Jit’s Cultural Learnings of America

Tuesday

So in the morning it was to be start of the New York tour. So we made our way to mid town on the west side to go on a three hour cruise around Manhattan. We went pass Empire States, Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, Brooklyn Bridge, UN building, Yankees Stadium, George Washington Bridge and then back. It was a little chilly.

Thereafter we made our way to the one place I really loath – Times Square. Its just like Piccadilly Circus / Leicester Square. Suppose I cannot deal with the crowds.

Anyhow, whilst were in the area, it was a great opportunity to see the Lehman HQ and take a picture outside it. There were tons of media outside and the area for cordon off.

Then we walked passed Rockerfeller centre, then onto 5^th Avenue, the cathedral then I had to goto Abercrombie and Finch for some things for someone. I hate this place. It’s dark with load dance music and overpriced products. As for the staff, they may be model quality, but really!

Wednesday

So Wednesday I wake up to find out that AIG has been in effect nationalised.

We start the days touring in Brooklyn Heights, had a walk around and then walked the Brooklyn Bridge. Dad was initially apprehensive but was surprised it only took half an hour to cross at a leisurely pace.

We then went and saw Ground Zero, then Wall Street, Stock Exchange and we also passed the AIG building - another opportune moment to take a picture of it. It seems like this tour of NY is also turning into a tour of has been financial institutions.

We did a bit of shopping in the early afternoon before heading back. Then mum and masi were busy cooking as they have been doing all week. This evening Jeff, my flat mate joined us for dinner. I really do need to buy a dining table.

Thursday

So the financial markets are still going through turmoil. Everything is tanking and cost of funds is increasing rapidly. I’m sure work next week will be interesting…

So all week we hadn’t been to one of the start sights in NYC, Empire States. As the weather was a lot better today, we made the journey down and to point out to mum, dad and masi the sights we have seen.

After that we went to Jackson Heights in Queens. This is the oldest Indian area of New York, and it is still the biggest. So even before we have exited the station in Jackson Heights, when mum spots the paan spit on the stairs and says, “yeap we’ve entered Indian area”.

So we go through the area and see Patel Brothers – a big Indian food shop. Mum and masi have a field day in here. They find all these spices, lentils, sacks of rice and chapatti flour and buy it all. So it seems like I will be cooking from now on.

Friday

The morning was spent walking from the flat to Central Park and around there. Thereafter did a bit of shopping. Then I took them for Falafel and Dosas in Washington Square Park. In the evening I took them to a bar in for a drink.

Saturday

Saturday was spent going to Lina’s mama’s place in New Jersey to meet them and for dinner. It took a while getting there, but it was great seeing them. One of Lina’s mama was telling us his story about being caught up in the World Trade Centre attacks.

Sunday

Sunday was the day they went back – holiday over! So spent the day packing and chilling out before I dropped them to the airport. It was sad seeing them leave, after spending the week and a half together. Although I am relieved not to hear my dad’s snoring and similarly dad will be relieved that his militant son won’t be making him walk everywhere at record speed.

So mid September, my parents and auntie (mum’s sister aka masi) came to visit. It was thier first time to America. I was really looking forward to seeing them and showing them the city as well as spending some time with them.

So I went on the Wednesday afternoon to collect them from Newark airport. God I hate this airport. Although it is near enough equidistant from Manhattan, the transportation costs are a lot higher. I like JFK better.

So I collected them and their many bags. After some tea and a little rest we went for some food. Obviously I hadn’t made anything, so I took them to my local dosa place in downtown Curry Hill.

I took them using the subway system. This was their first experience of it. Mum thought that getting through the turnstiles was some sort of race and that you do it really quickly. So while I swipe to let masi go through, mum goes in as well - 2 for 1! Thankfully there were no inspectors around to give us a hard time. I had to tell her off.

They loved the dosas, and as the kids had been well behaved I took them for kulfi afterward at a shop around the corner. Little did they realize that they had to warm up the kulfi by rolling between their hands, so that the kulfi stick would come out.

Then after eating so much, we walked to Grand Central station and then headed back home.

Thursday

Thursday morning also happened to be September 11^th and the day we were to fly out of New York to Toronto. Dad initially had issues with flying on that day, but I convinced him it would be a safe day to fly, although we had to be even more careful on what we brought.

So Dad wanted to try the subway system out to the airport, so I took them to JFK and the couple of changes we had to do. Thankfully we only had three bags between the four of us, and they weren’t that heavy.

