US Trip- Aug 15th 2022-Aug 31st 2022

Day 1-Aug 15- Flight from Heathrow to Los Angeles

Landed in LA airport. Virgin Atlantic. 11 hour flight. Went in shuttle to Rental car park- Alamo. Drove to B&B in Pico Rivera area. Exciting and anxious first time. Drove to nearby shopping complex and ate at America’s own creations- subway, Mc Donalds. Plus Indian dinner too. 

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Day 2-Aug 16th-Universal studios
Drove to Sanjana's flat in downtown LA. Picked her up and went to Universal studios. Drove through Sanjana's college at night. Night- Sum was sick with vomiting. We all slept at Sanjana's house. Tan and Sanjana went in taxi and bought Chipotle.

@Universal studios: Studio tour, Harry Potter castle, Flying experience, Butter beer ( was much better in UK HP), Olliwander wand shop where Tanmay was chosen for the show, Waterworld, Dreamworks-KungFu panda show, Jurassic world -The ride

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Day 3-Aug 17th-LA sight seeing
Morning-We 4 drove back to our B&B. Got ready and I drove to Griffith Observatory. Hollywood sign hill. Drove to Hollywood walk of fame. Vibrant area. Ate at MacD. Drove to Beverley hills and Rhodeo drive. Met Sanjana in Rhodeo drive. Had dinner at Sanjana's house. Annu chaaru.

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Day 4-Aug 18th-Disney land
PIcked up Sanjana from her house. Went to Disney land. Dropped her back in the night. Was very late. Dinner in Chipotle near Sanjana's house. I drove back.

@Disneyland- Space Mountain, Tale of Lion King show, Big thunder mountain rail, Indiana Jones Adventure, Fireworks, Laser and fire show on water, Electrical parade.

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Day 5-Aug 19th-Drive to San Diego
Vacated B&B at Pico Rivera. Drove to Sanjana's. Boys swam in the pool. We left late noon. Missed sunset view during drive to San Diego. Stopped by the ocean for few min. Reached Holiday Inn Express . Dinner - we went to walmart on the way and bought burgers, cheese. etc and prepared sandwiches at hotel room

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Day 6-Aug 20th-Sea World
Had bf in the hotel and drove to Sea World. Sanjana's dinner treat in Chennai Dosa opp to Qualcomm

@Seaworld- Sea lion show, Sharks under water tunnel walk, Dolphin show, Manta ray touch, Orca show

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Day 7-Aug 21st-San Diego Zoo

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Day 8-Aug 22nd- Flight to Sacremento
Drive to beach. Bread nutella in beach, ice cream in petrol station, chipotle for kids. Flew to Sacramento in South western airways. Suresh Nagashree and Isha had come to pickup.

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Day 9-Aug 23rd- Local sightseeing
Saw Isha’s school while dropping her off. Went with Nagashree to Costco, local shopping mall- what was it called? Dinner at Sum's friend Manu's house.

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Day 10-Aug 24th- Red Wood trees
Drove 2 hours. Nagashree gave packed lunch- onion rice, fruits, etc.Dinner at home

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Day 11-Aug 25th-Sunita's house
Sunita's house, sfo golden gate bridge on the way. Drive was very steep in mountainous SFO. Different looking city: Gherardelli ice cream. Went to city centre by mistake in search of Gherardelli but was good to see busy and vibrant city centre. Trams on roads. Dinner at Sunita's. Pullav, chaaru, payasu.

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Day 12-Aug 26th-Silicon Valley 

Ate Dosa at Sunita's house, walked around their area, saw shopping center, Aarabhi and Anirudh's school, walked on the bridge on motorway. Drove around Silicon Valley- Apple, Google, Facebook offices, Stanford University. Dinner at Paulo Alto city. Then to Sum's friend's house Manoj in Pleasanton. Drove back to Folsom.

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Day 13-Aug 27th- Bowling and dinner with Suresh family.

Dinner at BJ’s- American restaurant.

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Day 13-Aug 28th- Sun splash water world with Suresh family.
Sun splash. Best water ride as per Tanmay was stealth. Pizza and chaats for dinner . Veg puff was good

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Day 14-Aug 29th-Yosemite
Took extra puffs for lunch

Drive- scenic. Huge Rocky Mountain and waterfall. 

