My 2 months of US trip has come to an end, In another 6 hrs I’ll be on my way back to India, I should say that it was a pleasant trip, though some times I felt little bored as I was staying alone and couldn’t travel much places because of the logistic constraints still I enjoyed the stay here. One thing I should say that you cant expect to save any thing big :) , So if one has that idea then please drop that, then you can spend a nice time !!
After coming back from Sandy (UTAH) and spending a week at South Carolina I thought I would never get a chance to visit any new places. Here in east coast that too in this SC, NC, VA etc you are kind of stuck if you don’t have a car, then we got a long week end (23rd – 25th May) and still I didn’t had any plans for myself, All of a sudden plan for Niagara came up and till the last day things were not sure, Finally we (Anil, Lakshmi(Anil’s wife),Cute Adithi(Naani),Shivaji and myself) started our trip to Niagara (in Toyota RAV4 ) on Friday evening at 5 PM
Though I have traveled a bit already but this trip is so unique for me, In all my previous trips most of the time local travel will be in trains, buses or in cabs so I didn’t really got a chance to know lot many things, This time I got a chance to know the road rules as I was commuting daily in the car with my colleagues, The roads are so good in US, Every thing is well planned here, each state has its own set of road rules, we have separate area for everything, In fact Its a nice concept, For example if you want to take rest/fill fuel/take food then you have to leave the main road and take a separate road ,which will take you to the respective places, Those are called as “Exits” here, Again you can join back the main road. Even for getting into a town then you have an “Exit”, it’s the same concept
Oops!! I’m off the track, lets come back to the trip, yes we covered 4 states (North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania) to reach New York State (Buffalo) where Niagara falls is located ,It was an amazing night drive, Speed limits were relaxed (70MPH) in Virginia and West Virginia ,so Anil(my colleague)was in full form :-)
We took a room in a hotel near a place called Blasdell, there we slept for some time and started to Niagara Falls, It was a 1hr drive, Its must see place in US, at least once. Actually there are 3 falls there and Majority of the falls (Horse Shoe falls) lie in the Canadian Side, Other two (American Falls, Bridal Veil falls) lies in the American Side. Most of the people say that we can have a very good view of Horse Shoe from Canadian side but still it doesn’t matter, still you can have a good time. There was a small Cruz kind in which we had a close look at all the three falls, it was a nice experience
To top it all, we got a chance to experience real force of Niagara Falls (Cave of the Winds), we literally got drenched, by the time we came out of the falls it was almost night and completely exhausted. Had a view of Niagara with lightings in the night time then we managed to find an Indian restaurant with Buffet. Had good supper then next day headed towards Pittsburgh (Sri Venkateswara Temple).It’s a very famous temple in US and you get very good Sambar/Curd rice there in the lunch :)
On the way back, got a chance to take a glimpse of Pittsburgh –city of bridges, We continued our drive back to SC, Again the early morning drive was amazing with full of fog, for some time it was very tough to drive as nothing was clearly visible, Me and Shivaji (colleague) enjoyed the drive, Niagara trip ended with a good sleep at Anil’s Place
Let me also share the food/life style which I observed here in US. Whatever people drink it will be in huge big mugs/cups, In the morning by default you can find most of the people with coffee mugs, then coming to water/cola’s 50% of the cup filled with ice cubes and rest the respective content,Coming to Restaurant apart from fast food outlets like Sub way,MacDy,KFC we can also find lot of Mexican restaurants around
There are quiet a variety of foods available but all have the same fatty stuff though :-)
These are some of the things which I tasted (Waffle,Nachos Fajita, Chicken Fajita, Burrito, Tortilla, Bagels) People take more quantity in Dinner than lunch, even the quantity and the price of the dish will be more than lunch dishes, This is some thing unique which I observed here, but all the hotels will have peak rush between 6 -7 :30 ,People take early dinner, they go to bed early and start the work early in the morning, that’s one good thing here, Even at 8 Am you can find the parking lots almost filled and at 4 pm on Friday the contrary :-)
That's it !! I think this is the longest blog I ever wrote in my life, just thought to type down all that I experienced and observed here
All This was possible because of my lovable colleagues,who helped me a lot and made my stay a memorable and pleasant one.Special Thanks to Anil/Sudhakar/Shivaji/Kishan and all my team members
P.S : All the above are my personal views/observations, there is no intention to hurt any one and some of the above said may not be completely right, It’s just my perspective and understanding
Hope I'll get another chance to come back and explore this country more :),Will be back with some other stuff after reaching India,Ciao !!