So we go through check-in and security which wasn’t an issue and made it on the flight. The flight was empty. It was great.

We get to Toronto and Pareshbhai’s collects us, and go back to his place. We just unwind and the kids come home from school and bhabs from work. Pareshbhai takes us to some lake nearby before we head back home and eat and plan the adventures for the next day.

Friday

The next morning, bhabhi en-route to work drops us off at the train station, so that we can go and see the sights of Toronto city centre or downtown. The GO trains as they are known, are overland double-decker trains. Mum said she wanted to go upstairs… just like kids!

So we get to the city centre, the weather is cloudy with a chance of rain. We saw the CN Tower, however the visibility was bad, so we didn’t go up. We then took a tour bus of the city, which lasted a couple of hours and was good to get our bearings straight.

Then we found and Indian area in Toronto called Gerrard Street which they wanted to go to.We decided to use the subway system here. You don’t get tickets here but little coins to slot in, like you do at a car wash. Again, mum thinks it’s a race to get through the turnstiles, and I had to explain to her what to do. Think she has got it.

So we goto the Indian street, which was a bit of walk from the subway station (didn’t look it from the map). Its more Punjabi / Pakistani orientated. Some of the buildings are run down. Its an OK area. Mum and masi were checking the prices of things. Says its about the same as UK. Good to know.

Then in the evening we got the train back home and bhabs picked us up. Just as we entered the car, the rain starts, and stops when we get home. How lucky we missed the rain.

Saturday

So Saturday morning, Pareshbhai takes the folks and masi to Niagra Falls. I on the other hand, had no intentions of going again, so I spend the day with the kids playing or more realistically getting beat on the Wii and the iPhone.

When they came back from Niagra, Pareshbhai said that masi asked about the falls

“so do they turn these off at night?”

To which Pareshbahi answered the question.

In the evening we went to Anilaben’s house (Harishbhai’s sister), which was near to where they live. Then it was off to Boston Pizza for well dinner.

Sunday

It started with a full English… oh yeah, then Pareshbhai, bhabhi and the adult kids went out shopping somewhere and left me to baby sit the kids.

So we messed around spending the day playing more Wii and then Monoploy. As it was hot sunny day, we went to the park, and I got to go on the swings with the kids…. God, I am such a kid!

In the evening, as it was our last night, we had a long dinner, drinks and chit-chat…..and then the whole world was about to come crashing down!

Monday

So the morning started off by hearing that Lehman Brothers had gone bankrupt as the government wouldn’t bail them out. Then Merrill Lynch was being sold to Bank of America and concerns were raised about AIG. This was going to be an interesting week.

So we get our flight back to New York, and again dad wants to take the subway back. I think mum understands as she wasn’t trying to win a race.

We got back to the flat and just watched Bloomberg, and it wasn’t good news…

Pictures of my parents and masi’s visit over are in the photo gallery section.

http://www.munri.com/jiten/?page_id=48&g2_itemId=2445

Write up to follow shortly.

Anitaben briefly in town

On the Monday after the wedding, Anitaben made a visit over for the day. I met up with her for dinner.

Sheetal in town / Hiking

At the end of August, Sheetal came over to visit for a week. So signed up for the shopping and NYC travel package with Mistry Travel Inc. So I took her in the usual places.

However, on the bank holiday Monday Barry had organized a day of hiking in upstate New York. So Sheetal was all for it.

So we went to a place called Break Neck Ridge, a mountain along the Hudson River. So we take the hike, which turned out to be more of a rock climbing event. It was tough but fun. Not sure how Sheetal felt. When we reached the top, the views were amazing.

The rest of the week went past no trouble, and then Sheetal went back, and I got a two day break and now the parents and aunties are here

So the week later, Jason and Song – a couple from work got married up in the Finger lakes, in upstate New York.

So Alex and I went up on the morning of the wedding. It’s a 5/6 hour drive upstate. We were meant to leave at 7am, but when Alex went to collect the car, the place wasn’t open. And when he rang the call centre, they were adamant it was open

“the system is telling me its open”.

“and I am telling you (thick f**k), that I am standing outside and it isn’t!”

Eventually he gets the car and turns up at my place, in a white PT Cruiser. It’s the American designers thinking going retro American is a good thing, let alone the colour is white!

So we program the satnav, and it tell us we will be there by 1.30pm. Great plenty of time, as the wedding doesn’t kick off until 3.30pm. So we drive up, take our time, stopping off for the many eating stops that we took. Slowly the satnav estimated arrival time crept upto 2.30pm. Not a problem, still an hour to kill.

