mittai sappitutu iruntha ponna ippadi pesuthu?" when I chatted with him recently. Anyway I believe "God is a perfect match maker" :-)

Flash back ...

When I was in primary school, when I first heard this word, I was the one with almost nothing to tell in a class full of stamp, coin collectors.... and one friend enquired "Why not collect stamps?". I had absolutely no idea whether I wanted to do it. But she lended me few stamps for me to start. Then I traded with girls from other classes and my collection grew. In a month, I was happy with my collection. I wanted a stamp album for my collection and started pestering my father. When he got me one, I stored all my stamps in my precious album and showed it off to everyone who visited our home. And to my surpise, even my father had a good collection of stamps and he did not even show it to me until he believed I am really into my new hobby :-). He had quite a few "First Day" stamps thats hard to get. But I guess he was not ready to part with his precious collection! I don't even remember now when I stopped enjoying this hobby.

My clean iPod :-)

This Monday, in a hurry I washed my jeans with my new iPod nano in it. (After reading this,I can hear my mother telling me "how many times did I tell you to check clothes before putting it in washing machine?").But It was too late when I realised it as the washing was over :-(

I was quite upset about it as I knew I was going to get the "You-break-everything-I-gift-you" look from Param. After googling, we came to know a lot of folks have been through the same ordeal.In most cases just letting the ipod dry/blow dry will do the trick. Hoping to revive it, he left the ipod in front of our a/c in heat mode for 3 full days while I was still fearing the worst. After getting the royal-dry sevice for 3 days, my iPod did come back to life when he connected it to my laptop. I am so happy and worry free :-) The new iPod Nano design is quite amazing :-)

In case your iPod is soaked,here's what I can tell you

Please do not panic
Please do not turn it ON or connect it to desktop immediately.
Allow to dry (preferably blow dry) for almost a week and then try to Power it up :-)

Soup of the day

My version of Sweet corn soup :-)

What's your romantic movie?

When I was driving to work today, I was so bored to hear my CD again and again, I switched to a random FM channel. This was a talk show about "All time Romantic movies" as February 14 is right around the corner. I didn't know anything about each and every movie that was discussed except the last one.....

• Somewhere in the time
• Casablanca
• Wuthering heights
• The notebook
• Pretty woman

Have you seen any of the above and What's your thought?

Anyhow when it comes to "All time Romantic movies" for me, Its always

• Roja
• Rhythm (I liked this movie a lot)
• Mouna Ragam
• Maine Pyar Kiya
• DDLJ
• Dil To Pagal Hai
• Thullatha manamum thullum (for few songs)

What's yours?

Thoughts about Audio books

I wanted to try out audio books when I saw a lot of them in the local library. I thought it would be more interesting than reading a book. Also I was also greedy enough to cover two stories in a week. So the last time I went to library, I borrowed the book "Life of Pi" just for these lines which I read somewhere.

I am a Hindu because of sculptured cones of red kumkum powder and baskets of yellow turmeric nuggets,because of garlands of flowers and pieces of broken coconut, because of the clanging of bells to announce one's arrival to God, because of the whine of the reedy nadaswaram and the beating of drums, because of the patter of bare feet against stone floors down dark corridors pierced by shafts of sunlight, becauseof the fragrance of incense, because of flames of arati lamps circling in the darkness, because of bhajans being sweetly sung, because of elephants standing around to bless, because of colorful murals telling colorful stories, because offoreheads carrying variously signified, the same word - faith. Source: Life of Pi

I started listening to the audio book in my car on the way to work. I finished the story in a week, but I was not able to get the finer points in the story. Rather I could only grasp the big picture of the story. The experience did not give me a chance to learn new words, improve my style of writing or improve my imagination just like a book. Maybe If I listen to it at home rather than while driving, I might able to do more but Nevertheless, Audio books are good ways to kill the boredom during everyday commute.

As for the story (Life of Pi), it is about an Indian guy who gets stranded in Pacific ocean along with a tiger,Zebra and a hyena in a life boat while he and his family were immigrating to Canada. Thats one crazy base to write a novel. Lots of Zoological and Botanical explanations throughout the book :-)

The Devil wears Prada

I liked the film "The Devil wears Prada", especially Miranda Priestley (the boss character) for her self esteem though she is not the protagonist in the movie. So thought I should read this book this weekend ...

