Vegas baby!! (Joey Style)

Oh yeah! Vegas!! :D
Our drive to Nevada from Los Gatos was 7 tedious hours long! We passed the Mojave desert on the way. It is the first desert I have ever seen. The hills look like sand dunes but they never let you decide if they're sand or just brown solid rocks covered with hay. Even when they're ten feet away it's hard to decide. We passed endless vineyards and almond tree farms. The sky was clear blue, with a few white lines which were aeroplane trails. I found it hard to believe that the temperature was above 45 degrees. I could actually see mirage on the freeway, not only just above the ground but till the top of a truck! (It's like the streets of Mexico as shown in Prison Break. You can literally see the heat.) I fell in love with the bikers!! Their bikes are omg so HOT and they look amazing with thier black leather jackets and tattoos! No one ever uses gearless bikes here or ugly bikes. They can easily put Pulsar 220s or Avengers to shame. Even the trucks look so good! They're shiny and clean and are say, respected as much as the cars. I once saw a pink shiny truck. That was sorta goofy. The trains we saw were pretty boring goods trains. So anyway, my uncle drove at 80mph constantly and we reached Vegas earlier than expected.
As soon as we entered Nevada, casinos started appearing on either sides of the road. The very first one I saw was called Gold Strike. We reached Four Queens, the hotel and casino where we were to stay. I was so agitated and hyperactive that I was in Vegas! I was being all girly and tried on five or six tops before we went out. Hehe.
I saw some of the most happening places in the whole world! I saw casinos like Bellagio, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, Paris, NewYork NewYork, Caesar's Palace, Golden Nugget, Stratosphere and Circus Circus. (I don't know why they repeat these words twice. Maybe they're very excited about it.) Then there were replicas of Europe's most famous land marks. I saw numerous strip clubs, night clubs and wedding chaples at the end of every street. There were really hot cars zooming around and a stretched limosine was parked in the basement of our hotel! It looked absolutely gorgeous! We went up the clone of the Eiffel Tower. It is about one third of the original size I tihnk. As soon as we stepped out of the elevator we were swept off our feet by a breath taking view of Vegas! Instinctively I said "Whoa! Bling bling!!" The lighting is nothing less than spectacular! EVERYTHING is golden and silver or some other shiny colour. We had a great view of Bellagio's fountains. The lights in the fountain looked like tiny diamonds sparkling with all their might. The casino at Paris was gigantic! My aunt, uncle and mum gambled. I wasn't allowed to gamble!! Waaa!! I'm supposed to be 21! I walked around looking at everyone losing their money hopelessly, secretly laughing at them. Once outside, it was dark and we saw a dazzling display of fireworks and a lot of advertisement boards kept flashing at us. I saw "the second" good looking guy (first was the Walcott guy at the airport). He walked around the streets wearing a suit with a lot of other men in suits. All in all it was very nice seeing people from all over the world on a single street and the very fact that there were billions n trillions of dollars stashed up in one lane and that I was on the lane was overwhelming!
We went back to the hotel rather early, considering Vegas lives by Indian Standard Time.
So this is the funniest thing that has happened so far. Guess what we did after going to the room?? We ate uppit!! We ate uppit in Vegas!! :P All that time while I was eating I kept laughing about how funny it would sound when I wrote "We ate uppit in Vegas" in my blog. Hehe..

Santa Cruz and San Francisco

I have made good use of the past two days.
I went to Santa Cruz the day before yesterday. It's a small city with a population of about 55,000, situated along the West Coast of America. The ocean is friendly to surfers and Santa cruz is also the home of skate boarders apparently. We went to what seemed like a biotechnology research centre. There was a skeleton of a full grown blue whale that had once crashed into some rocks on the coast and died. It was remarkably huge! The ocean has rich marine life and was a little stinky. We saw sea otters, pelicans sitting on the Pelican Rock, sea gulls and a seal. We sat by the light house and had a delightful meal. I saw a great deal of people walking dogs. Petting dogs is probably a fad here since so many of them have it! The dogs are given manicure and pedicure and fancy hair cuts. I find that quite unnecessary.
We drove around Santa Cruz, past the multimillion dollar houses facing the mighty Pacific. They're all beautifully ventilated and they're the kind that would make you wanna live there. I love the Spanish names of the places around here. They first belonged to Mexico, I believe. That's that.

