Snowy vermont...

On one of the snowy weekends of January 2009, we set out on a trip to Vermont.

The sight of dazzling snow by the sides of highways were spectacular. Our first stop was Basketville, a store in Putney famous for hand made baskets and wooven products. They have some eclectic collection of baskets at moderate prices.

We had booked a room at a nice B&B. It was a 19th century building converted to an inn. The citing of recent sightings of paranormal activities in the inn's website made the stay all the more exciting. During our stay, we did find something strange. All the other rooms on our floor was un-occupied... But through out the night we could hear two people murmuring...

The next day we went to a small country store near by. You could find a lot of yesteryear brands and curios here. The toys we used to play, old style candies, old brands of soaps...a tons of stuffs like that.. It was a refreshing memory trip down our childhood days..

The scenery was nice as we drove our way through the sides of the connecticut river. With the white frozen waters, hardly could we define the border of the river from the snow covered bank.

Next in our itinerary was a tour of the Harpoon brewery. Having reached there early we got enough time to browse through the store. The next one hour was a journey into the brewing of one of the worlds oldest beverages, from the picking of the malted barley and hops to the yeast which went till the fermention and storage of beer in large casks and afterwards followed by another hour of beer tasting ceremony...

With the early setting winter sun, we decided to get back to our room. On the way, the beauty of another exquisite small town forced us to stop for a little walk through its streets overlooking the white frosty mountain...

I will continue with the day 2 details and pics in another post.

NY christmas part 2

Happy New Year!!!

Let me continue with the day 2 of our NY trip. It started with a 2 mile on foot trip to eat the South Indian delicacy "Masala dosa". If it wasnt for that, i dont think we would have walked that much.

On the way we stopped at the Bryant Park. The shops inside the parks were still closed, probably after a busy saturday. The ice rink inside the park was bustling with people. Parents proudly capturing the shots of their children whirling over the ice was a lovely sight.

After brunch, we chose the subway as nobody was ready for another walk,. We had to change at the Grand Central Terminal. I felt it has a tad resemblance to London Victoria station.

There was a light show happening at the main hall of the station which was spectacular.
Our next stop was the Trinity Church.. We were drifted off to another world by the tranquility inside the church.

The glass work inside the church were magnificent.

Then a walk to NYSE building where the sparkling blue, red and white lights have relegated the fabric made country's flag.

It was pretty rough taming the Wallstreet bull to take a snap with us...

Time and cold didn't permit us to take a cruise to the liberty island. We had to be content with a long shot of the statue of liberty from the battery park. Or maybe the set of slabs playing musical notes, in the park, piqued our interest more.

Our last destination was Macys, the worlds largest store. We did window shopping for quite some time, till we started our trip back home.

NY Christmas..

I am back to the blogging world after the holiday season. I hope everyone had a wonderful christmas. I had a lovely one with friends, food and travel.

We had an unplanned last minute trip to New York over the weekend. Got our new camera just before christmas to take some pretty good snaps. Though this was my second and Mr. K's third trip to NY, christmas fever has adorned the city and has given it a pretty different look.

The only thing in common was the crowd. We revelled in joining them to explore this most beautiful city in the world.

Walking through the buzzing streets hand in hand, exploring the upscale shops, we reached our main reason behind our trip, the 90 feet tall christmas tree infront of the Rockefeller center..

The top of the tree was embellished with the Swaroski crystal star.

The mammoth Rockefeller building has subdued the christmas tree in this picture..

The ice rink infront of the Rockefeller center. The fear of falling down prevented us from getting a hang of ice skating..
Another attraction was the dancing snowflakes infront of Saks and company building.
We actually forgot to take a video of the light show. But I managed to dig one from youtube that I am uploading below. The music is very sweet and lingers for long..

That was pretty much the day one of our trip. The day ended with the dinner at a steak house near the Times square. I had to be content with the salad as the steak was barely cooked.

I will be back with more of our day two adventures and photos.

Thanksgiving eve..

The holiday season have begun with the Thanksgiving day last thursday. I wanted to have a proper thanksgiving meal with turkey roast, mashed potatoes, sweet pies and apple cider. No luck this time! I just had the apple cider for this thanksgiving.

