Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Washington DC Day 2

Endicott, NY
It was around 5AM in morning.. Pranam's alarm started shouting .. It appeared to me that I had just laid down. But Pranam woke up and woke me also up.. We had plans to start by 7:00AM. We got ready by around 6:30 and called Shiva. He had to travel from White Planes which is around 1:30 Hrs from Ossining. When we called him we got a message from his roomie that he left early in the morning. God knows what is early in the morning for that guy!! Any way as he did not have cell phone, we were left with no option other than pray God that he wouldn't miss any exits and reach us asap. But I guess, God's alarm didn't blow at proper time and he was still at bed?? Alas!! Shiva missed the way and could not find a telephone to call Pranam.. We waited about an hour. It rang.. everyone was waiting for it ..and knew who was it before taking it... He was in a pathetic situation.. He did not know wherehe was.. He told he would somehow reach there. At last he managed to reach us by 7:30. Parked his car in IBM's parking lot and started from there in rented Ford Taurus.
We were heading towards New Jersey, Manjesh's aunt's place. In the middle we stuck for about 15-20 min in George Washington Bridge.Shiva is very good at roads in and around NY. He was telling from the beginning that, GW Bridge would be crowded and suggested to deviate and bypass it. But we did not want to take any risks, and wanted to stick to Mapquest route. Manjesh was expecting onlyPranam at about 9:30 AM. So he called at 9:40. We were not very far at that moment. This time we could reach Manjesh's aunt's placewithout any problems. It was a little pleasant shock for Manjesh to see all of us together, though he did not facially expressed it. We also had an MIT PhD student, Alfred from Hong Kong, who works with Pranam's Research. It was a little embarrassing for whenManjesh Aunt offered some break fast for us. But our hunger conquered embarrassment and ate what we got :)) and started from thereat around 11.
It was around 5 Hrs drive to reach Washington. Lots of road Congestion made us sick. In the middle we had been to Pizza Hut's expressin one of the service area to eat something. It was an contrast that express made us to stay there for about an hr.
We parked car in front of Department of Agriculture and started our expedition. Shiva had brought a nice map of Washington DC, which helped us a lot in finding all the places. We started from Washington Monument, White House and then we started walking along Pennsylvania Av towards Capitol Hill. We just saw all buildings and took some snaps. Washington is packed with lots of museums.We could not go to any of them because of lack of time and not much interested in them.. There was some concert happening just beside Capitol Hill. Spent some time there and sat in front it and walked back towards car. Pranam gave some idea to have dinner in an Ethiopian restaurant, which he had visited last time. However we could not find it. So started from there towards Baltimore. Reached inner harbor of Baltimore at around 10:30 PM. Spent some time there had some drinks and reached Pranams's apt and slept off..
Next day morning got up very early in the started journey back home. I had missed Statue of Liberty last time I was in NY, so went there and came back to Port Authority to catch my bus back to home..

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