We went to San Francisco yesterday. We bought subs from Subway for lunch. As usual I wanted extra capsicum in my sub. I said "Extra capsicums please" and the lady there seemed confused. They don't understand our Indian accent. D'oh! So I corrected myself and said "Extra bell peppers please" full on with an American accent and she obliged. I feel I sound like Russell Peters imitating Indians here. Trust me, it's not a very nice feeling.
San Francisco is around 50 miles from home. We reached in less than 45 minutes. I might have said this before and I'll say it again. It's a real pleasure driving here! Or watching my aunt drive. It's as smooth as going by plane! We went to a beach where the water was freezing! The wind blowing there was bitterly cold. Apparently it blows from Alaska across the Pacific ocean and reaches San Francisco. It was a bad idea to assume California would be hot and not bring a jacket.
There was this steep road where we ascended slowly and my aunt said "you're in for a surprise" and I was literally holding my breath to see what lay ahead! Slowly coming to form in front of me was a maginificent city with kazillion houses, all stuck to each other, and a hundred high-rise buildings! Never before in my life have I seen so many buildings! It was outrageous really! Looked like a whole lot of houses thrown in a godown or like they had been arranged there for Dussera. It is a very crowded city and all the houses are single storey buildings because the city is prone to earth quakes and what's more? Each house looks exactly like the one next to it so they're all painted in flamboyant colours. We went to the Twin Peaks, a view point and also one of the highest point in San Franscisco. From there we could see almost the entire city. The Golden Gate, the financial centre of San Francisco, the port of San Francisco and other elegant structures that stood out in the residential areas. From there we went for a drive on the Golden Gate itself. It had me singing the theme song of Full House (Everywhere you look everywhere you go, there's a heart there's a heart). It was such a pleasant feeling! We went to different places and saw the Golden Gate from different angles. At one point, the wind was so tempestuous, I almost lost balance and the camera wouldn't stay still to click a picture! It was a permanent colossal gust of wind! (I couldn't find a better way to put it.)
Also, I learnt that San Francisco has the higest gay population in America. They had their rainbow coloured flag faluntering high up in the air! We also saw about five or six couples.
On our way back we went through the market street of San Francisco, one of the most happening streets. The streets are always either rising or decending because the city is built on hills. I was so cheerful to see that Princess Diaries might have been shot on one of those streets! (The scene where she loses control of her car and crashes into the tram was stuck in my head!) I saw electric trams, the Golden Gate Park that stretched from one end of San Francisco to the other and other specialities.
I'll be visiting SF once every week to see all the places. Can't wait to go to Ghirardelli and gobble up a few ice creams!
Right then. Good day. Till tomorrow..

May gets me trippin!

May 18th, the longest day of my life! Literally! It was 36 and a half hours long.
We reached the airport on time. There was a light drizzle and cool breeze all the time. You know it has rained every single time I've gone to the new airport! Bangalore just doesn't want me to leave!
We checked in easily (although amma panicked a little when she thought she had left the air tickets at home) and filled up the immigration forms. The guy there read my name and immediately asked if I was a Mandyam Iyengar. After a nice little chat with us he retunred our passports and we entered Gate 20 and waited by our terminal. In there, they have constructed a miniature mall. It has every damn thing you would want! As soon as you enter, you'll find every bloody brand of booze! I was delighted looking at this one thing called Absolut Vodka. Looked very inviting. :P I went there to buy chewing gum. I hadn't bought any because my brainy sister told me they'll give it on the plane or that I could buy it at the airport! So I asked the guy there for a pack of gum. He showed me the way to the chocolate and gum section and gave me a choice of two. The chewing gum was 7 dollars!! I said "Thanks but I have no cash" and walked away. I bought Pepsi for 50 bucks and sat reading my book. I was reading Airport by Arthur Hailey sitting at the airport! :P By the time I read the first page the guy sitting next to me dropped my Pepsi. Grr! Curse him! I noticed a 12-13 year old wearing a Manu shirt and gave him a stare. He saw my Arsenal bag too and we kept giving each other stares till we reached San Francisco. Heh..

Soon we were called to board our flights. We went quickly to the door and entered a tube which connected us to the plane. I was very fascinated with everything because it was my first international flight. A couple of airhostesses invited us inside and directed us to our seats. We went by Lufthansa and everything was written in German. "Schwimmwester unter Ihrem Sitz" is the first thing I read and understood. I watched the small guidance movie they showed and listened to the audio in German. I didn't understand a single word! The take off was without much turbulance. The flight was like riding in a bus on a smooth road. I stayed up till 4:30 am, had dinner and drank some vodka that was from Finland. It was sleep inducing. I slept till 6am and we reached Frankfurt at around 7:30 where we had to board our connecting flight, which was at 10. I got a glimpse of Frankfurt from the airport. So now I can show off that I've been to Germany too. :P

After sitting in my seat, a huge guy who had a body like Lincoln Burrows (from Prison Break) sat down next to me. So we were pretty cramped in there. I was bored of checking out the German airhostesses. They all are so tall and rather sturdy I would say. I ate, listened to music, ate, watched Slumdog Millionaire and Marley and Me (cried hiding my face under the pillow when Markey died), read, ate more and drank a lot of juice. I didn't get a wink of sleep through out the day while my mum slept for 10 hours continuously and my aunt just got bored. We reached San Francisco without much turnulance while landing. The Immigration queue was a long one and luckily we walked quite fast and didn't have to wait much. All the officers there were Non-American. We were called upon by a lady (Maybe Asian) for the interview. She was pretty friendly. While talking to her this security guy came into the cube and my stomach literally did a flip! He looked so good! He was Black but looked just like Walcott! He is the best looking guy I have seen in America so far. We picked up our luggage (none of it got lost! Woohoo!) and saw my uncle and aunt waiting outside for us. This trip had been planned so many times and cancelled before that they both seemed real thrilled that it finally happened! We went to the parking lot, only to find that each and every car is an awesome car! I saw a Bentley and around four Audi's as soon as I entered the car park. You'll see the same number of BMWs here as the number of 800s in Bangalore. We drove a good 50 miles in half an hour on the freeway. The drive was great! Our minimum speed was 100kmph I think. People hardly use two wheelers here. I spotted only one. California is so green and full of nature. It's such a pleasure to drive and everything is so organised. I'm very impressed by all of it! We reached home in Los Gatos. The whole town is like a resort. Very pretty houses with nice big gardens. My uncle's house is very well kept and has an attractive swimmimg pool in the backyard. I picked up my cousins from their schools and took a good look at school life that I usually see only on tv. Kids with skate boards, sleazy vynils on cars they drive, etc etc. After I came home I was extremely sleepy and didn't do much. I took a shower, ate and enjoyed a deep slumber after that. Was a great long day! :) Cheers!