Advertisement
Published: January 7th 2007
Edit Blog Post
At Central Park
It was an unbelievable 70 degrees fahrenheit today Wish you all a very very happy 2007!! Hope everyone had a blast at New Year’s eve. As for us, we decided to join the million plus party at Times Square. We knew that it was smart to get there early but how early is early? Well 5:30 in the evening should be good right...and so we started walking towards 42nd street(which is where Time square is).. when we reached there we were told by the cops that 42nd st was already closed so we should keep walking ahead and try to enter from another street…we reached 47th and that was closed too..the cops told us to try for 52nd. This time we broke into a run coz literally hundreds were running towards 52nd st. we saw a winding line at 52nd which we joined. Slowly we were inching our way back into times square when we were told that 52nd was full too and we should try up ahead.
So we had a very healthy New Year’s eve, running from street to street.(thankfully had had the wisdom to wear sneakers ) it seemed that there was no way to get to times square !! what a bummer !!! this
Revellers !!
At Times Square we hadn’t anticipated .Our plans lay in ruins. And then, finally we got to enter from the 59th street. It was a 45 min. process but finally we reached as close as we could. then the ultimate anti-climax …there was absolutely nothing happening …I mean we could see the glittering neon of Times Square up ahead but we couldn’t hear or see a thing (and you cant unless u’re like in the front row or something) this was crazy and it was just 7:30 which meant standing for 5 hrs doing nothing…and all the time people just kept pouring in. oh by the way, every Indian in U.S had descended onto Times Square that night …coz every third face was Indian. We were really astonished, where had these people been hiding all this while? 15 min. of the jostling crowd and we’d had enough. We knew we wanted to enjoy the midnight hour more than that. So we got out, had a great dinner, and headed back to White Plains. Went to a local nightclub and rang in the New Year dancing!!! Nightclubs here are very serious about enforcing the age limit rule and dont let you in unless you
have a valid ID which clearly shows ur DOB. We couldn’t help but feel a little wistful remembering last year when we were with our family in Cal…
You know what they say about the first day of the year reflecting what you will do the whole year, so I consciously tried to do everything on 1st…spend quality time with Sanjit, talk to family, work,read, exercise, surf the net.
Today we were back at NYC. Visited the Guggenheim museum which has art collections from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. It has a lot of Picasso and some Van Gogh too. Another artist whose work impressed us was Francisco De Zurbaran.
From nineteenth century we fast forwarded to twenty first century expression of art. Otherwise known as cinema. Thankfully, this time we picked a winner, ”The Good Shepherd” about the formative years of C.I.A. it’s a good movie and one has to concentrate hard. Robert De Niro has done a good job of directing and Matt Damon ditto with acting. Angelina jolie is wasted though.
Slowly, the realization is sinking in that this trip is drawing to a close. Just a little over two
Times Square
The Million plus party weeks left now. Being here for two months and interacting with people, we’ve begun to really respect the diversity of India. It literally is like a dozen or more countries in one. In US, what you get does not vary too much from city to city, but every Indian knows how different India is. I think we do a great job of living together in relative peace the way we do as a country. (I know I’m saying this on the back of a deadly ULFA attack on Assam but I still think we have a lot of tolerance and peace in us. Anyways, this blog isn’t supposed to reflect political views so I’ll leave it at that)
To end this blog, I’d just like to mention a very beautiful and touching blog I came across today. It is of Anousheh Ansari (she hit the headlines this year by being the First Female Private Space explorer, which simply means she was the first female space tourist). She describes her journey from training to going up and spending ten days in space very poignantly. She is an Iranian woman who now runs a successful business in the US. For those
New Year's Eve
Some people know how to live it up of you who’re interested, visit www.anoushehansari.com.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.076s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 58; dbt: 0.0503s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Baba
non-member comment
Both of you seem decked up as true Americans among the revellers. Good to see you are enjoying that. I am also thrilled to know that you have visited the Guggenheim. It must have been a fanto experience. I have also enjoyed the pix of sunrise from your window. It shows a good eye for color and silhouette