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A ship load of memories ... (New Orleans, LA)

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This was the busiest period of my life I believe - at work I mean. It was straight 10 days away from home away & from my wife, felt really tiring and boring at times as I had no company for such a long time. I had an option either to fly back home or stay at my clients place. Well, after having worked for about two years in Baton Rouge I had visited New Orleans downtown only for couple of hours just to feel the vibe but never experienced it in total. Both the times I’ve been to this city it was only Bourbon street that I explored. This time I had decided it’s no longer going to be Bourbon but everything else. The most special things of all I've done in the trip was to visit many hotels in the area. Surprised??? Yes, I make my trips random and I usually don't have a long list of places that I choose to visit. That's how it's been for sometime now and this is how usually I enhance my trips by visiting random places that are less spoken or less visited by tourists. ...

Another city to love!! So does SF stand for SanFrancisco or SalesForce?

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It was a beautiful afternoon in the bay area. One of my colleague at work planned an architectural tour of San Francisco. I have been to a similar one in Chicago and wondered how well thought the city was beautifully constructed. These architectural tours usually leave anyone to deeply think about the stories of the day (century or few decades from today) that lead to the construction of the then skyscrapers.  We began our tour at the very historic Galleria Park Hotel  at around 2.15PM when our group begins to fill the lobby. Our guide for the day was the best architectural historian I've met, i.e., Rick Evans . So, let me begin with this part and expand into what we've seen during the tour.  Most of us walk around the downtown just gazing at the beautiful structures around us but would have never noticed the public spaces. Yes, Rick calls them PoPOS (privately owned Public Open Spaces) . There's a very interesting story behind it, use the link to explore them and make s...

A journey in a taxi

Off-late when I arrive into Chicago I always am undecided if I have to take a taxi or an Uber ride back home. Today I was just so driven towards the taxi stand. There wasn't any one waiting for a taxi when I reached there so I jump into the first one that's available. On a normal day the airport guys would just direct me towards the taxi I need to get into but it was so unoccupied that one opened the trunk and the other was ready with the door open. Couldn't ask for more . So, the moment I get into this taxi, as usual I tell the address and pause for a moment. It was an old guy driving the taxi and he confirmed if the address was in downtown. We start our ride with the usual greetings and lead into a conversation about how his day was and then he reciprocates with how my flights was and the weather in the city I was flying in from. Then driver (Luis) begins to tell me about his family. I was abacked when he began talking about his family without notice but I  slowly sta...

Pokemon Go and our first road trip to the music city

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​ Bunch of bad a**es on a random road trip for 10 hours each way, that's the best I can shortly describe about out trip. The Blackkeys, Paul McCartney, Joe Rogan, Aziz Ansari and Bill Burr (that's the music and stand up we heard our way). Well, most intriguing part was the instances when we lost our ways and kept adding couple hours to the trip each way was a funny moment when both of us tried to find whom to point the fingers at. We tried so hard that we gave up and continued to drive each time it happened. Jays hard attempt to get the Pokemon Go's on the highways was a little frustrating as he couldn't get what he expected out of the long drive, the game would only show him few tiny and trivial things which he had already gotten. But he wouldn't give up and kept trying though. Our unintended route through Evansville helped us go by Henderson and on our return trip we got to drive by Bowling green (both are places where Jays grandparents lived and where his mom ...

Fairy tale from københavn (Copenhagen)

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The journey began from Holstebro on Friday evening. We were four and travelled in the DSB express train that reached Copenhagen in about 4hrs. We had great time enjoying the countryside view of the country and great wifi connectivity on the train ( anyways we got to sit on first class coach) throughout our entire journey made it more pleasant after a busy day's work. Day1: Started our tour of the city with a boat tour followed by two wonderful free walking tours  ( classical and tour of Christianshavn ) that covered the markets of the city and few historic places such as the Round tower , University of Copenhagen  (I was reminiscing my classes at school reading about the famous physics formulas when we reached the statue of Neils Bohr  at this place). The city has history dating back to 16th century and has many places that still restore the happenings. The tour ended at this wonderful eatery market where we had spelendid time eating hotdogs, Mikkeler & Friends...

A night in Nashville

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A bunch of old friends with no plan just end up meeting in this musical city. I was in St.Louis at my uncles place for the weekend, and my childhood mate calls me and tells he will be visiting me in a couple of hours to leave to Nashville. We had no clue what we'd be doing there. I heard from someone in one of my conversations that this city has a great history to country music. We started driving to this city in the afternoon and reached by dusk. The first thing we did was to visit the hindu temple which has one of the biggest installations of lord ganapathi , the picture below with Indian Graffiti / Rangoli was taken at the entrance of the temple as they were busy working on the 50th anniversary of the temple. We met another friend here and it felt great meeting two old school friends after many years. Now it was time to visit the city and experience all the stories I've heard. We stayed at midtown for the night and after a slight break we all changed our attire as if we w...