Once you start working, vacations are like elixirs that recharge you. I never knew it until I took one myself, and it felt really really good that it took me almost 2 days to get back to full capacity working.
My vacation started at LA where I reached on Friday, Sep 25, and I dropped into my juniors' place. It will be unfair if I don't talk about my juniors at UCLA. They are one of the coolest fun loving people I have ever seen. Don't be mislead, every one of them is a genius in their own field. It all started with a trip to Grand Canyon in March 2009 when I camped with these guys for 3 days - a big story by itself. So back to my vacation now.. I drop there, and every one of them is in one house doing their usual chit-chat, and making fun of others. I had a really long night playing cards, and catching up with people.
Sep 26 was a very exciting day which started with Swami's panneer curry and jeera rice. The idea of karting came up, and since Swami, Tushar and I had done karting with K1Speed in Seattle, we decided to take these guys to K1Speed in Torrence, Los Angeles. We were 11 people, and everyone had so much fun in one round of 16 laps that we decided to go for another slot which the karting guys opened for us at 11:30pm even though they close by 11pm. The 2nd round was thrilling since people picked up the tricks of the track, and were very competitive. Quite a few of us were amazed at how the girls really showed some great racing spirit.
Day 2 at LA (Sep 27) started with lots of confusion whether to go to Santa Barbara or somewhere closer to LA. We finally decided to make it to Lake Arrowhead which was north east of LA. Nothing unusual about the lake, but all of us had good times chatting, doing some chocolate tasting, and wine tasting. Guys were so into my DSLR that they clicked almost a gig of photos there.
I met Priya who has recently joined UCLA for her PhD after finishing her MS from Alabama. She is from Tamil Nadu, and obviously the usual enthusiasm of seeing tamil speaking people got us into a lot of chatting right from Friday night. Priya is so full of cheer, enthusiasm, and positive energy flowing around her all the time. By the end of day 2 in LA, Priya and I felt really comfortable with each other, and became really close friends that she almost made me feel like I should have know her before. At lake arrowhead she let me click a picture of her which is one of my best people shots that I have taken:
Sep 28 to Oct 1 was fully about paper work at UCLA which was why I was in LA in the first place :) On October 1, I flew to New Jersey where I met Karthik, my cousin, after a long gap of 2 years.
October 2 started early since we had to do the 6 hour drive to Niagara Falls. It gave us enough time to catch up with each others' lives. By the time we reached Niagara it started to rain, and it never stopped for the whole day. Our tour at Niagara stared with Maid of the Mist which was really cool, and by the time we finished it both of us were half wet. We then went to cave of the winds where we dared to not wear the head mask, and take a shower in the fierce American Falls. Though we really could not see a thing straight up because of the shear force of the waterfall, we went into the pounding water thrice. By the time we came out of it, both of us were soaking wet, and it started to really get cold. We ran to the hotel, took some rest, and came back to click some pictures in the night as the clouds cleared a bit.
Clearly, Canada is where you should be to view the Niagara Falls. Views from the US were not at all good since we were right at the top of the falls, and not the front. Night lighting was good. We waited and waited for the fireworks to start by 10pm, and half way through the 10 min firework it started to rain. Could not get any better than this. I managed to click some shots, and was really happy with a few.
October 3 started way too early with phone calls pouring in at 12am, yes at night, since it was my birthday. I could hardly get any sleep, and it was morning already. We had to start off early so that we could get some pictures clicked under sun light, and head back to NJ.
On our way, we decided to drop by Corning Museum of Glass where we sat through a glass making demo where they made a decorative vase. It was good to see how things shape up, and work.
October 4, was my last day of vacation. We decide to keep to relaxed. I met with Arun, one of Karthik's friends, and Vatsa, my friend from under grad. We went to Anjappar restaurant where I had the best Indian food in US. We were so excited that we ordered more than we could eat.
My flight back to Hillsboro felt really long with thoughts about the wonderful vacation running in my head.
P.S.: Photos in my blog link to my picasaweb album where I have the entire photo collection.