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Day 15-Aug 29th-Gowri Ganesha pooja at Folsom
Pooja in the morning. Festival good with kadubu. Went to Folsom town center in the evening. Then took Krish for a walk.

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Day 16-Aug 30th-Gowri Ganesha pooja at Folsom

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Day 17- Aug 31st-Fly back to UK home
Drove to SFO Golden Gate Bridge second time. Clearer view. Dropped off car

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Differences between UK and US

Bike lane in the middle of the road - seen in Pleasanton

Free way- train in the middle of road

Gas station- black is petrol.green is diesel. Petrol is called gas. Diesel is called diesel.

Toll - open gate. How do we pay?

Few vegetable sizes massive- onion, watermelon, beef tomatoes, cucumber

They eat donut for breakfast. So Donut shops are open early in the morning 

People friendlier

No roundabouts, 

more lanes in freeway, 

more exits, 

separate lanes for cars with more than one person

Free right turn 

No Hiya. Not apologetic..ie saying sorry often

Thank you on road- no

 flashing to give way- no

Keep clear Vs Clear keep

Upto 7 lanes on motorways 

Rental car- take whatever you want and drive away

No uniform brick buildings like in US

Apples, watermelon, Onions- much bigger 

Buildings offices sky scrapers - have names of companies. 

Ground floor starts from 1, not 0

Bikers with music 

Switch- on off is opposite

Wales (Betws-y-coed)

Blog by Tanmay

 Day 1, Monday 2nd Aug 2021:

This day, we set off on our journey to Wales, a long and tiresome travel for 5 hours-especially when I'm travelsick. When we entered Wales, we could see beautiful white houses lining the streets and bright flowers in hanging baskets. In the middle of the main roads there was a massive flowerbed filled with a variety of colourful plants and baby palm trees.

After the car journey we went straight to the beach with one of my friend's family. There we chipped stones accross the surface of the water and played beach tennis eventhough my feet were sandy I didn't mind because I was having so much fun!

When it was time to go back to our own apartments, I was excited to see the place which we were staying in as I couldn't wait to get to sleep ready for the next day. We arrived at the accomdation in the evening after we had the most delicious ice-cream at an ice-cream parlour. At the place I found out which bed was mine and sorted everything out and fell asleep unusually quick-well it was a long day :).

Day 2: 

I woke up on an early start to climb Mount Snowdon and got ready as fast as I could. We climbed it with the same friend which I did all my activities with. There was a taxi that took us to the foot of the mountain and from there we followed a rocky route all the way to the top.

 My dad said that it would take us 3hrs to climb up to the top but we actually took 4hrs 15mins and 4hrs to get to the bottom. And we even took the easier route on the way down! It was really hard to climb but luckily our friend had brought twelve bottles of non-fizzy energy drinks to keep us going and they boosted my energy more than any other drink that i've ever had.  

getting down was the hardest though because the route was so steep we were skidding down the hill and out of control and when we passed the half-way point there was a cafe and we all had a refill and I had hot chocolate as well.

We went back to our apartment at night so no wonder I slept straight away. After all, my legs had gone numb and weren't awake anymore.

Day 3: 

I woke at 8:30 and got ready to bike up a high hill. Me, my brother and my friend got our bikes first and they all had great suspension. When we got to the start of the hill it was the most steepest hill I had ever seen and when we biked up on the hill I found out that my bike pulled a lot slower than the rest so I swapped with my mum and her bike was pretty fast and it took us so long to go to the top, I lost count how long we had been there but when we went downhill it was an almost 90degree ride and if I didn't hold the breaks the whole way then I would've 100% fell of my bike.

I had a big aldrenalin rush at the bottom and had to recover for some time. That day was one to never forget because it was one of the most risky biking stunt I had ever did, I was just thankfull that we went home straight away. For dinner we had the best food ever in the Royal Oak Hotel- Y Stablu where I had a chiken burger with fries and the white vegetable dip. It was amazing!