After the book I didn't like Miranda much! What kind of a person makes a call from Paris to NY and asks the assistant to connect her to somebody in Paris?

Do add it to your book list :-)

Apart from that, this weekend we had a suprise get together at my friend's home. We had nice dinner and me/param played poker for the first time. We liked it :-) May be we would get our own poker set soon...

Darjeeling

A simple story between two sisters and an opportunist and how the two sisters make the best of themselves and their environment.

My most favorite character in this book was Aloka- the elder sis who is always generous to forgive the shortcoming of everyone around her, but doesn’t get the best she deserves. The way she transforms herself from a “beautiful daughter” to the “newspaper columnist” is what made me to finish reading this story.I have never visited Darjeeling but it is simply beautiful in the words of the author.

The book had a lots of tit bits about brewing a good cup of tea.I make myself a cup of tea every morning though I suck in making tea :(

Lessons from people around

Param told me a real life story he heard recently from an old man. Here it is.

The old man and his wife had been to their son's place for 3 week Christmas holiday. They had real good time and it was surprisingly one nice holiday with least arguments between them. But before they could return back home, one early morning, his wife passed away

And to quote the old man, "I thought I'll be the first one to go as I thought she has better chance of taking care of herself .But things did not happen that way. On that fateful day when she was taken to hospital, I made a promise to her in my heart that I'll take care of myself as she would have and I will not let my health go bad".

I believe telling something like above to a group of people is setting a good example of how one would love his wife from the bottom of heart. I was moved by what happened and it made me think a lot about marriage & expressing our love to our loved ones when they are still with us. A husband and wife will always have arguments no matter how long they have been together. But letting the anger from these quarrels and arguments stay in our hearts at the end of the day doesn't make sense.

Also before I came to Uncle Sam's land, I did not have much idea about westerners and and their values for family & relationships. But these last two years have influenced my opinion on their values a lot. Their sense of togetherness and respect in family system seems a little different from what we have back in our place, but still commendable in its own way.

In families back home, it’s not common for husband/wife to express their affection to each in words that would set an example for kids/others to emulate (just my opinion).Isn't it good to express your affection to your loved ones in front of your kids (words/action) once in a while and set a good example for kids to emulate?

Life on the refrigerator door

I recently read this book " Life on the refrigerator door"



This is a book about the notes exchanged between a mother and a daughter...on the refrigerator door !

I thought I'll read few pages before going to sleep, but as I read a few pages, the book got into me and I had to finish it ..

A simple story, yet so touchy at the end. Though I could not appreciate some of the subjects discussed as notes between the mother and daughter in the story, this is one of the good stories I have read in recent times...:)

Check it out when you go to library next time.

Holidays at Keys

So Its been a month since I blogged and I am regularly irregular ;-) I was too lazy to write and I wasn't doing anything interesting ...I was just looking forward for holidays so that I can have fun time ...Param and his friends planned a trip to Florida Keys and I know it will be nice time together.

The resort (tranquilitybay.com) we stayed was one of the highlights...It was pretty good I would recommend it to all. It is in Marathon, 40 miles north of Key west and we had reserved 3 bedroom beach house with all facilities and a nice private beach in the resort... Param's gang is a big lazy group that won't rush to do anything..So we had a nice relaxing and lazy vacation...

Day 1: We checked out the resort/beach/tiki bar and couple of our folks went on Jet skiing ! The guys did it with all enthu and had real fun..Evening we manage to get ready on time for a 2 hr glass bottom boat to the keys coral reef in the sea south of Key West. We snacked our way through the cruise and the sunset was very beautiful on this cruise :)

Day 2: We decided to go on a Do-it-all day-long cruise ..The cruise boat took us a couple of miles into the sea . It was 10-15 feet deep with a near by coral reef which was shallow. Except Param and one of his Friends, none of the others in our group could swim. We para-sailed, hopped on a banana boat, jet skied and simply drifted in water whie trying to swim. Banana boat was fun with we on top of a balloon (in shape of banana) that was dragged by another boat into sea and we get tossed into sea at high speed ;-) It was the most adventurous thing I have done till date in my life.. Thank god for the life jacket ;-) When the waves in water toppled our banana boat, we had to climb on it again ourselves which was quite a challenge.. We actually fell off the banana boat when we least expected !! Out of 6 folks on the banana boat, we were a gang of 4 and a couple who had joined us on it were absolutely enthusiastic for the adventure!! We were all exhausted when the cruise ship brought us back to shore at 5pm.

