A visit to the Niagara

After a day's rest to get over jetlag, we (Naseeb, her mom and sis) were off to the Niagara falls on a bus tour. Many long hours and a couple of breaks later, we reached thousand islands. Actually, the ride is quite monotonous and boring, especially if you are not driving or navigating. Thousand islands is a region in Lake Ontario where there are more than thousand islands and we were told that these are owned by American and Canadian individuals. Some of these have been gifted to them. Isn't that cool? Back home in India, people do own islands, but it is seasonal, especially monsoon season.

Now, at this point in the trip, I did a Lavanya act after a long time. I went to buy some drinking water in a shop across the dock and missed the boat which was going to show us the 1000+ islands. I had no clue about the date or time; blame it on jetlag. By the time the boat arrived, Naseeb got us icecream and we took some 'rocking' pictures of boat houses. I hope you will be able to make out the rocking of the boats in this picture :)
Moving on, we reached Niagara city in the night. After seeing the falls in the night, I realized that the long ride was really worth it. The falls seemed mystical in all those colorful lights. We enjoyed watching the American falls and the Horse shoe falls in the backdrop of nicely lit buildings in Ontario on the Canadian side.
Even as I was taking pictures of the falls, I couldn't believe it was real; I couldn't believe I had come all the way from Bangalore, India and standing close to the beautiful Niagara. The best was yet to come though.
Next morning, we were to take the maid of the mist, a boat trip close to both the American and the Horse Shoe falls.
As a build up to watching the falls, we watched a movie about how the Niagara was 'discovered' and all the daring feats attempted and acheived at the falls. There were not many people around, could be because it was already end of summer, so we quickly reached the Maid of the Mist boat, donned in blue ponchos.

As we neared the falls, there was a mad rush to take pictures, and I was part of it too. But I did take a moment or two to just watch the crystal clear water fall gracefully and powerfully over the cliff.

It was all over in a flash.. I somehow wasn't satisfied with the duration.. that is the attraction of water, for that matter anything that nature offers.

It was time to go back.. I gave away the camera and stood on the observation tower for a few minutes to take in as much of the Niagara as possible... just me and the falls, for some time.

US Vacation Day 1

Had a comfortable flight to Boston, the land of Universities.

Weather is bright and sunny. Took a nice long walk in this pretty little place called Waltham. Had heard about the cars in US but still cudn't stop being surprised by the many number of cars. Also getting used to the vehicles on the right hand side of the road.

As I was walking on the pavements, saw something strange. Huge trees were being used as electric poles. Never expected that here in US where everything is metal and man-made, or atleast I had thought so.

Looking forward for more such pleasant surprises.

Thank you Abhinav, you have made us proud

Today, there will not be any scope for negativism, to honour Abhinav Bindra's words. Even the fact that India did not even qualify for hockey in Olympics where we once ruled, will be pardoned.
By winning India's first ever individual gold, Abhinav has brought hope for crores of Indians.

When I first heard about this, I did not believe it, it was too good to be true. This is what I call truly 'breaking news'.
It was such a pleasure to watch the Indian flag go up while the national anthem was being played, just a few days before the 62nd Independence Day. And what composure and calmness after acheiving such a feat.

Abhinav, you have made us proud, you have united us, you have brought a lot of joy and cheer.

I hope this is just the beginning for India.

My birthday gift

Today as I complete another year of existence, I took my first baby step in blog world. I had heard about and read many blogs but never felt I needed to blog myself.. when finally I realized I was missing out on all the fun. Now here I am, gifting myself a blog of my own.

Wish me luck.. Wish me that I travel more so I can blog about it. Wish me that I meet interesting people whom I can write about. Wish me that I get crazy ideas which I can share and validate with you all.

I would like to thank a few people for making this blog possible (list is not in any particular order). Aravind for all the tech support, Thej for inspiring me to blog, Sri for financial support (effective when I eventually move to my domain) and last but not least, Vize and Naseeb for moral support for everything that I do.