Day 4:

I woke up at 10 to go to the treetop nets, we played on the trampolines and then it started to rain heavily  so I put my rain jacket on but it was no use because my raincout was soaked on the inside so I was very wet until I went home and dried myself.  

I started watching the next episode of Doctor Who my mum then announced that my friend's family is coming for dinner and she prepared the best pupoo anu to eat whilst watching tv I enjoyed the programme and slept.

Day 5:

On that day we went to the ninja assault course and extreme slides where Om had 'nearly got a heart attack' on one of the slides :) I did warn him about the slides but now he will not go on any of the slides ever again.

The time was very short which they gave us because we arrived slightly late but we had a great time on the top-nets and some activities on the ninja course like beat the wall and the metal jumping pads. The best one had to be the slides because it gave me the biggest adrenaline rush I have ever had! Then, we went to the cafe and had ice-cream and I had salted caramel and bubblegum, it tasted amazing!!! 

We then went to an Indian restauraunt and had mango lassi with masal dosa.

The car journey was long but I was sleeping so we were back in Reading in no time.

Wales - Cardiff

23rd May 09 - 25th May 09

Bank holiday weekend and that too a bright warm sunny one! This one was blessed. Drove from Reading on Saturday morning and reached Wales in 2.5 hours amidst slow moving holiday traffic and our growling stomachs.
Spotted a blessed Mexican restaurant -Chikitos which calmed our tummys :)
Set out to drive though the city after unpacking our luggage at our hotel.
Later enjoyed some good and leisure shopping for home in Ikea. (after a long time!)
Cardiff is a big city with modern and huge buildings - not a typical UK style architecture.
Set out to Cardiff Bay in the evening and strolled through the restaurant and shops amidst a lively festive atmosphere with a large crowd relaxing, drinking and singing in the nice warm weather.

Day 2: Day of activities! Drove to the Quad biking centre which is 7 miles from our hotel. There were around 30 robust, macho bikes with 4 huge wheels designed for rough and rugged mountainous terrain. Sum opted for a 250cc bike and I got a 90 cc one :(
I struggled for the initial 10 min to manoeuvre the heavy handles but was great later when I got used to it! The instructor drove us through rough and bumpy rocky terrain and on hills and wide open grasslands too..It is in these grasslands that you can speed through down and the mountains in the highest gear. It was great fun and adventure which lasted for an hour. I enjoyed it thoroughly...looking forward eagerly for another trip as soon as possible!!

Had lunch and headed for speed power boating expedition. This too was a bumpy and rugged trip on the waves and the driver made sure there were lots of fast and quick turns and twists. The weather and wind were enjoyably pleasant and fresh.
This was good, but Quad biking was better!

Though keen on other activities like Gorge walking and Sky Rope, these had to be pre-booked :( .....anyways next time!

Dorset

26th Feb - 1st March

2 days off from office for our 4th yr wedding anni, we set out early on thursday-26th and drove to Bournemouth (pronounced as Bone-muth) which was approx 2 hour drive from Reading. For once I was glad we were not driving again on M4! M4 to office, to London, to Bristol, to Bath, to Stonehenge...sick of M4! A33 was good :)
Bournemouth is a beautiful city, quite unlike typical UK towns. It has a different look and feel, broad roads, many trees (a particular one reminded me of namma South end road :) ), huge houses (not the usual bricky ones), lots of space around, that too with a beach...lovely.

Our B&B was between the highstreet and few min walk to the beach...convenient. Thursday was just for relaxing, watched tv and enjoyed being a couch potato after a long time! Had really yummy singapore noodles for lunch, which reminds me...got to find the recipe! Did some shopping for Sum in M&S, had a nice cuppa then back to couch in B&B.
Later, drove down to nearby village-Poole and watched Revolutionary Road...was a sad movie :( Back to B&B at 12

Friday: Ready for the usual english bf then drove to Burley to rent a tandem cycle. Cycled for 18 miles in the New Forest!! Phew....was very tiring in the tough forest terrain, but enjoyed the experience. We chose the Deer track and could spot many of them. Took a half-way break for lunch in Minstead village pub. Altogether, took us 5 hours. Back to Bournemouth for a heavy Italian dinner with Tiramisu for dessert..yum

