Virgin Islands Trip

Wake up, wake-up- I hurriedly woke up Tina reminding her that our flights leaves in about an hour and a half and she hasn't still brushed her teeth... I have to admit that traveling is a lot of fun; but it would be more fun if it was a bit faster. I mean who wants to travel for more than a 2 hours to get to a place which you can't enjoy either because you are too tired or because the flight was so long that you are way past hotel check-in time and the sun has long set for the night!

Anyway, after a quick and sweet goodbye to Washington DC, we landed in Atlanta about an hour and half later. We had a little over 6 hours of layover there and hence we had 2 options: see Atlanta, or find out if there is another flight which leaves earlier than ours. To our surprise there was and it was about to leave in less than an hour. We decided to ask Delta to see if they can accommodate us in this flight; a decision that we will later regret in many ways. The first person we asked the nice Customer Service lady and she said that she can put us in this flight and would charge us 150 bucks for it (per person). We almost laughed at her and thought that we would check out the rep at the gate- big mistake! This dude was an old junkie, perhaps too frustrated with his 30 years with Delta making little money. You won't believe what he said- after telling us that he would charge 50 pp (not 150), when we asked him if he could waive it he said that he won't because this is the "revenue stream from your pocket to mine" !!!! Unbelievable! Shame on Delta and shame on these kind of employees who have given these airlines their bad names. After spending an hour with Delta Customer Service over the phone and lodging a complaint against this employee we decided to move on with our Atlanta city-seeing tour; I am glad we did. We boarded the metro from the Airport station and got off at the Peachtree station metro in downtown Atlanta. Hungry as we were, we grabbed a quick bite at Willy's Mexican Grill, an eatery at the metro stop. From there, we walked a few blocks to the World of Coca Cola. Hurray!! Among the so many things to do and see, I think the best were the 4D movie and of course the tasting tour, where we had so much coke that we were ready to explode :-)

We rushed back to the airport to catch our next flight to the ultimate destination... the land of beaches and white sand... US Virgin Islands... it was a long flight, 3.5 hours and considering the level of service which airlines offer their passengers these days, by the time we arrived in St Thomas around 10:30p we were exhausted and hungry. The airport seemed like a small town airport where you had to walk down the stairs from the aircraft to the ground and then walk up to the terminal. The weather was very warm and humid; I have to say I almost believed that I had landed in Bombay! We took an expensive "cab" from the airport to the hotel (cost about $13 per person). At the hotel, as expected, only 1 bar was open serving pizza and sandwiches. While the ladies unpacked and relaxed, the men were out in the "wild" hunting for food (I like exaggerating a bit!). We got three 10-inch pizzas and a roast beef sandwich for Piyush. We slept soon thereafter dreaming about waking up early to go to the beach.

Saturday morning: we took it easy- woke up around 10'ish, fed our hungry stomachs in the hotel restaurant and then rushed to the hotel private beach (Sugar Bay). I have to say that looking at (us) East Coasters go to the beach is just funny; their reaction is nothing less than a kid playing with a new toy... splashing and spluttering water all over each other, we were like little kids, while the others soaked in sun on the beach. After ingesting tons of sodium on the beach we decided to head over to the pool and relax a little bit. I liked the pool with it's little gushing waterfall almost gave a good massage to my aching muscles :-) We headed over to our rooms not knowing that this was the end of our fun for the day.... the rest of the day was just rainy and dark with clouds.... the resort didn't offer too many options for activities.  Bored that we were, we headed over to Red Hook in the evening for dinner, on a Safari- the best way to travel cheap in USVI, $2 a trip. We stumbled upon a few restaurants in the sleepy town and after having a long chat with the nice old lady in the gift shop where we learned about the exorbitant prices of goods in USVI ($7 for a gallon of milk!), we headed to the nearby Lotus Asian restaurant. We got hot Saki, salted edamame (I think the yummiest thing which we ate on this trip), veggie maki, and spring rolls. Having quenched our hunger for the time being, we went over to The Cellar to grab our dinner (takeout) and a few drinks. Piyush grabbed a Coconut rum at a shop and we wandered a little bit in small shops and then took a safari back to the hotel. As the day ended, we were all a bit pissed with the nonstop drizzle and hoped to God that the next day would be better.

Sunday: After a quick bite at the hotel cafe, we headed over to Coral World for our Sea Trekking adventure! Last night, Piyush and I had almost made up our mind to do some activities regardless of the bad weather. The ladies were very scared of the choppy waters and it took a hell of a lot of convincing! We arrived at  Coral World, showed the receipt which we had gotten from our hotel tour desk and the nice lady let us in without asking us to pay the entrance fees (who wants to complain, we saved about 60 bucks!). We were briefed for a few minutes about the different aspects of sea trekking and I think it helped calm the ladies a little bit to know that 80 year olds have also been sea trekking. Now comes the fun part, we wore our helmets and were ready to enter the water via a ladder (10-12 feet under). One by one, starting with me, we entered the water, and once inside any bit of fear which we had was gone. The world underneath the water was just amazing, schools of fish, other animals, and the undersea plants, we were all awestruck and when we got out we were all (except piyush who wanted more adventure) thrilled. We bought the 65 dollars USB drive containing our pictures and video and then grabbed lunch from a small eatery in Coral World and watched a few shows (The Shark show, the Stingray show). Ahem, these were actually feeding time and the show we got to watch was Piyush excitedly feeding the animals.  (The girls even petted the baby Nurse Shark!).  The rest of the day- well, what else, we lazied around.  Instead of taking a 20 buck taxi, we decided to walk the 1.7 miles back to our hotel....the best part was that we decided to ditch the map and walk alongside the beach!