Day 3: Its a lazy day and this time we played beach volleyball and monkey (game with someone hopping to catch the ball from other players ) for quite some time and then I wanted to try jet ski - which I shouldn't have done at all..Actually after driving the ski for sometime from shore with param on passenger seat, he jumped into water to remove the seaweed caught in the ski intake..When Param tried to climb back on the ski, from the sides of the jet ski (which he should not have done), the ski almost toppled and I got scared and started screaming which made param abort his climb back ..... Finally another person on jet ski gave tips to param to climb back on ski from behind maintaining the balance. Once param was back on ski, I was all scared of water and made him drop me back on the shore ..One of my night mares as I do not know swimming and sea was quite scary ! Param then picked up one of his friends from shore who was jet skiing the previous day and took a hour long lesson ;-).We stay at our beach house for dinner..Param Grilled some salmon indian style which all his friends claimed was mouth watering..Hope he starts making some vegge dishes as well soon ..We had a wonderful-family-kind-of-dinner.

All 3 days was spent playing cards, talking college stories- Always never ending and interesting :)

By the way, I am looking forward for 2008 for a lots of reasons...We are going back to India by end of 2008 and am looking forward to set up our home at Chennai..So 2008 has been in diary from a lot long ago...Wish you all have a happy and eventful new year 2008 !

My little snow man

What did I do this long weekend?

Went on a long trip? - > Did not do much, Jus did a beach drive.
Went on a shopping spree? -> No Not at all
Had nice food? -> Yes, a hell lot of dishes from Saravana bhavan, muniyandi vilas, american restaurants, home made food, sea food
Had fun? -> A lot with friends visiting us and we played a lot of playing cards
Threw a party? -> Yes, had a big fun with Param and his friends.
Took photos? -> Shot a bunch of pics at SFO & beach drive and some sneak shots of P & his friends as well ;-)

So Its 95/100 and No complaints :-)..Another best weekend :-)

Priceless Sunday evening

Doing puri and omapodi - 2 hrs
Nagging P to get pori and dates- 2 hrs
Preparing Date chutney -0.5 hr
Searching for Easy-recipe cake- 1 hr
Getting the sponge cake ready -1 hr
Preparing Bhel Puri 0.5 hr
Enjoying the snack and Coffee On Sunday evening, with absolutely everything turning out to be tasty- Priceless

And by the way, Guess what is this?

Still blogging....

I know you have been checking for my post which I have been procrastinating for so long....

Yes, I have finally settled down ! Last 1 month was quite hectic with vacating apt., cleaning and celebrating our anniversary on an empty home, then dragging my days at hotel, searching for a new apt. for 2 full days, having infinite discussion about the localities and amenities, finally decided to rent this nice apt that felt like a home (though bit expensive for us), searching for job, getting irritated when there was no job offers/ calls from any company ... and finally getting an that unexpected call from another consultant leading to my new job where I am yet to join. Am just sitting at home right now - spending time browsing,reading, cool and meeting my old friends on weekends (I was very much anxious or should say crazy to meet them after 4 years), still finding the old stories interesting...and that's how my life has been for past 1 month.

One thing I am really excited about the new place is that there are lot of activities going on in the neighborhood :-)

Most important, My loving friend Baru has started blogging..Please visit hers too
http://barukarthi.blogspot.com/

Moving Again

I have always had good friends and well wishers and really happy to have them at every stage of life.

When it was my last day at my previous job, my friend completely surprised me by decorating my work place like this and throwing a nice party.



And this time, Param had a change of location and we are moving to California and hence I resigned my job again. Thats one of the reasons that kept me busy and away from blogging. But again my last day was really unforgettable with my colleagues presenting me a "Mini Cooper" replica ( I tested this car at work and was part of the "Mini" team). I was all happy to get it as a memorabilia.

And then we went out for team lunch where my team completely surprised me with a scrap book ful of pics from last year. Very thoughtful of them. One of the photos from scrap book had all the phones I was testing with our car.

