My experiments with the blog

For the past few months I have been thinking of getting back to my blog and start writing again but finding it difficult - may be I was short of ideas to write about or was just lazy, hmmmmm latter seems more likely to be true!! Anyways, so I was thinking what to scribble about then I thought I really have not written much about anything in last couple of years so why not write how my last couple of years went - not a bad idea!

One thing that consistently happened in last 2 years was travel - whether I liked it or not, I am not sure about it but it gave me an opportunity to see new things, places, meet different people and see different cultures. It all started from my work - one of the projects and I consider myself fortunate to be part of, required traveling to various sites and I made use of my work travel to combine with some fun trips. So below are the places that I traveled:

In early 2011, it started with a visit to USA's Motor city, Detroit - my colleague and myself planned to make a road trip from Houston to Detroit which we covered in 2 days and 2 nights. On 2nd day (April 2nd) while on the way to Detroit, India won their 2nd Cricket World Cup under the captaincy of M.S.Dhoni. It was funny that while we were driving we were also checking the scores and when we found out that India is going to win we started looking for a place where we can stop, open a laptop, get a wi-fi and watch the final moments. Luckily we found a McDonald, yes of all the places McDonald with a free wi-fi, and were able to see the final historic moments. On the way we stopped in Cincinnati - went to German neighborhood in downtown and had a good time.

While I was in Detroit, got a call to attend one of the training sessions in Bangkok, Thailand and of course I didn't say no. While in Detroit submitted my documents for VISA, then took a flight back to Houston, packed my bags and next thing I know I was in Bangkok. More than 12% of country's population lives in Bangkok so yeah it's pretty crowded but a fun place to be at - and boy what fun I had in Bangkok apart from training sessions!! I had planned the trip in a way that once I finish the training workshop, dad will come and join me from India but thank god to Air India pilots who just one day before my dad's flight went on strike and he couldn't come. Sad - isn't it.....

Time to come back to US, next destination was Chicago just after couple of weeks I came back from Bangkok. I liked the city so much that I had almost thought of moving there but then the thought of extreme cold weather and wind chill made me decide otherwise. So spent 3-4 weeks in Chicago and next thing I know I had to be in India for few months - for how many months, not knows but at least 3-4 months. So came back to Houston, mustered all my apartment stuff and moved it to Storage. Took a flight and I am in Chandigarh now!!

In India my responsibility was to look after the operations in 2 primary sites (one located in Pune and other in Chennai) and help stabilize it. So spent few days at home before I began my stint and then went to Pune for couple of weeks - folks there were kind enough to take me to Khandala which was a fun ride!! From there flew to Chennai where I spent good two and half months. While I was in there, I visited Pondicherry (a Union Territory, was a French colony and place where famous Sri Aurobindo Ashram is located) and Mahabalipuram. Also got a chance to catch up with one of old engineering college friends who was doing MBA from Great Lakes Institute of Management. In between two a few days off and decided to make a road trip with my bother who lives in Bangalore and his friend. So took an overnight bus ride to Bangalore and from there made a road trip to Mysore (famous city ruled by Hyder Ali & Tipu Sultan in 18th century), Ooty (real name is Udhagamandalam or also referred as Ootacamund) , Kodaikanal (which in Tamil language means 'the gift of the forest' and referred to as 'The Princess of Hill Stations') and then back to Bangalore. Very serene places and close to nature - there are so many places in India only which I have not even seen half of it but it's in my bucket list!! Anyways after finishing my stay in Chennai, went back home to Mohali for 3-4 days and then flew back to US. During this long stay in Chennai, I really thank one of my very good old friends, Hitesh and his wife who helped me in settling down and providing support when I had just arrived to this new place. They were kind enough to let me stay at their place for close to month and bear me so thanks once again!!

Wow, this is becoming a long write up and I thought I didn't have enough to write about - well before it becomes too boring to read through I will try to quickly wrap up rest of my visits. Before even I had arrived to US, it was planned that within a day I had to be in Miami for a week and Indianapolis for couple of days. Miami is one of those cities where I would like to visit every once in a while - it's a party city and so much to do around. Went to the downtown - that's pretty much for this trip in Miami. After all this travel it was wedding time - oh, not mine but couple of my friends, one from work and other my dear old ("langotia") friend - Aman. In November went to L.A. for couple of days to attend my colleague's wedding and then in December went to the Bay Area, San Francisco to serve as the best man for my dearest friend's wedding. Although I knew very little about the best man concept but enjoyed standing next to the wedding guy all the time and getting due attention :) No complains. So with this 2011 ends - oh wait, for the new year celebration I got together with few friends and drove to Austin to get wild and welcome the new year 2012. Rest in Part II....laters.