Monday: This was out day in St John and we had planned to snorkel, parasail, and hike. We woke up bright and early and were a bit excited by the small amount of sunlight which all of us were utterly missing for the past couple days. We had a quick bite and were soon on a Safari on the way to Red Hook to board a ferry to St John. We bought 4 tickets, all in cash, thanx to the lack of credit card acceptance at a ferry terminal. A quick 20 min ride and we were in St John. On St John we went over to the National Park Service building and asked the nice officer about what to do in St John. To out utter disappointment none of the snorkeling or para-sailing activities could be done because of a weather advisory. On the other hand, this could be good for us since there are plenty of hiking trails in St John. We grabbed a few sandwiches from a small deli, took a hiking map and were out the way hiking St John in our lovely chappals (yeah, when dressing we forgot that we had planned to hike and were badly prepared for it). Anyways, about half an hour into the hike and Deepthi's slippers snapped! Now we were left to hike with Deepthi wearing Piyush's and the poor dude walking bare foot (well, only one bare foot). Our first stop along the way was Solomon Bay, were the lovely turquoise waters and the white sands just took our breaths away. We changed into our swimming gear and were out in the water, again playing like kids :-) One hour later, it was lunch time and we all hung our swimming clothes to dry on trees on the beach and grabbed our sandwiches which were happily relaxing on the beach...... oh no, not so quick, someone else was having fun with the sandwiches.... red ants! there were a million ants all over our sandwiches and we were about to be left high and dry when we realized that our sandwiches were carefully packed and only a few ants had managed to get inside. Of course this wasn't a problem with Piyush who wouldn't mind eating a side of raw ants, but the rest of all just shut up and ate the sandwiches :-)

Time to hike some more... We followed the hiking trail up to Caneel bay where we found a few Kayak boats lined up at the Caneel Bay resort. Out Kayak hungry spirits started kicking us and we soon found Piyush talking to the resort folks if we can use the kayaks even though we are not resort guests. One thing, I have found in USVI and for that matter all tourist towns is that people are incredibly friendly.... Soon thereafter, we were kayaking in the lovely waters of Caneel Bay. 20 minutes later, we tipped off the friendly resort guy and started hiking back to Cruz Bay to catch our ferry. On the way, we found an Overlook and stopped to take a few picture of the gorgeous waters and the numerous boats and ferries in the water..... None of us wanted to go back, but I guess the time had come to say good bye to St John. On the way to Cruz Bay, we stopped at a bakery, got some pastries and sweets so that us hungry souls don't turn cannibals..... Back in St Thomas, we stopped over at a Mexican restaurant at Red Hook for dinner. The bartender made a pitcher of margarita for us and we all sipped it slowly thanking for the lovely and useful day we had.... This was one of our most productive days so far in USVI and we all wanted to continue the momentum the next day which although was the flight day, still gave us a few hours....

Last day in St Thomas: we woke up bright and early all set to explore the beach one last time and say good bye.... We were among the first few people to hit the beach and we enjoyed all the pleasures of an uncrowded beach for more than an hour... We even took our swimming goggles with us to make swimming easier... to our surprise, it was like cheap snokeling because see a number of pretty fish right there next to the hotel.  As we said good-bye to the beach we all wished we had more time to spend.... but i guess one of the reasons we east coasters have so much fun in these beach towns is because we live in cities... I and Tina got out for breakfast and packed some stuff for our fellow travelers :-) we waited for the Safari for more than 20 minutes... apparently the day was quite busy and a lot of Safari's didn't stop after they looked at all of our luggage.... After about half an hour of Safari ride, we arrived in downtown Charlotte Amalie and looked for places to grab lunch. We arrived at a Deli and placed order for a few veggie and a Tuna sandwich... the lady told us that it could be half an hour before our order would be ready. We were kind of in a time crunch as our flights were supposed to leave at 4:45 (or at least that's what we thought) and it was already close to 2. I left the shop and wandered around the streets of downtown to find other places to eat. Among the dozen of shops selling anything from expensive jewelery to European chocolate, I found one burrito shop. Suddenly I received a call from Piyush asking me to hurry up as Tina just discovered that our flights were departing at 4:10p and not 4:45 as we had happily thought without checking our schedules :-) Lesson: never make assumptions about your memory. While Deepthi and Piyush immediately left for the airport, we packed lunch for all of us and took a cab to the airport....  At the airport we did what would be a rum lover's dream :-) we bought cheap carribbean Cruzan rum (for 11 bucks a pop), the only thing which is easy to get in USVI (besides good hearted people).

