New York Trip: December 31, 2005
Am currently in Austin... nothing interesting to write about, so I thought may be I should go back to my NY trip.
Dec 31, 2005: Woke up around 7 AM. Others were sleeping. Made a call to India. Grabbed a quick cup of tea at Jose’s place (I made that tea :-)). Went to Bryant Park for ice-skating with Varma, Bodha and a bunch of other Lehman folks. Putting on those ice skating boots was a pain. And the skating ring was packed with people. I would say over 100 people. Some could do it pretty well; infact oftentimes they would get into a dance (something like what you see in movies). I was reasonably ok on the skates. Dint fall even once. Infact by the end of it, I was coaching my friends on how to skate :-) - some things just come naturally to people!!
Post skating, we walked out on the streets of New York – it was very cold. Along the way, we stopped by at a store, which sold real cheap stuff – and I bought a $2 NY cap, another $4 batteries for my camera. The cap lasted exactly two streets. I took it off for a picture in front of the empire state building, only to lose it (comeone man, wearing a cap is not cool ;-)). I mean, I dint realize when the cap fell off my hand. And this wasn’t the first time this happened with me in NY. Once, on the first day, while I was waiting for Jose, I dropped one glove. Thankfully, someone was kind enough to pick it up and put it on the telephone booth, which Jose located. Anyways, even the batteries dint last for more than 10 pictures - got fake stuff.
We had lunch in some south Indian place, and then picked up tickets for the standup comedy show. Late afternoon was again spent walking around. Pankaj took me to the WTC site. They are trying to construct something there. It is inspiring to see that the US has moved on after 9/11. Looking around the place one would never figure that there had been massive destruction around the place – absolutely no remains – well almost.
Evening was good. Gotham’s stand up comedy show was good. There were three artists. An interesting joke: the world calls football by that name, but Americans – they call it soccer. Why soccer – well, coz that’s what they call anything that is dominated by someone else… ‘sucker’!! Another good one was about Germans – England and Germany were playing this world cup game. England was losing, and the German fans cheering loud. Then the English fans said – ‘those that won the war stand up’... and a section of the English crowd would stand up… and they form a Mexican wave this ways. There were jokes that we understood while others we dint. We laughed heartily on the ones that we did… and those that we missed… we laughed even more :-).
The show got over around 10. We then went to this Kathi roll place for a quick dinner. (Imagine, I am off 15000 miles from home to have Kathi roll in foreign land!!). Around 11 we went to this pub which had a live band. That was fun. We sat right in front of them – and requested songs, once in a while – and the group obliged. At midnight, I went out to make a couple of calls. Had to keep this wishing business short coz was calling from a friends phone. Now the mobile telephony in the US stands nowhere compared to that of India. India is damn cheap. Here, I pay for incoming calls as well… and a bloody 25 cents a minutes – high by any standards. The billing is on minutes used – incoming or outgoing. Anyways, after making calls etc, was standing out with Bodha and this realllllllllllly pretty and unbeleivably hot girl comes over to me and says – ‘hey, your hat looks better than mine’; ‘its yours then’, I replied.
We walked the streets of NY till around 2-2:30. Thereafter, I went to Pankaj’s place. Now that was very nice of him. He requested me to come over to his place. Once there, he made efforts to make me feel comfortable – I wonder desh mein itni hospitality koi dikhaata hoga! I guess, it’s nice to be back with old friends – especially from back home. Pankaj’s apartment was really well done. He had all the gadgets one can think of. His table had 6 remote controls – I dint bother to find out which one is for what – but we listened to some good Hindi music… and dozed off around 4:30.
...
Dec 31, 2005: Woke up around 7 AM. Others were sleeping. Made a call to India. Grabbed a quick cup of tea at Jose’s place (I made that tea :-)). Went to Bryant Park for ice-skating with Varma, Bodha and a bunch of other Lehman folks. Putting on those ice skating boots was a pain. And the skating ring was packed with people. I would say over 100 people. Some could do it pretty well; infact oftentimes they would get into a dance (something like what you see in movies). I was reasonably ok on the skates. Dint fall even once. Infact by the end of it, I was coaching my friends on how to skate :-) - some things just come naturally to people!!
Post skating, we walked out on the streets of New York – it was very cold. Along the way, we stopped by at a store, which sold real cheap stuff – and I bought a $2 NY cap, another $4 batteries for my camera. The cap lasted exactly two streets. I took it off for a picture in front of the empire state building, only to lose it (comeone man, wearing a cap is not cool ;-)). I mean, I dint realize when the cap fell off my hand. And this wasn’t the first time this happened with me in NY. Once, on the first day, while I was waiting for Jose, I dropped one glove. Thankfully, someone was kind enough to pick it up and put it on the telephone booth, which Jose located. Anyways, even the batteries dint last for more than 10 pictures - got fake stuff.
We had lunch in some south Indian place, and then picked up tickets for the standup comedy show. Late afternoon was again spent walking around. Pankaj took me to the WTC site. They are trying to construct something there. It is inspiring to see that the US has moved on after 9/11. Looking around the place one would never figure that there had been massive destruction around the place – absolutely no remains – well almost.
Evening was good. Gotham’s stand up comedy show was good. There were three artists. An interesting joke: the world calls football by that name, but Americans – they call it soccer. Why soccer – well, coz that’s what they call anything that is dominated by someone else… ‘sucker’!! Another good one was about Germans – England and Germany were playing this world cup game. England was losing, and the German fans cheering loud. Then the English fans said – ‘those that won the war stand up’... and a section of the English crowd would stand up… and they form a Mexican wave this ways. There were jokes that we understood while others we dint. We laughed heartily on the ones that we did… and those that we missed… we laughed even more :-).
The show got over around 10. We then went to this Kathi roll place for a quick dinner. (Imagine, I am off 15000 miles from home to have Kathi roll in foreign land!!). Around 11 we went to this pub which had a live band. That was fun. We sat right in front of them – and requested songs, once in a while – and the group obliged. At midnight, I went out to make a couple of calls. Had to keep this wishing business short coz was calling from a friends phone. Now the mobile telephony in the US stands nowhere compared to that of India. India is damn cheap. Here, I pay for incoming calls as well… and a bloody 25 cents a minutes – high by any standards. The billing is on minutes used – incoming or outgoing. Anyways, after making calls etc, was standing out with Bodha and this realllllllllllly pretty and unbeleivably hot girl comes over to me and says – ‘hey, your hat looks better than mine’; ‘its yours then’, I replied.
We walked the streets of NY till around 2-2:30. Thereafter, I went to Pankaj’s place. Now that was very nice of him. He requested me to come over to his place. Once there, he made efforts to make me feel comfortable – I wonder desh mein itni hospitality koi dikhaata hoga! I guess, it’s nice to be back with old friends – especially from back home. Pankaj’s apartment was really well done. He had all the gadgets one can think of. His table had 6 remote controls – I dint bother to find out which one is for what – but we listened to some good Hindi music… and dozed off around 4:30.
...
posted by Animesh Kumar at Saturday, January 14, 2006
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