I am so happy I had been part of such a very nice team. My memories from here will always be in my heart and I will take them with me to India.

Now that we are moving to California wish me luck to get a nice job soon :-)

Century அடிச்சாச்சு :-)

I and Param always wanted to do something together. So we started running/jogging together a few months back . Just like two perfect Geminis, we now changed our interest to do something else -We started to play tennis this week. Param kept this idea of playing tennis just as an idea for a long time until i insisted last weekend to get the racquets. Yesterday we went to the school tennis court near our home to play. As always, Param had lots of inertia to start the game but once started he was in it with full enthusiasm, whereas I had great enthusiasm to start the game but got tired really quick. Well, at least we complemented each other on our enthusiasm levels and played for an hour with Param playing big shots and me running all around picking the ball I missed ;-) Anyway, not a bad idea to start the week with.

BTW this is my 100th post and I am happy that I chose to continue blogging. I started it as a time pass and now it is more than that. I sometimes feel compelled to create a post and Param thinks I am obsessed with it :-)

Our long weekend

For independence day weekend we went on a Orlando vacation !
Day-0
-------
On Tuesday afternoon I finished my work as soon as possible and headed home.With full enthusiasm , we packed our bags with food items (for 4days) in one bag and dresses in others. We even packed our dinner (dosai) ;-). At airport after check-in and security check, we were soon at the gate. We got seats in different rows and had to squeeze in middle seats. After a 2 hr flight, we were at Orlando. Orlando international airport was quite big. We took Hertz shuttle to Hertz rental centre and I should say I feel the roads at florida are wider than those in NJ. We got a Mazda with GPS (was quite happy that it made my navigator job easy)
and we set out to our hotel.

This time Param surprised us all by taking us to nice 4.5 star hotel and we were in all awe seeing the hotel. Our room even got refrigerator and microwave. I have never stayed in such star hotel before and started enjoying my stay. We had our nice dosai dinner and crashed into our bed ...:)

Day-1:
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We started to Sea world. I am not going to bore you with all the details..but all I would say is - It was the best I have ever seen. If you are watching the Shamu show, Watch the first show, I feel it better than any other timing...It was awesome to see how they believed that they could train killer whales to do such shows.The sea world was worth a full day visit...

And evening DIL (me) and MIL bought souvenir . The day was memorable also for the puliyotharai (this time I enjoyed my vacation because I had south indian food unlike french fries only)

Day-2:-
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We visited Universal studios.

It was thrilling and exciting, as we started enjoying all types of animation shows, simulation shows just like small kids...starting from Shrek to twister to earthquake to mummy to jaws to spiderman to sindbad stunt show...We were tired at the end of the day but full of nice memories..Forgot to mention, everyday during our stay at Orlando, there were thunderstorms ! But its fine if few things like weather were not so perfect on an otherwise perfect day.

Day-3:
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This day , it was the trip to land where all dreams come true, yes the Disney Magic Kingdom. But I was rather disappointed as eventhough its beautiful to see all imaginary characters on dream place, I could not enjoy much. Maybe If I go with my kids in future I would enjoy it more.The Disney parade and Cinderalla palace was just like in fairy tale and salvaged the day.

Day-4 :
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With lots of expectations, we got 2-day tickets to Disney the previous day, So we thought we'll try our luck at Disney Animal kingdom this day.

It turned out to be a better decision as we enjoyed the "its tough to be a bug" 3-D show to start our day. We felt cockroaches crawling under the seats( thats a spoiler without warning if you are planning to visit) and nice safari in African jungle(one of my wishes is to travel across Africa- Param are you hearing this? ). We ended our day with a Lion king show. Near our hotel there was a theatre which was upside down ;-) and my FIL wanted to check it out and we took some Patel shots..

Ooops I forgot to mention, In the hotel where we stayed, they had this wierd tradition- at 5 in the evening every day, they played parade music while the ducks in the fountain were made to march towards their nest and there was a big crowd to watch it :-) We were full of laughter to see the fuss about the whole thing.


Day-5
So after visiting all these places, its time to get back home and We all started back again to NJ and my story ends here

Not to forget
the Memories of India hotel

Service-> Poor
Food-> Above average


Woodlands cuisine

Service->Excellent
Food->Good

(this is just a tip for anybody travelling to Orlando)