Time to come back to the reality... USVI is still in our hearts and spirits... but I think it's time to look ahead and not be sad and plan for the next vacation!!

Time for another trip - warm, bright and sunny !!

And if you are thinking, ohhhh, Florida again, no no!!!! Not a chance in the near future!!! Florida is too cold this season for me to even think of going there again. Think East...... think US Virgin Islands, think miles of white sands, all year 80F temperature, very little human infestation (for the most part) and most importantly away from home and work... does that sound like a lot of fun??  It does, because it will be....

Orlando/Tampa trip

Cold, cold everywhere and no place to hide! As you wonder why am I writing about cold when we just visited Florida, let me just say that this visit to Florida will be remembered not because we visited warm and sunny Florida, but because we all had a lot of fun in spite of the cold :-)

We boarded our Airtran flight to Orlando (MCO) on Thursday, Dec 31 around 12 noon having a quick bite at Einstein's Bagel on terminal A. Except for the "anti high-price lotion" in the restrooms and advice written on the snack bags, the flight was pretty average :-). Upon arrival at MCO, we met up with the other party in crime (aka Pragya and Amit) and while Amit guarded the luggage (and d some office work), we caught a bite at my favorite (Panda Express) fast food joint and then boarded Disney's so-called "Magical Express" and just as 'magic' we were in our room (uhh.. that was a very long ride from the airport to the Pop Century Resort)

While I and Amit were doing the manly thing (i.e. standing in line) the girls asked the Concierge about the fun stuff and food (of course). We found out about a yummy sandwich place in downtown disney (and apparently the concierge made sure that we understood that she really meant "yummy"). We all went to the room only to discover a miniature room with the bare essentials (they call it a "Resort"). But we were quite impressed by the external decor of the buildings. As the name suggests, the building had a "pop culture" theme depicting the culture from the 1950's all the way to the present time. We waited for the last and the final criminal of our gang (aka the most notorious one, Ranjana). After getting cheated by her GPS (only to later discover that she inputted the wrong address), Ranjana finally made it to Pop Century and we headed off to Downtown Disney (as suggested by the Concierge). Among the sea of creatures (humans), shops and restaurants we managed to find the sandwich place (Earl of Sandwich) and decided to respect the wishes of the lovely concierge. While Pragya and Tina got the sandwich the rest of the gang headed off to Wolfgang Puck Express. As for the food, let us just say we could have all kissed the concierge and Mr. Puck didn't fail us either :-). We had a lovely meal.

With our tummies full, we headed off to see all the other fun stuff in downtown Disney. The hot air balloon looked interesting and after standing in the infinite line waiting for our chance, we decided to give up :-( We--and I mean the only people who drink--had a few drinks in a bar and suddenly realized that we are standing on the edge of a passing year with just a few minutes to go. The fireworks started (at one of the parks -- Disney or Universal -- not sure) and we stood there staring at them from a distance, marveling at the bygone year, and wondering what the next year would have in store for us.... We headed off to our "resort" and tired that all of us were, we couldn't think of anything but sleep (Ranjana and her phone might disagree :-)).

Friday started off pretty lazily and after waking up much past breakfast time, we headed off to our resort cafe to find out that 3 of us vegetarians had nothing but cereal and cold bagels to eat (after breakfast we'd discover the badly located toaster). Tina decided to try her luck and asked the chef if he could bring us nice fluffy pancakes from his magic hat (ummm...... yummmy) ... and there they were (well more than we needed at the time) ... warm and nice and yummy.... and the perfect recipe for the start of a great day!

Unfortunately, it was all cold and wet outside and the drizzling wouldn't stop..... we decided to head over to Kennedy Space Center rather than "donate" precious dollars to Disney. Ranjana volunteered to let us be the first victims of a group drive in her new Scion! We got there around 2:30 only to discover that we were amongst the last of the batches even though Kennedy's website clearly says that it closes at 5:30 PM. One thing which I have realized is that Floridians aren't very tech savvy (and don't update their websites very often). I guess the sunshine has it's effects :-)

KSC was fun as we watched over the nation's premier shuttle launch facility in the frigid Florida winter (thanx to Tina, I had to do the right thing and give my wind breaker to her (granted she made me pack it); but all I could imagine was hot coffee). We visited two of the three tour stops (the third was closed) and then waited--outside--in line for the shuttle simulation ride. We finally made it back to the car around 6:30p, starving (note, we only ate breakfast that day). We would have eaten each other (think cannibals) had our breakfast pancakes not come to our rescue (yes, we had ended up buying 5 extra pancakes in the morning)!!! After devoring them in the car, we used the newly acquired glucose to locate a Thai restaurant (aha, I found some use of my new iPhone) and on the way stopped over to ponder the beauty of earth's only satellite rising over the gorgeous ocean [moon]...... Thai food was good (the lack of any hot coffee in the restaurant was a bit annoying). The non-vegetarians in our gang had a lot of fun eating their snapper (wait, it wasn't eating, it was devouring).