Then, the god damn police see us and pull us over for speeding. That what happens when you have a white PT cruiser, you stand out a mile and then also suffer the consequence of it. So the policeman takes Alex’s details, goes back to his car, fiddles around a bit and then produces him a ticket. The ticket doesn’t state a penalty fee. Apparently you have to fill the form in stating whether you plead guilty or contest the charge. If you contest then you have to show up in court, which is in upstate New York.  Only then do they give you your charge which can be a combination of a fee and points. Alex is still deciding what to do.

The charge of speeding didn’t help that we were driving 81mph in a 55 mph zone – 26 mph over the limit. One thing as you go from state to state is that the speed limit changes rapidly and the sign post are really hard to find.

Anyhow, the policeman asked us why were driving so fast, to which Alex replied that we were off to our friend’s wedding. He then told us we were really far from it, and it would take us another hour than what the satnav was saying. That means we get there at 3.30pm – the time of the wedding. WTF!

We then figured that satnav was under calculating time because it was still on central time from the road trip. Damn! How many degrees did it take to figure out? 4. And that was after some help from a policeman.

So we now could not speed and also we wouldn’t make it in time for the wedding. Great!!! So anyhow there is a slither of a chance we could. So whilst Alex is concentrating on the roads, I am constantly shouting out the road speed limits whenever I see them, as we couldn’t afford a repeat instance.

So then Huma (ex-colleague from work) rings us at 3pm, 3.15pm giving us updates on what was happening at the wedding. She finally tells us they are running a little late (what turned out to be 10 minutes).

We pull up at the place exactly at 3.30pm. We rush in and ask where the wedding is, and told us its around the corner. Then we ask where we can get changed as we are still in our T-shirt and flip-flops. Just across he says. So we get our suits and changed into them at record speed. We quickly dump the flip-flops etc back in the car and then back to the wedding hall.

As we run into the wedding hall, we hear the music playing signaling the arrival of the (the bride). As we run in, she turns around and see us. So we thought “well we can’t go through there” so we run back out and look for another entrance and we are pointed to go through the bar.

We do so, and we enter the lawn where the ceremony is about to take place. As people are standing and watching the bride and the bridesmaids walk in, they turn and see us at the side. So there is no way we were about to cross the path and take our seats. So we waited for Song to arrive and then we took our seats.

The ceremony was really nice and made a big change from the usual Indian wedding fare. Afterwards we had drinks and canapés. Alex was salivating at the sight of bacon wrapped scallops. Just imagine what would have happen if there was bacon wrapped bacon…. OMG!

The evening was spent eating and drinking the night away…and lest not forget the dancing… or the drunken form of it. Late into the night they had a fire where people were toasting marshmallows and making samosas… or that’s what I thought I heard. It was samoas. Which are toasted marshmallows on a gram cracker (like a digestive biscuit) with chocolate on it. Jason’s grandmother was one of the last to leave from the fire area – that’s about 3 in the morning. The family were great!

Next morning, we got upto to goto Jason’s parent’s lake house about a 20 minute drive away for brunch. The views from the lake were amazing. We had brunch and then left for New York via Ithaca to goto Cornell University, so that Alex could reminisce. Fernando and Yoon joined us on our trip back.

We went through Amish country and then 2 deers came out of no where and were nearly knocked down by us. As we all crapped it in the car, swearing and saying OMG etc, Yoon was the only one who was calm and saying how cute they were.  Perhaps she got over it in a millisecond.

So we get to Ithaca see lots of building and classes and students… Oh, did I forgot to mention the freshman were about to start? Oh man!

We also went to Collgetown Bagel. It’s a local university hang out. So we go in, order our wraps and then I try to order my beers. I give them my ID (my UK driving license), but they aren’t happy with it. So I don’t have anything else. Alex tells them I am 30, they agree but still refuse…. All I can say is they haven’t heard of common sense. So I forfeited the beer and then just ate my extra tiny wrap –which actually turned out to be more expensive than NYC. No wonder they have huge student loans debt.

Then we just drove home whilst listening to Sinatra…

So the weather all month was just amazing. Still really hot – in the late 20s to early 30s. Truly amazing. So there were a lot of outdoor adventures going on.