Saturday: Again english bf :( wanted to have something like avalakki for a change!
Decided to go to Durdle door-Jurassic beach. For this, we had to take our car on the ferry from Sandbanks to Studlands, then continue driving to Durdle door..that was cool.
Beautiful country side flew by, tempting us to take many breaks to appreciate it.
Durdle door beach is awesome, very impressive. Seems dinausaurs inhabited this coastline in the Jurassic period. The term Durdle door is coined since there are series of huge rocks extending into the atlantic ocean from the beach and is shaped like a door, due to wind and water erosion. Looks like a dinausaur which has dipped it's head into water to drink!
Had lunch in The Red Lion pub in Wareham village on our way back to Bournemouth

Sunday: Its already sunday which means back to office tommorrow...on the way back to Reading, had one of the worst monday blues ever!

Snow!

Monday, 2nd Feb 2009

7am-alarm rings and I bang it to shut it up...another monday morning blues..anyways i kicked myself out of the bed at 7:20 and sleepily saw out of the window.. It was snowing heavily and continuously! Never seen heavy snowing before...was as if loads and loads of white cotton balls were floating smoothly to the ground. It was damn exciting to watch and absolutely beautiful. Time was racing and I had to get ready for the office and reluctantly shoved myself away form the window. All ready and out of the house, myself and Sum stood wondering before the heavy snowfall and figuring out where the pathway/road was and more than that, how in the world could we drive ! Just then, i received a call from my boss telling me to take a day off coz of the heavy snow! What a perfect monday morning!!:) Holiday! kewwwl....
Seems it was 18 years since it snowed so heavily in Britain! All day long I stood by the huge windows and never stopped gazing out...was totally mindblowing and exciting
All the schools were shut for the day and so were most of the offices! The next few days were snowing as well, but on a lesser scale.
Britain, I read, is not used to handling snow in such massive scale...it is hard to keep the roads and highways clear of snow and to grit, though gritting lorries were trying their best to do their job

Roman Baths

Saturday, 24th Jan 2009

Bath-the town where Romans had their public baths is a pretty and lively town situated within an hour's drive from Reading. It was a nice outing for A, K, Sum and myself. We spent lot of time walking around the crowded pretty town, watching street plays, going around in the tourist bus tour, etc before visiting the Roman baths which have been preserved well.
I was impressed to see hot water springs and how they are generated below the earth's surface at 90 deg celsius. By the time this water reaches the surface, it cools down to 46 deg celsius, but still hot enough to stay steamy and boiling. Millions of tons of hot water is generated naturally. Romans have sanctified and built temples around here and the water was supposedly used to cure many diseases.
From here, we drove to Bristol suspension bridge...looks pretty during the night, but of course couldnt see the beautiful scenery around.
10pm-back home

Scotland trip

22nd Aug 08 - 27th Aug 08

A bank holiday again on 25th Aug! Btw i wonder why on earth was the name 'bank' holiday coined! Too lazy as of now to hit google for that info. Anyways, our Scotland trip was for 5 days..quite a long holiday
Left Reading at 9 pm on 22nd Friday by National express bus. Comfortable jouney to London in an hour. From London, we had to change another bus for Edinburgh.
London bus stand as we saw, was no better than Bengaluru's city market bus stand, in the sense that people were pushing, shoving, breathing over each other's neck to get into the bus! And yes, most of the population there was our desis :)

Day1: Reached Edinburgh in the morning at 7:30, after a tough overnight journey from London. We regretted not sticking to our initial plans of renting a car on our own. But now, after the trip, I know that we made a right decision to go by the conducted tour, rather than car hire. That way, we got to know many interesting facts on the history of Scotland and England. Each person on the trip was given a headphone through which there was almost a continuous narration of the places/castles, etc that we passed by and visited. This was even more interesting since I had watched Braveheart movie recently and have become a fan of William Wallace - hero of Scotland!
Edinburgh is a lovely city and I liked the town centre instantly..it is very lively, also due to the ongoing Fringe festival. Took a city-sight seeing bus tour till the noon. Then for lunch, had my present favourite dish-Ricotta an Italian restaurant.
Checked into our B&B (Bread and breakfast) at 2 pm, had a wonderful sleep till 6 pm. Edinburgh is beautiful by night and I clicked photos crazily. There were road plays, music and dance on street, most of them as part of the Fringe festival.

