New York

Wooh!..boy did I have an eventful week! I had loads of work over the week but I managed to have plenty of fun over the weekend! It was President's Day on Monday, hence, we had a day off. With the long weekend in front of us, we decided to go for some sightseeing (finally!). 

Plans for New York were already under way since last week. Although there was no news from the guys for the initial part of the week...we finally got together on Thursday over beer and decided to go ahead as planned. 

New York was really fun. Although it wasn't the perfect weather to roam around..but coming from Delhi..we are pretty used to roaming around in lousy weather. So, regardless of the bad weather we ventured towards Princeton Junction in our cab. The weather in Princeton was pretty good..it was sunny with mild breeze. However New York welcomed us with cloudy skies and wind speeds of 30 mph - 60 mph! (it was on display..am not kidding!). Anyways, we boarded the metro towards South Ferry Island from Penn Station..or at least we thought we did. We actually went the opposite way. We realized this at the next station but we were not quick enough in getting down. So, we had to go 1 more station in the wrong direction. Unlike the awesome Delhi Metro, the New York Metro is old and noisy. When we got off the next station, there was no bloody crossover!! We sought the help of the station master and asked him what could be done. Being an Indian, he pitied on us and let us through the emergency exit and told us to get off at the next station which had a crossover. Going 3 stations in the wrong direction is certainly not a perfect start for a trip but oh well..wat can you do? 

We finally ended up going in the correct direction and reached South Ferry Island by 10 a.m. We walked a bit for the ferry towards our first stop - The Statue of Liberty. Being very miserly ppl, we dint go for the audio tour and just went there to "see" it. The Statue of Liberty was pretty cool..but what was better was the ferry ride.

Next up, we went to see the WTC site. We went walking this time, since it was nearby. New York streets are pretty cool..narrow roads with HUGE skyscrapers. In fact they are soo huge, it barely gets any sunlight. On the way, there was the NY Stock Exchange..something which the others were very excited about. I dint know what the fuss was..it was just a building and nothing else! Anyways, the WTC site was huge. I cant imagine how it must have been when the towers came down. We also went to the WTC memorial where they kept all the remnants of the tragedy. Some ppl were soo emotional that they were crying seeing the videos on the giant screen.

Anyways, we stopped for lunch at Subway - the one place I dint want to eat! I wanted to have hot dogs from the street. But as usual, vegetarians always spoil the party :) . After lunch, we boarded the train for 42 Street Bryant Park. The Empire State Building and Times Square was on our agenda. It was 3 p.m by the time we reached there. We stopped at some malls on the way. I bought an awesome Wolverine action figure for myself. They had Batman too, but it was funny looking. This one is really mean! Anyways, after some shopping we went to see the Empire State Building. Here too, we dint go in...we just "saw" it. Oooh .. imagine all the money we saved right!?! It was pathetic. I mean, nobody was interested in going up!! And it pissed me off a li'l. I dint see the logic behind just seeing the building from the outside. 

But anyways, it was getting dark already and the weather was becoming even worse. It was sooo cold and the winds were literally making our hands and faces numb. But we walked towards Times Square nevertheless. And it was awesome! The entire place was lit up and the atmosphere was pretty exciting. Since there was very li'l traffic there, roaming around was pretty fun. We walked around the place before finally going to TGIF for some dinner. We had to wait for like 20 minutes inside before we could get to our seats. We were cold and hungry and the sight of hot food was making things difficult to handle (the waitresses however, made it a li'l better as far as the temperature was concerned). We were finally escorted to our seats. We had a couple of beers and relaxed our aching feet. We dint realize we were this tired..but the moment we sat down, we dint want to get up. Anyways, after a nice dinner, we headed back. Everyone was tired and slept most of the way back to Princeton. We all reached  back at around 11...and went straight to bed. The trip was nice..hopefully there is more in store for us in the U.S.