Karsh Kale & Midival Punditz

So the month started off going to see KK and the Punditz n their tour. After seeing them perform at the Enter the Dragon screening, Barry and Adrian had got the bug, so we went got great seats to see a great concert. We also saw the guy from The Guru in there – the bald guy who says I’ll do it (he was the Indian guy from Office Space aswell). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqLpg7M7c1s

So I also got to upload stuff on youtube. I added a few tracks that I filmed on my camera, and can be seen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1Pd5GXnm58

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klOC6YUEoEw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0Wr3AF7LME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ER5CURN-eg

Mamta in town / Adrian’s birthday

So mid-August Mamta paid a visit for the weekend, as she was working in Philly for a month. So Jit’s Tour guide travels Inc were in action again and I took her to the usual haunts; Brooklyn Bridge, 230 5^th, Time Square (I hate it with a passion) etc.

Also, what turned out to be a one shop affair turned out to be an afternoon of shopping. Thank god I had my iPhone to keep myself entertained.

On the Saturday evening, Adrian had one of his many birthday parties, which was a very fun and late night affair. It was great.

Day 4: Sunday 13^th July

So the morning we got up and then head down for breakfast. We ended up initially gate crashing a wedding parties breakfast, until we had funny looks, then we went to the proper buffet breakfast restaurant. We had the usual bacon, eggs and something called grits. Grits is a corn based porridge consistent food. Its tasteless but here in the deep south its what is eaten. Its OK, but I don’t see its huge appeal. Anyhow, we hoped back in the car and drove off to the final stop, New Orleans.

So after a few hours drive, completing the 1500 miles and 22 hours of driving, we reached the French Quarter of New Orleans where we stayed at the W Hotel, it was relatively cheap.

So it was 100+ F (38 degrees Celsius), scorching as it was, so getting their late afternoon, what did we decide to do?… go to the gym. Its been a gluttony heaven, and we needed to work off some of that excess indulgence.

So after the guys were pumping their weights and I running like a maniac, we headed for some food. We went to a place called “Coffee Shop”, which funnily enough wasn’t one. We had a lot of the New Orleans specialties; Gumbo (a mixture of rice and beans, with shrimp, chicken), Jambalaya, Cat-fish and of course fried okra…..all good food.

After dinner, we walked around the French Quarter and admired the French style architecture, before we found Bourbon Street. This is the party street, where there are loads of drinking dens and strip joints. We went and had a drink called a hand grenade. Its basically a concoction of melon flavour syrup, and spirits (which you cannot taste). Its not very nice but very lethal. One was more than enough.

Whilst we were walking around we got beads thrown at us. Beads, similar to long prayer beads, but not the same are thrown at other people and they are then meant to flash you. So, we had some thrown at us by some young girls, and everyone said it was for me (which I definitely don’t believe), and I had to flash. Well I didn’t and took the beads anyway.

Bourbon Street seems like and ideal stag location, but definitely not one I am keen to frequent often.

Day 5: Monday 14^th July

So I wake up in the morning, and grab the water next to my bed side table, only to take a sip and discover its vodka and soda from the night. Not a good start.

Today was a rest and chill-out day. We went and walked to see the cathedral, which looked more like the Disney castle in their logo, then Mississippi River. Then the rest of the day was spent beside the pool, before we went for dinner at Nola, a restaurant owned by celebrity chef Emril Agasi. Good food, and the portions were huge.

Day 6: Tuesday 15^th July

We got up and left for our flight back to NYC, and guess what? My luggage didn’t get lost this time.

Day 3: Saturday 12^th July

So the night went uneventful, meaning Barry didn’t sleep walk. We left to go to the main attraction….Dollywood…. I can’t breath, I’m hyper-ventilating! So we finally get to see tacky America, or what Economist calls, if you want to see America, you need to goto a theme park about America…and what better place than Dollywood.

Dollywood is situated just on the outskirts of the Smoky Mountains. It looks and feels like a normal theme park. You park your car and then take a tram system to the ticket office. As we waited in the queue for the tram, (a long queue at that), the people in front of us told us it’s a bit of a walk (a mile….long…really?) . So the people who gave us directions, we can only assume were regulars. Only we walked to the next tram stop where there was no queue and got on the tram to go to the entrance.

We were greeted by overly friendly greeters (then again I am a cynical Brit), with their deep south accent and telling us you have just parked your car in park D/E or the easy way to remember is “Dolly’s Earings”…. really!

Anyhow I bought what can only be really expensive tickets $50 a piece to enter what turned out to be a small theme park – about a quarter of the size of Alton Towers. Isabelle put on her shades and tried to act like she was never there. But we knew she was.