Day2:
Checked out of B&B and started our conducted trip at 8:30 am. We passed thorugh lovely landscapes and reached Glencoe, our first destination. It is also called weeping valley as one clan was massacred here.
Looks like I have developed a sudden interest in history and I was listening to the recorded/live narration with great enthu and interest! In the process, I now know a few Gaelic words - Gaelic is the traditional Scottish language, hardly anyone speak now
Glen => valley (as in Glencoe)
Ben => mountain
Inver => at the mouth of (as in Inverness)
Aber => at the mouth of (as in Aberdeen)
Loch => lake
Next destination - Urquhart castle. This castle is situated on the banks of Lochness (Lake Ness) and has an attractive scenery and I was instantly involved in photo shoots and Patel-shots :). Then took a motor boat ride to another bank of Lochness. Ness is a mythological dragon, which is believed to be living in the lake ( it still is!) . It is one of the silliest stories heard..Seems this is a friendly female dragon, first spotted when it was about to take away a monk who was with Columbus.yawn..boring, but Nessie is a great hit among kids and adults alike!
Btw, this lake is 33 km long!
Finally, we arrived at Inverness town, where we were to spend the next 2 nights. Due to it's proximity to the sea, the town is flooded with sea gulls...there are as many sea gulls there as the number of crows in Blore. Wandered about in Inverness for the rest of the evening at the town centre, by the river side.

Day 3:
Had Scottish bf again today. the vegetarian part comprises of the following:
Hashbrowns (mashed aloos- shallow fried)
Baked beans with bread (baked beans are immersed in tomato sause)
egg- poached/boiled/scrambled
tea/coffee
cornflakes
Not bad at all...but eating it continuously for days together-nauseating!
A new vehicle came to our doorstep to take us to Isle of Skye. Amazing landscape flew by as we listened to historical narration. Since it is summer now, purple coloured flowers grow densely and uniformly on the mountains. Hence the landscape comprises of purple mountains, green lawns (many shades of green).
Isle of skye is a huge island on atlantic ocean. It was very exciting when we passed through the bridge which connects Scotland and the Isle with atlantic ocean running below. The view of the atlantic ocean is really exciting!
The experienced bus driver knew all the picturesque spots and drove us there. Our new camera was totally tired with either scenery or Patel shots or pics of flowers :) Flowers are really strange but nevertheless, very beautiful..not the familiar roses/mallige/kanakaambra/shaavanthige :) I failed to name atleast even one.
Well bred healthy and attrative horses,cows, yaks and sheep are found in plenty. Btw, the cows have lottts of hair on them! how strange and ugly! Hairy hairy cows..ew!
Had dinner in an Indian restaurant...rice and dal..ah heaven!

Day4:
Again scottish bf! I longed for yummy upma that my granny prepares..
Destination for the day: Culloden Moor -this is the battlefield on which the last battle of Scots v/s English was fought.
I should say this was indeed an exciting experince. We were given a GPS and a headset and we were let loose inside the battlefield, free to roam around anywhere. The GPS tracks our position on ground and through the headphone, we get to hear facts and info about the particular spot of battlefield where we stand. Very impressive and convenient tech tour guide! Standing on the battlefield and hearing the narration, the experience is very good.
We had the rest of the day to ourselves in Inverness, wandering through the town centre and old shopping complexes. Boarded our bus back to Edinburgh.

Day5:
We had this day to explore Edinburgh. Visited Dynamic earth, where there were simulations of earthquakes,volcanoes and all about earth and life formation. Was interesting to an extent.
Later went to Ocean Terminal, saw huge impressive ships parked on the North sea. Edinburgh is on the banks of North sea. There was an Asian festival nearby, which was yet to start. Spotted a Dosa hut! Binged on masala dosas and vada before heading back to home sweet home in Reading