Saturday was Disney day, the main reason we were in Florida. Having gotten our lesson about breakfast the previous day, we woke up bright and early (well... earlier) and ate whatever our souls might have desired the previous day (yummy waffles.....). The non-veggie souls had gotten hungry earlier and headed off to breakfast a bit earlier than the veggie folks. They also got the tickets for Epcot. At Epcot, we hurried into completing as many rides and attractions as we could (I wish we had understood the importance of Fast Track tickets sooner). The Space Adventure was fantastic (better than the simulation at Kennedy). The undersea adventure with Nemo and family was also cool (though a bit kiddy-oriented I would say). Around 5, us hungry souls wandered off to the food pavilions only to discover very limited options for the grass-hoppers (or might I say the vegetarians). Amit got the orange chicken from the Chinese pavilion and the vegetarians got stir-fried vegetable with rice. Ranjana devoured beef sandwich at the grand American pavilion (and the 3 V's ate veggie burger and fries). Having gotten a bit of energy, we managed to venture into the Test Track (which all of us were incredibly scared off). Tired that all of us were, we hoped that this wouldn't be the deal breaker (i.e. retiring one of us). It turned out to be an incredibly fun experience as we zoomed in the old GM car's test track!!!

Dinner at Epcot was another story altogether. We were so exhausted at this point that we could have become cannibals. We ended up in the Moroccon pavilion and had falafel. I and Ranjana also had a glass of cheap Moroccon wine :-) Following dinner, the only thing which kept us going in the Arctic Epcot (that's not a new ride, that's how cold it was for us) was the fireworks which proved to be one of the best fireworks which all of us had seen. The majestic Epcot center glowed in the dark while the firework in the sky and the lake beneath was just awesome!! We hurried off back to our rooms completely exhausted and totally cold from within and outside. Ranjana narrated some bedside stories and drove off in the night to her much-desired "comfy" bed in Gainesville.

Sunday was the day of bifurcation for the 2 couples. While Chi and Amit headed off to Miami/Key West early in the morning, we took it a bit easy and then headed off to the airport for our car rental in the Mears coach (still don't know what Mears is) provided by Disney. At the airport we realized that the Hertz car rental location was actually an off-airport location and fearing that it might cause problem with us on our day of departure, we decided to use the services of Enterprise. How convenient..... huh... they almost ripped us off... and we got our lesson about not doing walk-up rentals :-( Perhaps in an effort to salve our wounds, the car rental guy gave us an upgrade and we walked out with a nice Hyundai Sonata! We decided that now that we have an expensive car (well relatively), we might as well enjoy it and zoomed our way to St. Petersburg. On our way we decided to satisfy our appetites with our one true friend- Taco Bell (in Plant City, FL) and we had a satisfying lunch (both pocket and tummy wise -- can't beat the Taco Bell deals). It was one of those n number of times when you are so glad that Taco Bell exists on earth... it's almost like the savior of vegetarian travelers...

We reached St. Petersburg and drove towards the Dali Museum. We bought a ticket for their last guided tour at 3PM. Although, I am not a big fan of museums, I have to admit that this one was cool and definitely needs attention of all you folks out there.... This artist (Salvador Dali) is a bit eccentric (by that I mean a lot) and although most of his creations don't make any sense, the ones which do will totally blow your mind.....and taking the tour definitely helps in making sense of surrealist art.

Following Dali, we sped off to our Comfort Suites jacuzzi room wanting to maximize every penny we paid. On the way, we wandered on small roads observing small Florida towns, people and getting a feeling of our hotel neighborhood. We stopped at a Walmart and got a bottle of wine and chocolate cake (the perfect accompaniments for the evening) and got clothes for my iphone (a casemate cover). By the time we reached our hotel it was already 9'ish and we were hungry. We checked-in and headed to the nearest Olive Garden (we're still proud of the variety of food we had during the trip). We were almost dying to eat the addictive salad! The waiter was really helpful in giving advice as to where to go the next day and what to do. We ordered just one entree (u could see the face of the poor waiter) and ate tons of salad (not that we even finished one bowl of it). Having satisfied our most natural craving (food that is), we headed back to our hotel and had a good night sleep on the lovely king bed.

We woke up next morning bright and early hoping to not have missed the hotel breakfast. After a standard continental breakfast (plus warm waffles) we headed up to book our hotel for our last night in Florida. Our main criteria- cheap and close to MCO as neither of us was sure that we would wake up on time for our early morning flight (9am). We decided to give priceline.com a shot based on Amit's recommendation and believe it or not got a room at the MCO Hyatt Regency for 40 bucks (plus tax)!!! Unable to believe our luck--we thought we would get the worst room available--we went on with our day. We headed out the door with a long list of places that we wanted to see before heading back to Orlando.

By any stretch of the imagination our list was pretty ambitious. It included "honeymoon island", clearwater beach and the most exciting of all Mixon fruit farm!! On the way to clearwater beach we stopped at a few pretty spots overlooking the lovely ocean..... if it wasn't for my impatience we would have been surely late for the fruit farm as it was almost an hour drive (and Tina just couldn't resist stopping at nice view points). I had to employ the best of my driving skills to reach Mixon on time only to discover that we were the only 2 people on the tour. For better or worse, us eager beavers got a private tour of the orange and citrus grove :-) The dude giving the tour also showed us a few of the wildlife his non-profit rescued from cruel owners/public mistreatment and were now unable to reintroduce into the wild. We saw a baby croc, a burmese python, a florida deer and several other creatures up close and got to even touch the croc and the python !!! scary, but a lot of fun....