So our first stop was to see a show about the life and times of Dolly Parton and how she became famous. So there was a band and a couple of singers singing her songs in a biopic narration form. Then Dolly’s uncle and aunties who were “influential” in her life came up on stage and performed songs and talked about their interaction with the top-heavy singer (so the family were on the payroll). One of the uncles, I sweat was drunk, either that or had a deep southern accent, as I couldn’t decipher a word.

Then after leaving during the show, well I didn’t really know any of the songs apart from “working 9 till 5” and “I will always love you”. Then we saw a bird sanctuary dedicated to saving and looking after birds that cannot re-habilitate themselves back into the wild. Obviously the American symbol, the American bald Eagle was prime place.

Well as we have entered the south, or Jesus country, we have to come across a chapel in the park, which is not just a museum piece, but regular Sunday service take place.

So we went to have a ride on the roller coasters, more specifically the Tennessee Tornado and the Thunderhead. There was virtually no queues on the rides, no scary music whilst you are queuing and trying to play mind tricks on you. The rides themselves were good, but I have to admit I did feel like I was getting whiplash.

One of the key reasons for coming was to see the food, or more specifically the quantities. I have to say I was disappointed. The quality was not that great (actually we never ate here, and good job to as we ended going to great place later) and the quantities although big, weren’t as big as I thought they would be.

We then went to look at the souvenirs, and all very tacky with Jesus loving messages or Dolly messages…. So I had to buy myself a Dollywood postcard.

After spending a total of about 4 hours and $50 lighter, we left to continue our journey south to Chattanooga, the fourth largest city in Tennessee, and a point where during the American Civil War the Third Battle of Chattanooga took place.

So before we went to see battlefields, we needed food. So we went to a local hang out called “Bea’s restaurant”. It was opened in the 50’s and looks like they have never decorated since. Alex was apprehensive about the place. Too tacky her thought… little did he know…

Each table fits 10 with a lazy Susan in the middle. Sweet iced-tea (so good), coleslaw and sauces are in the middle, whilst the waitress makes a note of the number of people and then just starts bringing the food out. No questions are asked, no menus, just no-nonsense.

So there was BBQ pulled pork, fried chicken, chicken & dumplings, fried okra, cornbread and biscuits. She just kept on coming out refilling the trays. We had to tell them to stop! As it was a Saturday, I was veggies, so I ate the coleslaw, fried okra and biscuits (more like savory scones). It was still filling.

The all you can eat fest cost us about $11 each, well worth it… even Alex thought. As we were leaving there was a huge queue forming outside waiting to go in and eat, with people coming from afar… although some of them clearly didn’t need to eat! So then to the battlefield.

“The Third Battle of Chattanooga (popularly known as The Battle of Chattanooga, was fought from November 23 to November 25, 1863, in the American Civil War. By defeating the Confederate forces of General Braxton Bragg, Union Army Major General Ulysses S. Grant eliminated the last Confederate control of Tennessee and opened the door to an invasion of the Deep South, leading to the Atlanta Campaign of 1864”

We saw lots of canons as we drove around and tried listening to the audio guide, which was quite detailed and a bit too much for me to take in. We then went to the Lookout Mountain, where there is a tourist side hill train that goes up the steep hill, similar to how it is in Hong Kong or Langkawi in Malaysia. Then we drove to Tuscaloosa, Alabama where we stayed the night.

Day 1: Thursday 10^th July

So we slept for a few hours before we left at 6.30 am in the morning (after a quick McDonalds breakfast) for the 8 hour trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

The roads on route are just straight and go on for miles and miles. So we cross through West Virginia, Virginia into the north east point of the state of Tennessee. From this point we have officially entered Jesus country. There are huge cross, which reminds me of the huge Jesus statue in Rio De Janiero, Brazil, only tackier! There are lots of Gun Shows, NASCAR racing and fast food places.

We eventually arrive at our destination; Gatlinburg, which is just at the tip of the Smokey Mountains. We were staying in a log cabin. It was huge, with a pool table, hot tub and 2 huge bedrooms, with either of them bigger than my entire flat in Manhattan.

So it was time to use the grill we had and start to BBQ. We had made a stop to Walmart earlier (my god, its so cheap!) to get all our food. We had BBQ mussels – very nice, hot dogs (obviously) with sautéed onions….mmm, steak (which obviously I couldn’t and wouldn’t eat) and chicken, made my style. What’s that?

It’s a marinate of garlic, lemon juice, coriander and chili powder (which I brought with me…god I am so Indian!). Oh and then Adrian was forcing me to drink shot after shot of espresso vodka, nice as it is, I couldn’t have too many of them.

