Friday, June 23, 2006

Dating Niagara falls


It had been my dream in my life that i wanted to visit Niagara once i come to US. Many people suggested to visit once I get married. But i didn't have much patience for the D-day . Good that soma booked a ticket from Des Moines to NYC and asked me to pick him up and drive towards Niagara.

we became 6 who planned to Niagara including soma's colleague saravana bhava..ezhil's friends in Connecticut. I took a rental van ...a Chrysler-town and country minivan kinda SUV from the Baltimore downtown and drove towards NYC. I never have drove such a big vehicle in my life...a seven seater....cool drive towards NYC with mild rains...finally landed in a place..thanks to google map that i landed in a place which is not called La Guardia airport in newyork.i followed the map so religiously and finally landed up in a gas station according to that map. found out the airport and after long trail in the terminal path to pick soma and his accomplice saravana :) (wont tell what he did bad ..married poor fellow). Driving the newyork city is the most crazy thing in life.somehow managed though iam a religious driver after coming to US.There is a sign in newyork city saying please go on green light only.....c'mon india of united states...we are no bad ...its all population and head count counts to drive anywhere in this world,,.,,I have to go to china and see how they drive....soma checked in as thirupathi ajith ..(once he was red ajith) with a telugu/kannada actor saravana. good that soma took over the driving and we started roaming in NYC by drive and then headed towards connecticut...finding out ezhil's house wasn't that tough and we were guided by a cop who initially stopped us by throwing his serial light. my first encounter with a cop, later finding us searching for a route in local roads he guided us. ezhil's house is near river valley....i could hear the noise of water flowing...though not big, his place is too good. connecticut is a good place...full of greenery and water and i like it next to my garden state.....next day went to liberty statue to visit amma....this statue is much exaggerated in hollywood movies with light setting......But when you go there , you'll find an ordinary statue which is painted with a pale green...It is not even painted properly....Designed by a French architect , One of the best place to visit in US, this doesn't attract me that much and also I had been here with my HCL friends earlier. So finished of this, then went to Newyork city , crazy driving , found out our thrifty rental place after a long struggle tunneling all the time. Then evening we decided after adding additional drivers soma and ezhil, we started towards Niagara....There are 2 freeways which are long like 150 miles in each that you reach buffalo where we have booked a hotel to stay...in one of the freeways it was difficult to drive ..guess what it is not due to fog but it is due to clouds...i think it is in a high altitude place...atlast in the midnight we could reach our hotel which is near to university of buffalo....Quite good place to stay and enjoy the serene climate....Then next day morning after a brief spell of something called sleep , we started to the falls place which is 20 miles from the hotel. I heard that when you go to Niagara, you can hear two languages , one is telugu and one is english ...this time also we heard two languages....one is tamil and one is telugu...too many tamil crowd citing long weekend as an excuse ..machi...mamu....lot of young couples...when we were searching for parking spot we played Arinthum Ariyamalum "theepidika song" in high volume , window open....making the place real desi....only two good attractions...one is called of "Maid of the mist" which is sailing in the cruise towards the falls and feeling the drizzle and another one is "Cave of the winds" which is typical showering in the falls...both are too good..only when you go in the crew you get reminded of why people ask you to go to Niagara after marriage ...too much of desi romance....
The world's second largest falls...another god's gift to this country...The second exciting place next to Newyork city i found in united states...Other states are just the same with wooden houses, dunkin donuts, Mc D s , gas stations near the lights....hmm...next day morn started back from Niagara in the early morning since soma has to catch 5 30 evening flight....With good average high speed most of the time exceeding speed limit,we returned back to connecticut to drop ezhil, sunil and bhavani....Then towards la guardia airport to drop soma and saravana..and finally i drove back to baltimore. The longest drive i ever have made, my CD-cassette converter crashed due to over heating as it had been singing all the way in the drive.

You can view photos of liberty and Niagara here.
My next plan is Florida..finding out the best season to go

1 comment:

Ezhil said...

Bhagha a very nie travel(ogue)! But i wonder why so call ezhil as exhale in more than one place ?