As we headed out of Mixon, it was pretty close to sunset and we rushed back to Orlando. On the way of course, Tina could not resist stopping at another beach to watch the sunset. On the highway, in utter darkness, I suddenly had a strange realization..... the Hyatt we booked was the same hotel which is inside the MCO terminal... actually inside MCO !!!!! When we had arrived at MCO, we were actually wondering what it would be like to stay inside a Hyatt in the airport and suddenly without meaning to, we booked it on priceline. Of course, we reached MCO and checked into our room thanking God that the room was not the roach infested room we had imagined, but a totally normal, gorgeous Hyatt room overlooking the security line at the airport! Excited, we rushed to return the rental and enjoy a great roasted veggie sandwich and heirloom bean chili at the hotel restaurant.

Final day in orlando... we were ready to head out... I watched the security line growing more and more every passing minute... TSA was a total mess... couldn't handle a few hundred people and also made us throw our Jalapeno jelly which we bought from Mixon. But oh well, we didn't complain too much... we were still basking in the glory of booking a Hyatt room for 40 bucks :-) Tina had said we should just kill the night in the terminal, but I know she didn't mean in the Hyatt.

We were headed back to DC... back to the cold recalling not of the warmth of Florida, but rather the fun of it... there is always a silver lining in the clouds....

Canada Cruise

For all of you who are eagerly waiting for the details of our fun and exciting Canadian cruise, keep reading.... also all of those folks who have never taken a cruise and would like to get a first hand report, be ready to empty your wallets !

The journey started on Friday, June 17th. TV decided to take Megabus instead of other modes of transportation, a decision which we will regret for some time to come. We reached the 10th & H st location in DC and after waiting for some 15-20 min past the scheduled departure time, we saw this enormous double decker Megabus approaching. We decided to hop on the top deck of the bus. It looked cool and felt cool..... All was fine till we drove for about 1 hour.... we saw a few people feeling a bit chilly inside... we laughed at them :-) and then we felt cold too ... and the driver had no idea how to control the cooling system.... we took a break at a rest area on the NJTP.... that was the best thing ever... the warm, humid weather which we would normally hate felt like gift from God....

We reached NYC around 1 AM and hung out with friends... we ate at San Loco in the city and decided to rest at Mitesh's.... We met his new friend, Mondo... and while you are thinking what a weird name, let us warn you that he wasn't human... it was a black monkey dog who can totally scare the shit out of you (= Tina) in dark... Mondo drove Tina (and Varun) out of th house early in the morning, so they went to her sister, Meena's place (Mitesh joined them there after packing).

Having been burned that last time we (TV) booked a cruise, Varun started persuading everyone to leave for the Pier early (to the point of being a bit annoying !). We managed to leave by 3:30 PM, arrived at the pier at 4 and got into the line for immigration. Tnia approahced, thinking, this can't be too bad we all have our docs in order -- yeah right! The agent stared at our docs (= Mitesh and Varun) for what seems like eternity, then we found that that Mitesh needed to provide his current India address. This doesn't sound too bad, until... Mitesh informs us that he has no idea what it is. Recall that it is 4 pm EST, so it's the middle of the night in India. Too bad. He had to call his parents in the middle of the night to get his own home address in india. After that they confiscated (kept) his passport and told him they'd give it to him after the Canadian officials review it in Canada.... All information having been duly provided to Carnival, they gave us our "Sail and Sign" cards and we boarded. Lesson one: its not a boat, its an enormous ship. It's big enough to fit a Hilton and a few Days Inns...

We promptly went into our interior room.... As we were beginning to wonder the space requirements for the 3 of us, the reality hit us that Carnival grossly miscalculated the average height of an adult! The 3rd bed was max 5 feet long and fitting Mitesh in it would need some gymnastics .... so we did what anyone else would do, we ignored the beds and left our room to explore the ship. We quickly learned about our "commute" on the ship, the 24 hour pizza and ice cream, the honking of a ship and most importantly how high the ship is as we successfully passed under the Verrazano holding our breaths... Soon everyone on board was required to attend the boat drill which was nothing more than a total waste of time. At dinner we met our "friendly" dinner mates with whom we would be spending the rest of our "romantic" evenings. On one end was the mother with 2 girls with one of them already beginning to look sick and on the other end was this 40 something white man with his "lovely" asian wife, Julia, and asian-looking kid (the milkman's kid ?) Other than the occasional chatter of the 3 of us, our dinner table was mostly quiet. We exactly knew how the next 4 days will be :-). (Preview: Julia would continue to be curious about what three vegetarian souls are eating and will laugh after hearing the answer as if we are pathetic.) After dinner we attended the welcome session (Jorge, the entertainment director's chatter) and went on a bar hopping tour with the "fun patrol". It was impossible not to notice that the people who worked really really enjoyed their work. At first we thought it was a fake smile and excitement but it continued forever. Internal satisfaction makes a huge difference in customer service.