Day 2: Friday 11^th July

After a night of seeing Barry sleep walk and a huge breakfast, we went upto Smoky Mountains for some hiking. We drove through tacky Gatlinburg. It’s an artificial tourist town similar to the build up around the Canadian side of Niagra Falls.

As we drove through Gatlinburg, we got to the start of the Smoky Mountains, and went to the tourist information to get an idea of the best places to go hiking. So, it turns out that all tourist information places in the south have very very unfriendly staff there who are not helpful at all. I know I have generalized (from a sample size of 2, and with my statistics background, it would give anyone a heart attack!), but the rest of the non-tourist office people throughout the trip were really nice, friendly and helpful.

Anyhow, we headed to the highest point as possible into the mountains before heading on the hike. We went through three different biospheres (I know, don’t ask. Barry was informing us!) We eventually made for a trek to Clingman’s Dome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clingmans_Dome), the highest point in Tennessee (2 km high) and also the Appalachian Trial – a trail that is 3500 km long through 14 states and is famous with hikers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Trail).

We could see over to North Carolina, and we also hiked (OK, it was only a few miles), on the Appalachian Trial. It was fun, hot and tiring. We stopped after we started descending too much (we would have to climb it again).

After the hike, we drove back to the lodge for more BBQ, but before that a quick refill at Walmart. So as we had time to kill on the drive to Walmart, I thought what better time to make a shopping list. So with my analness for lists, organization and being a general control freak, I proceeded with making a list, much to many moans. I am sure it was well worth it.

Then we proceeded to have a critique on Alex’s taste in music and the possibilities of opening it up to more than the Artic Monkeys! So we put on Nitin Sawheny, Karsh Kale etc and we figured he likes songs with a melody and cannot deal with abstract. So no pan pipes and drum and bass then…

So it was time to use the grill again. We had sweetcorn (with lemon and chili powder of course), shrimps (well, we did have Aussie with us) in a marinate of mine….and yes it involved chili powder! Hot dogs, with lots and lots of sautéed onions and of course some more steak and salad. Food was good.

One of my objectives of being in the states is to utilize the opportunity of visiting places in the states and countries nearby. So it was time for a roadtrip….

New York is such a cosmopolitan place, that it’s hard to feel you have really seen America. So one day, whilst I was reading the Economist (http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10098973) I came across an article on Dollywood. Dollywood for those that don’t know is a theme park in Tennessee based on the famous (and endowed) country singer Dolly Parton. Now, you wonder why? Well, Dollywood is a place where “east-coast accents, let alone foreign ones, are rare. The park is thus an excellent window on what people in this part of the American heartland like.” Great it fulfils my objective.

So it was time to goto the Deep South and see “real” America and its wonderful and weird things it has to offer. So I roped in Alex, Barry (I work with them both), Adrian and Isabelle to come on the trip with me. It was to be known as “The Many Harolds, a Haroldette, a Kumar and the token white guy tour of the deep south”

So we had many iterations of the trip, everything from going to Memphis, Indiana, New Orleans and Atlanta. Thanks to the wonders of Google Map (and my analness on planning and countless Excel spreadsheets), we pinned down a route which would be both feasible and cover a diverse array of things to do and see.

So the route:

To drive from New York, to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Tennessee then Alabama and down to New Orleans and then fly back. This route would cover 14 states in 6 days and nights, a distance of 1500 miles one-way road trip taking 22 hours to complete non-stop…. obviously we would be stopping.

Evening 1: Wednesday 9^th July

So after work on Wednesday, Alex and Barry went to collect the car whilst I went home to get my things and also I had Mintouncle and the family staying over for the week, so I was just saying bye to them.

So we were meant to leave by 7pm, only to get a call from Barry that they are now off to JFK airport to collect the car and not from the Upper East Side as originally planned. It transpired that Barry had booked it through the internet and well, the website wasn’t reflective of the what the company do… e.g. they don’t do one-way car hires and haven’t done so for the past 6 months… lesson to be learnt- don’t trust the net.

Anyhow the guys got the car, it was a Suzuki SUV, a little small for 5 people with our luggage. Anyhow we finally left at about 9.30pm for a 4 hour drive to Harrisburg. Harrisburg doesn’t have much to offer, it was just a stop over to Tennessee, which would have otherwise been a 12 hour painful journey. We passed from New York through New Jersey to Pennsylvania. So we got to the hotel at 1.30 in the morning.