We intially had grandiose plans of baking a turkey or atleast a chicken on thanksgiving. But Mr. K's exam fever made us stuck at home the days before thanksgiving thus impeding our poultry shopping. More over his exam was on the thanksgiving eve. But we took advantage of that by spending the thanksgiving eve in Boston. Good that the exam center was close to boston. Gosh!!I love these exams especially when im not the one who is writing.

After the exam we all went for a stroll in the nearby Davis square. It was a busy square with lots of shops, cafes and restaurants. It had my favourite food joint Chipotle as well. One of the many things i liked here was that there were statues of people placed at different points in the square. Their postures were unbelievably real that at times we mistook them for real people.

Then we headed off to Boston downtown..

It was our third trip to Boston, the previous ones being in July when our family visited. This time we decided to climb the Prudential tower to view the stunning skyline of Boston. It has got an observation deck on its 50th floor which is open to the public. The building has got a total of 52 floors and 52th was i guess for dining.

Eventhough we crossed the same bridge in different directions several times, our GPS finally managed to take us to the Prudential tower. But to my disappointment the observation deck was roofed and completely covered with glass not even a window or an opening very unlike the experience i had at the empire state building at NY. So no good pictures of the boston skyline to post here. We then traipsed through the upscale shops in the base floor. The whole place was basking in christmas spirits.

By this time everone was hungry and so we decided to hit an Ethiopian restaurant. That was my idea! But unfortunately our poor GPS with an old map, took us to an empty space by the street and claimed in its familiar voice "You have reached the destination". Luckily across the street there was a TGIF, we had dinner from there and called it a night.

First Day Out..

Monday i had my first day out alone in the mall. It wasnt a pre planned trip. While having lunch the idea of Mr K dropping me at the mall on his way to the exam striked me. He wasnt against it as long as one condition was met. i shud get ready in 5 mins which I did and there we took off, Mr. K for the exam and me for a few hours out in mall. It was a welcome change for me as compared to the usual monday afternoons spent with the laptop on the couch.

My intial plan was to spend the time in Borders where i could grab a book and read it while sipping a coffee from the Seattle's best coffee. But i was not in a mood to settle down and read. So i roamed around the mall carefree. I relived my days in London where this kind of lonely outing was a routine. I was open to the people advertising for their eye shadows and manicure kit unlike the other times when Mr.K will be dragging me away from all those. But Mr. K is always ready to accompany me to the malls eventhough he hates to do clothes shopping with me. I guess most of the men are not into shopping. Are men born like this or is this a change that happen to them once they become husbands. Still unclear to me.

After an hours wandering in the mall i went to Borders and sat down with the book "New England Rediscovered" which had more than 100 uniquely captured shots of the New England states consisting of Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachussets, New Hampshire and Vermont. But within a few minutes there came the call from Mr. K that his exam is over..

My Fav place..

If someone ask me whats my favourite place on earth, I would say Fort William in Scotland. Last year abt the same time I got the opportunity to visit this picturesque place. It was on our trip to explore the highlands of Scotland. It is a town surrounded by lochs and glens. Loch means lake and Glen means valley in Scot. The town of Fort William lies on the shores of Loch Linnhe and is very close to the Ben Nevis which is the highest mountain in the British Isles.

More than its beauty, there was something quite different about this place which attracted me. As a kid, there's one picture which I used to draw always. It had a mountain, a setting sun, a lake, birds flying and boats floating on the lakes. I was so obsessed with this image that I dont know how many times and how many ways I have painted this picture. It never occurred to me that such an image would actually exist. That may be why I was awed when I had this breathtaking view from the high streets of Fort William. I am not sure of how long I stood there gazing in the freezing cold.

I dont think my camera has done justice to this fantabulous place..

Missing UK..

As part of my job i was in UK for some 14 months. Initially when i was asked to travel onsite i was very sad.. It was really hard for me to leave my family and friends. And even while i was there i badly wanted to come back home. But now when i think of my days in UK, i think i had a great time there... and i kinda miss those.One thing i miss a lot is the train journeys which i had every morning and evening.Inorder to reach my work i had to take a tram and a train.The train journey was kinda short. some 15 -20 minutes.But it was so peaceful sitting near the window and watching the train pass through the countryside.The other good thing is that the experiences i got from the trip. Thats invaluable - and i think i have become a new person, a new improved one after all that.