Day 2: We woke up bright and early and after breakfast went on the Lido deck to enjoy the nice weather and the ocean. We went on the water slide and discovered (the hard way) that except for the water in the rooms and drinking water, most other water on the ship was salty. We later found out that the ship actually desalinized the ocean water on board! We were slowly getting used to the idea of eating 24 hours a day. We went for lunch, then tea time and then dinner - a constant reminder of America's biggest problem, overeating. Tina had this great idea to attend the "sunset stretch" (at 5 pm). Of course, the sun didn't set while we were stretching. However, we did stretch, so the guys had to do some weight-lifting to feel manly. Tina then took her revenge by kicking MV's asses playing air hockey in the "underground tokyo." (MV did fight to claim their dignity back by the last game). We hung out in the Piano bar for some time where the live entertainment was the pianist singing non-stop for hours without ruining his voice. At night in the Karoke bar, we watched an "adult" comedy show, basically something we used to call in college as non-veg jokes. We decided to go to bed "early" in anticipation of Mitesh's 7:30 am "meet-n-greet" with Canadian immigration in Saint John.

Day 3: M-life woke up at 630 ish for his rendevous with the Canadians, they asked simple questions, and it all went very smoothly except for waiting for the immigration officials. TV woke up at about 7 (grr..... grumpy Tina), MTV quickly ate (rather sped past breakfast) and hopped in a cab to the reversing falls park where we were supposed to do the Jetboat ride. After some persuasive French accented English, Tina decided to do the ride with MV. We finished the ride completely soaked in water thanks to Andre, the pirate look-alike jet boat driver. Basic concept of tides in Saint John: due to the invasion of the ocean into the river, the tide level increases by 30-40 feet twice a day and reverses the course of saint john river. You can imagine how bumpy jet boat ride will be in the midst of tug of war between river and ocean. As we got off the boat we were greeted by Dana from Eastern Outdoors who quickly drove us to Dipper Harbor for Kayaking. On our way Varun decided to ask Dana why "Fundy national park" is called so and she had no clue why. The drive was about 40 min from Saint John. We arrived in the middle of no-where and were greeted by our lovely Kayak instructor, Heather (yes, MV thought she was cute, and it turns out that she's smart too: she's a physics college student). Following a quick tutorial, we wore our outfits and sat in our Kayaks. And for the first time in Mitesh's life he wore a skirt (it helps keep your lower body dry in the kayak). We spent the next 2 hours doing some good upper body workout (a.k.a Kayaking) with Tina "officially tired" trying to row past the "yummy" sea weed. Heather showed us some lobster pounds: fenced enclosure where lobsters are bred. We all pulled ashore to relax and take some pictures. We drove back to Saint John not sure how to make the best possible use of the hour or so left. Also on our way back Tina realized she was missing her sweater which apparently was at the Jetboat ride place. Dana was kind enough to drive us there and fetch the sweater and take some pictures of MTV and the reversing falls. When we got back, we decided to look for food (yeah, veggie food in a port town). After some wandering around, we found a Mexican restaurant (Mexicana Rosa, I believe) and quickly ordered food. If there is one thing I cannot complain about Canada, it's their food (and the friendly people and the outdoors.. and..and...). Man, these guys know how to cook food. That mexican place had the best rolls (mexican spring rolls) I have ever had in my life, simply amazing. We also tried few local beers including Rickards..... We rushed (ran at the speed of light) back and boarded the ship, being one of the last few passengers to do so. Tired as hell, we unintentionally napped for a while. We got up, went to the Sushi bar, ate the veggie rolls and drank some warm Saki. We ended up bar hopping some more had martinis at the wine bar, did some cha-cha (how can we forget Mlife's desi girls?) and then ate dinner (with another bottle of wine). To kill time, we went to Karaoke and decided to murder two beautiful songs on the stage: Sweet Home Alabama and All Stars. The Burlesque show was quite high tech and very well executed.

Day 4: We decided to take-it-easy in Halifax (yeah, that's what MV said to Tina, but you judge if this was a relaxing day). We got out of the ship by 10 AM, found a bike rental place (thanks to Mitesh's b'bery) and rented 3 bikes. We started biking towards the Citadel (uphill) making fun of Gujju-English on our way (Halifax, a.k.a. "Helifex" in Gujarati)... hahaha.... We wandered around on the fort shooting pictures (from Mitesh's camera which is lost now :-( (found as of 31st July 09)). We biked to Point Pleasant park and then biked back to Garrison Brewery (which is essentially on the port). We had a distillery tour during which we learned a lot about beer. Apparently, the only difference between beer and whiskey is distillation and aging; both quite expensive processes. Also, the bitterness in beer comes from the plant named hops. The tour ticket gave each of us 6 samples of beer and a full pint. We had some of the samples, recalled that we had yet to return the bikes and we didn't really want to be biking under the influence (BUI)! After returning the bikes, on the advise of bike store guys we took a quick snack at Wooden Monkey and again had great food. As we now only had 15 minutes to have the remaining beer samples and get on the ship, we again ran like the light, consumed (= chugged) the remaining beers at Garrsion and continued our sprint to the ship. We would have been one of the last people on the ship, but a Carnival-sponsored tour bus pulled up to the port right as we were running into the line. On ship, we showered, went sushi tasting again, ate dinner and went to the main lobby bar, got martinis and discussed what will be some of the most funniest conversations - shaadi.com and the portrait pictures of girls. We even decided to take a few shaadi.com style pictures !!

