Coming back to you!

My PTO for the trip back home just got approved and I am ecstatic! It will be 17 months since I left India, saw my parents, my sister, my friends and finally I can make it home in October now! But as always, and with any trip, logistics of the trip needs to be clearly worked out and it is as bad any dirty math problem :D.

I need to juggle the following in my trip. One of my best friend’s wedding ceremony in Mumbai on 28th October and I can leave office only in the second half of 26th October, Friday, so to make it to the ceremony

• I need a flight that leaves on Friday evening.
• Ideally, it should reach Bangalore by Saturday night 11 p.m to Sunday night, 2:00 a.m.  and I can take flight out to Mumbai. However, I am willing to reach directly in Mumbai on Sunday morning and fly out on Monday morning to Bangalore.
• I would prefer a flight that allows 2 pieces of baggage
• All this should ideally cost me less than $1300 😀 [ A girl can wish alright?!]

Dirty math problem aside, I am so psyched I am going home. There are so many things I miss about being back there that I won’t even bother to post it here. But I believe it is all going to come trickling out as I count down to the d-day. This is what I have on my agenda for this visit:

1. Best Friend’s wedding in Mumbai – two of my best college friends are marrying each other and I can’t be happier!
2. Sister-in-law’s wedding in Bangalore- a much awaited event and the raison d’être for the visit.
3. Visiting my parents in their new home in Ahmedabad
4. Spending Diwali at my in-law’s place and learning how it is done right
5. Talking and talking and talking with friends and my sister in Bangalore 🙂

Oh in case no one noticed – I CANT WAIT TO GET HOME! 🙂

 

Travel on my mind

I have been itching to get out of the city somewhere and keep alternating between the big trip and a short drive out somewhere. But for as long as I remember now, Harry Potter World at Universal has been on my agenda as a must go place! I was to visit it on the weekend that it opened in 2010 but as one of the down-sides of dating a software engineer boyfriend, our trip got pushed due to an urgent release. Since then, I have gone back to India, married the aforesaid boyfriend (yes, despite the above! :P), and moved bag, baggage and parcel to US. We just crossed the one year mark to our wedding and I think now, there are no excuses left in the bag as to why I still haven’t been there!

So for this Labor Day weekend, I am off to Orlando for sure. At the moment, I am still looking up flight tickets and hotels but in my head – I am on that broomstick zooming right over the castle, of course with that mug of butterbeer in my hand!

Off to hotel hunting!

 

Starting Over…Afresh

I have been itching to write for a while. Start afresh with everything and for once not give up. I have even given up the count of things that I have taken up and then abandoned. At some point, it all became this one rebellious thing to not conform. To destroy everyone’s idea of me – the girl who did everything, the girl who could do anything, the girl who was everywhere to someone who just wanted to just be.

But to exist this inanely gets to you after a while. Are we at the end of the day all rats? Well-travelled, well read, well spoken, but accustomed to running after cheese? For years of not running behind anything has only made me listless and unsure of myself. When I got off my treadmill, it was with the thought of finding myself as someone who is not just a sum total of everyone else’s expectations. What I didn’t know about myself then, but I do now, is that expectations fuelled me. They made me reach out for things I wouldn’t really have bothered with. Some of those things were that I wanted, some that I didn’t but all that shaped me to be the person that I eventually became.

My biggest defence in favour of marriage was always, it is a known evil, let’s get it done with and move on in life. Being in this relationship had become my preoccupation since I left pursuing other things. To make it work, to make it last and to take it to its logical end – marriage. Now that I have, I realize I don’t really have a plan for beyond that. A year has gone by. A singularly awesome year that reaffirmed that I chose right . But now what?

To start afresh, I have decided to list out the things that interest me these days and my blog going forward will focus on these interests below and hopefully be a channel for growth and introspection as time goes on. So in no particular order, this is what I am digging right now:

1. Politics – Indian politics, figuring out American politics and world politics.
2. Cooking – As a nouveau cook, trying to do it as regularly as possible, I spend a lot of time looking up both recipes for daily staples and Indian exotica to serve my husband. Also as a pseudo north Indian attempting authentic Tam-Brahm cooking with online instructions and telephonic rescues by in-laws, it is a fun journey to be on!
3. Baking – In the spirit of a true foodie, I’ll separate baking into a separate interest. A very recent addition to my interest that is driven mainly by the ease of availability of all imaginable baking ingredients at the local grocery store. My attempts at rising above and beyond the cake mix baker should hopefully be chronicled right here.
4. Reading – An on-again, off-again passion. My travel woes of last year had just one pleasure – an hour of uninterrupted reading time. The rushed two station commute these days in the rush hour is making it that much more difficult but I’ll keep at it.
5. Travel – I love exploring cities for their local flavour – be it the next place in DC for a cuppa or new cupcake in town, festivals happening across the city or two towns away – wine, food and travel exotica do truly make my heart light!

And while I pursue these interests, join me in this self-discovery on CoffeeBeans and TeaLeaves!