U. S of A!!

Before the idea of covering my US experience becomes just a thought on the blog... I better get down to putting a post about it ;)

So here I go...

Well the journey started in my mind the minute I got the Visa stamped on my passport... After months of speculation of will I get the visa or not...I moved to how many places can I cover..how long etc...

Since my sister was staying in St Louis, it had to most obviously be my base point..

I sorted my plans into “must visits” and could visit ;)

Must visits were frozen.. did some research and fixed on some tours for the rest of the places

Week one was meant to be at San Diego.... trouble was I was to reach St Louis after a loooooooong journey and leave immediately the evening I reach on another 5 hr flight to San Diego... Now my worry was not the travel.. It was the jet lag... if I was to be jet lagged in San Diego. I can’t enjoy one bit...thankfully I slept through my flights to St Louis and I was not one bit jet lagged... phew... I wanted so to maximize on the San Diego trip ;)

So yippee... San Diego it was.. Rutu had the plan for the 5 days there all figured out.. Such a sweetheart... so except for enjoying moi self, I had nothing more to do ;)

Day 1 was Sea World..., sea world is a huge aquatic park... and the best out here.. is "Shamu" the whale ... Shamu reminded me of the song "Will you be there" by Michael Jackson in Free Willy..

apart from Shamu of course there were many seals, otters, polar bears, dolphins , starfish ...name it and it was there..

After hazaar coaxing from rutu... I touched.. yes.. I did J.. a sting ray (felt yuck!) and a dolphin...(which was ohhhhhh so beautiful:) and ooops I forgot a starfish....(it felt lifeless like a stone..)

And trust me you would never know how a day goes by when ur in Sea world..I could have spent the day just feeding the dolphins... :)

So after a rather tiring and fun day 1.. day two was general relaxing and catching up on the years of gupshup between me n Rutu...(words cant explain how long we can talk to each other ;)

Well we did a little veggie barbecue in the afternoon and then drove to a place called Glider port (its a point from where people do some gliding) . No gliding for me..only glider watching ;)

And then drove to La Jolla Cove (pronounced. .La-Ho-ya) ..rutu if ur reading this I need a pat on my back for pronouncing it correctly :)

San Diego being reeeeealy close to Mexico has that whiff of Mexico in the names :)

Well Day 3 was......Universal studios Los Angeles...
We took a train ride to LA. This was my first public transportation experience in the US..
About half an hour of the 2 hour ride was along the fine beaches and coastline... the place was simply breathtaking... I wish the Konkan coast was made as beautiful in India.

Universal studios, the place which gives us some of the biggest blockbusters.. where the lights camera and action happened...I had never seen a studio before and I had in mind a small set up where I thought I'd see some sets being made and pulled apart...but I was in for a surprise...

Universal studios was more like a city.. with escalators and buses and trams to reach places..They had also taken great effort in seeing that it is a tourist attraction and many things are made for the tours of the studio..the first was of course to do there was to go through the studio experience tour.. (pssst. Sit on the left side of the bus to get the best of the tour)
Well the tour is like a snapshot tour of various key thrills and works of the great studio..One has to experience it to know what it is...

After that tour..using the map and the timings of the various shows...we tried to maximize and do as much.. Trust me.. we did a pretty good job.. I think I almost covered every show in the studio..
A roller coaster ride through the sets of Mummy returns....whoa..was the most scariest for me in the studios.. was shaking for a while even after I was out of the ride ;)

A day well spent..and a wonderful ride back through the evening view of the ocean side ..

Woke up late the next day and went close by to a place called Point Loma. On a clear day one can actually see Mexico from Point Loma. This place has a lighthouse and is famous for a national monument called Cabrillo national monument commemorating Cabrillo’s arrival to San Diego.

Spent some time there and went out for dessert after a nice dinner.. the most amazing ice cream ;) yum… J

Day 5 was fully devoted to the San Diego zoo.. One of my close friends back in India had lent me his book on the San Diego Zoo… The book and the pictures in it brought in this desire to go to the Zoo.. am glad I made it.. the place was amazing.. and the cutest animal there was the orangutan and of course the Giant Panda.. I could have stayed in that enclosure all day seeing the Panda’s.. They look so cute like little(ummm huge actually J )cuddly toys ;)

And thanks to Rutu.. I discovered the best souvenirs to collect in the US… engraved penny’s from the penny machine… J

So that was pretty much week 1 of my 4 week vacation; )