(there is something wrong b/c we only did sushi once and only did martini's once).

Day 5: "Fundy" at sea or so we like to call the Fun Day at Sea. Varun and Mitesh decided to go to the gym the first thing in the morning. Having duly ditched Tina, MV tried to find her on the Lido desk during breakfast -- this was no small feat as there are 4000 people on this ship. Our breakfast conversation went from one topic to another and landed upon a discussion about vegetarian options in Greenland. Having eaten breakfast, we went to Jorge's disembarkation talk, ate lunch, and then went to the top deck to watch the water gush past the ship. We thought of contingency plan of what to do if one of us fell in the water. Then we watched something called Marriage game where three couples were asked same question and see if they come up with same answer. Surprisingly one of that couple got married on the same cruise in the beginning days. Mitesh had a lot of fun laughing at married couples including us. Surprisingly there was a cellphone tower on the ship to make sure we keep communicating with our loved ones while paying roaming charges. We then decided to soak in the sun and jot down all the keywords for our vacation so that we can blog about it later (and we were too lazy to bring my laptop from our room, so we made good use of Mitesh's b'berry). In the evening we went to one of the 3 or so salt-water pools and decided to re-live our younger days splashing and jumping in water. We ate dinner, along with a bottle of sparkling wine, true to our tradition, and said goodbye to the nice asian-american couple. Then we sat on the Casino bar for the farewell "party" not knowing that it would be one of the longest nights on board for us (ask Mitesh for details ... somehow he's managed to remember after the cruise).

A lot of people have qualms about going on cruises saying that they are not very adventurous. To be honest, one can make it as fun and adventurous as one wants. We had some of the very best times on the ship and doing our activities on shore. Bottom line, if you haven't done cruising, it's time to do one....

booked a cruise

After almost an year of contemplation and a failed effort to go cruising, we finally did it ! No no, I am not talking about actually doing a cruise but rather booking it... One can say that the last time also we booked it but never managed to finish it, but this time there is an extra incentive for us to go, we are not the only ones going :-)

To summarize the saga of our cruise, we booked a Caribbean cruise last October.... so far so good... but then I decided to be a bit lazy about my visa and finally applied for a British visa about 2 weeks before the cruise started. Thanks to the December holiday seasons, the damn Brits decided to be lazy and instead of processing the application within a day or 2 just like the last time when I applied for a transit visa, they decided to take it easy.... but wait, that's not the worst part... the worst part was that I did not need a visa since Grand Cayman doesn't need a visa for cruise passengers !!! Dejected, we decided to go to Miami anyways and explore the southernmost corner of continental US. I would say that I was definitely dejected but pretty excited to see Miami/Key West.

Thanks to Carnival, we even managed to salvage most of our cruise money which we ended up putting in this Canada/New England cruise which is supposed to start in about 9 days !! Yipppeee !!!

More details to come later.......

theory of relativity....

When I was a kid, I remember the days would go by way too slowly.  I always felt like the next holiday was too far away and that New Year's celebrations were light years apart.  As I've gotten older, the years seem to just pass me by.  This last year has sped by quickly, that I feel like I barely experienced it.  We got married, went to India for Gigs' (Divya's) wedding, started law school, and am almost finished with my first year.  Varun changed jobs last May and now the company he's at filed for bankruptcy, so he'll probably change again.  Phew!

These days life is busy with writing thank you cards (please forgive us for the delay!), studying for exams, and both of us making sure we eat something yummy every day!

Tina

Miami trip

Mourning over the failure of not getting my passport over on time and not being able to take our cruise, we decided to go to Florida anyways.... and looking back, I think that the trip was worth it.... every penny of it....

We got to Reagan on Friday, Jan 2nd, more than an hour early anticipating rush hour Friday traffic. When we got there, we came to know that the Miami AA flight one hour before ours had not left yet- thanks to T's on the foot thinking, we immediately went to the gate and asked the dude if there were any seats left in the flight. The flight was not full and we got a seat. We reached Miami an hour earlier as anticipated. We decided to take a cab from the airport to South Beach. The ride was supposedly about 20-25 min long. We mistakingly thought that the cab fare should be around $22, but it came out to be a flat rate of around $32.... We started a nice chat with the cab driver who happily told us about things to do in the area, showed us the downtown as we were passing by, the arts center, the AA arena etc... we asked him where to eat and we were told of a nice Mexican place in South Beach, Lime.

We arrived at our hotel, the Albion (wasn't too sure how good or bad it will turn out to be). Seemed like a pretty decent hotel for the price we paid. The location was the key, we were in the middle of the South Beach hotspot of food and night clubs- Lincoln Road area. Unable to decide where to eat, we ended up with the only choice we had - Lime, and we don't regret it. It was one of the best Mexican food we have had and that too very cheap yet healthy. We spent the rest of the night just wandering around in the area, getting familiar and to be honest just enjoying the weather !

On Saturday, our first task was to call Carnival and try to figure out a way to get a refund from them or book a future cruise, both of which failed. We had to contend with advice from Carnival people to just write them a letter and hope that they will take pity on us.... It's amazing how rigid systems are that sometimes you have no control over them.... Anyways, finally we ate breakfast (I think at Einstein's) and proceeded to our next hotel (since we didn't book 2 nights at the Albion) Dorcester which was just a few blocks away from the Albion. This was another "ok" hotel, a bit more pricey than the Albion, same "Art Decco" style... We decided to take it easy that day too, just relaxing, recovering from the shock of not going for the Cruise... At night, we thought of going to the Aventura mall.. that didn't prove very well as it proved to be a very long ride and in the end we decided to cut it short, took the bus and got back....

Come Sunday, we woke up bright and early, went checked out of hotel and went for breakfast at a nearby cafe, Dolce Vita. We ate waffles and omelette (the lady wasn't very intelligent, gave us bacon in omelette, we had to get it changed). Following that, we went to Enterprise car rental to pick up our rental cars. We ended up waiting for almost an hour and a half since they had run out of cars... Anyways, we picked up our Accord and soon we were on our way to Jungle Island. We had fun over there, especially with the "ligers" and the animal show with the little tiger cubs and monkeys... Just as we were done, it was close to 3:30 and even though we wanted to go to Villa Vizcaya we couldn't as it closes at 4 PM. We decided to start looking for hotels for the night and expecting to see the Everglades the next day, we thought of finding hotels near the Everglades. After a couple of hours of search, other than the Mikosukee hotel, we couldn't find anything and ended up in a La Quinta in Hialeh. We ate yummy burritos (from the grovery store) late at night, watched TV and went to sleep.

Monday, we ate breakfast at the hotel, and started our long drive towards the Everglades. We got there and decided to take the trolley tour as we were not too enthusiastic of meeting our dear friends, Alligators, all too much :-) The tour ended up being one of the very good things we had done on the trip, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We definitely wouldn't have covered so much by ourselves in such a short period. A must see for everyone I think !

We started our drive towards, Key Largo and reached at our hotel, Ramada around 8 PM. It was a nice hotel and the Jacuzzi (which we didn't ask for) just made our day ! We ate dinner at a (crappy) restaurant/bar (Coconut Grill, I think) , came back, watched TV and went to bed...

Tuesday- we started driving towards Key West. As expected it was a reallllllllly pretty drive with vast open skies, colorful waters and the long pleasant drive..... We stopped on the way once to take photos on one of the small Keys. We reached Key West in the afternoon (around 3'ish) and checked in our B&B (Avalon). This was one of the modestly priced B&B's in the overpriced Key West.... definitely not the best B&B you will ever find, but pretty decent. The innkeeper was a nice lady with a British accent and quite helpful.... She told us about the Sunset cruise and advised us to buy the Adventure Day pass (which comes with a free Sunset cruise). We bought it thinking that it would be a good test and will help us figure out if T would be able to make it to the long trip for the day adventure on the boat. We also bought Dramamine and boarded the boat. The trip went ok and we reasonably enjoyed it. T had taken Dramamine half and hour before the cruise, and we came back happily from the cruise and went to a nice almost vegetarian restaurant (). Food was ok, but service was not good. We headed out, with T feeling a bit dizzy.... almost fainting... thanks to a nice couple walking by who bought some ice from the pizza place closeby.... Not sure what was the cause, may be the Dramamine, may be the food...

Wednesday, was the fun day.... hmm.... may be too much fun... having canceled the day adventure, we decided to Jet Ski... we bought tickets for the 4 PM tour of the islands, ate lunch and went to our room to relax a bit before the show began.... around 3:30 we reached the resort from where the cruise began... we had to wait for about 40 min as the tour which left before us were a bit late.... anyways, finally the tour guide came, gave us a brief introduction (hmmm... remember the thing about grass getting stuck in the jet ski!) we boarded our skiis and out we were ! after getting into the sea for about 7 miles, suddenly my ski wouldn't move... and as I was beginning to realize that the worst had come true.... we couldn't believe our eyes... the skies were turning dark.... with clouds.. and here comes the rain.... a heavy downpour... and us waiting for the tour guide to come save us... for miles we couldn't see anything but water and dark clouds.... with no sense of direction whatsoever, it was perhaps one of the more scary parts of the trip :-)

By the time the tour was complete, we were scared shitless and just glad to be back....

We packed up next afternoon and soon were on our way back to Miami... we had booked a room at the airport La Quinta.... and I can definitely say that I won't ever book another hotel near an airport.... it was pretty bad with no fridge, ok service and a location which litererally makes you completely inaccessible..... On friday, just before returning the car, we managed to eat breakfast and go on a whirlwind tour of Key Biscayne.....

We relaxed that evening.... had a six pack, ate chips, watched TV and went to bed...

The trip will always remain in our memory, not just because it was a cruise gone bad... but because we actually enjoyed it.... our style....