As my DC stay is coming closer I decided to cover the places of interest.  I admit, this is the one place in US where I saw families walking on the streets visiting the city.  Most of the couples have more than 2 children.

My first stop over was Museum of Amrican Indian.  It is four story building and the theme is to showcase about the native Red Indian Culture of America.  There were photos, TV shows, 10 min movies etc to present the lifestyle of the tribes. These tribes exist along with modern society and preserve their own identity. The habitat of tribes is known as Reservation. This museum also covers some of the civilizations of  South America.  My mind invitable draws comparisions parallel to Indian culture and tradition. The Universal truth emerging out is People are happy living in tribes, identify with a land and most importantly living close to the nature.  Science and technology made human beings lonely.  Most of the museums in US are run by Smithsonian Institute. The name is dervied from Englishman who pioneered the museum concept diplaying his own collection.

My next stop was Art gallery.  I took a pamphlet in the lobby which gives the must see art peices if we wanted to cover in 1 hr.  I really liked this Idea.  The building had several rooms and the picture shows the room no that had the famous painting.  I completed the whole list. This is second art gallery I visited in US. Previous one was Getty museum in LA.  There is one painting by Da vinci which they say is done in USA. But almost all are collections from west Europe.  The only painter I knew is Vincent Vangauh and I saw six of his art works in both the museums.   There is this flower vase painting by him which is really good.  I must admit that for me all are really good. They are so real and excellent work of art.  But when there is plenty around, you can not pay attention and appreciate every painting. A glance and then next painting.  Its really a strain standing continuosly watching these museums.

From the Art gallery, I crossed the lawn (National Mall) and went into Smithsonian Castle. This is where Smithsonian lived. Externally it looks like any European Castle red in colour. The tomb is like the VT station in Mumbai.. There are two rooms open to public. One is used by canteen. The other had some interesting pieces like Olympic gold medals (not many 5) donated by Americans.

From Smithsonian I went to Museum of Natural History across the garden.  This is full of people as the name draws lot of them.  On the first floor there is a room dedicated for gems, stones and mines.  You see how gold, copper, platinum and silver look a like in mines. There are also many exhibits on mineral stones etc.  The major attraction of the Hall is “Hapa Diamond”  Located in a showcase in the center.  This is the world’s very old ( 3 billion years ..too much) diamond, very hard and the only blue diamond.  It looks like a sapphire with sparkles that tell it as a diamond.  The blue clour is becasue of the impurity may be boron atom in the diamond.  The diamond was put in the locket of a platinum diamond Necklace.  Yes… This diamond belongs to India.  The last known origin is Golconda, South India.  It reached Europe and from there to America.  There are some other diamond jewellary and boy really awesome.  There is the crown and Necklace of French Queen Louies XVii who I guess were thrown out in French revolution.  Most of the diamonds are from India ( admitted by the musuem that olden days India was the only known source of diamonds) and columbia. There are yellow diamonds. There are exhibits on emerald (biggest from India), saphires and rubies. I enjoyed watching these precious jewels and then took on not so interesting mines etc.

There are also skeletons of Dianosaraus (flesh eating and veggie one — denoted by teeth structure) and many lizards. I was wondering whether these are real.  Some where I read that it is constructed from remnants etc.  Some exhibits exlain the evaluation of life on Universe etc.  They go back to as good as 4500 million years (centuries).. The cycle is explained till the humans… Universe formed from gas.. … due to chemical reaction .. first living cell before 3500 million years etc.  I am not interested in science speculation of Universe creation..

Finally the day is over and it’s time to go home…..

But yes, Any of you if ever get a chance do visit this city with your families. You can really spend good time in visiting museums and other places of interest.  There are many Hotels. I would prefer Residence Inn which gives complementary breakfast with a full kitchen.

lastweek I had been to West Springfield in MA.  The nearest airport is Bradley International, Harford.  Evnthough the flight time is75min I had to go to Chicago ( 1 hr back in Timezone), wait for 2 hrs and then took a fight to Hartford.  I started at DC at 2.30 PM and reached Residence Inn Hotel in WS by 11.00 PM.  I had to pay $15 for one piece of check-in baggage in US Airways.  Airlines are in bad shape in US.  From LA to DC, which is a direct flight having 4.5 hrs flight time, I spent around 226 $ for the flight. But for DC to Hartford the price was around $630.  I used to have impression that airlines are cheap in US. But, man with this one can visit India and come back. I took a cab form Hartford to WS city and paid $52 for 25 mins Journey. The same driver had gave me return ride.  We started chatting for Time pass. He had 5 divoreces and now has a columbian girl friend. He said he can not trust American woman anymore. He found his current girl friend in Internet. She is his age and not interested in GC is what he says. Once he purposefully went away from home and his 5th wife called him only after 5 days.  He wanted a wife who  wants to know why he is not home after one hr late. 

In MA, I met three of my colleagues from India who are from Mumbai. I met all of them for first time.  For one person I reminded him that I met him before. The vert next morning all three of them had their own lunch box and it continued for four days I was there. I had to finsh the job in 4 days and was busy making report in the evening. Finally I have acheived my target and was happy for the same. Last day one collegue offered me some rice at his room and I was very happy. It’s been many days since I had dal chawal.  I stayed in Mariott in DC and they feed you twice in a day.  I was eating cheese burgers and swimming in the hotel pool to burn it. the pool was eco friendly and they don’t use chlorine for cleaning. Some rock salt is used for cleaning . So it was really a good swimming with out having to make skin dark due to chlorine. Mexiacan fast food chain ”chipotle” was only source of rice. I occasioned it enjoyed the chipotle food.  I was not craving for Indian Hotels. When your alone you just try to eat whatever is convenient.  

MA is beatiful and seems to be thinly populated.  So far I lived always in suburbs in CA.  I wanted to see how country side looks like. MA fulfilled that.. We see wooden bunglows lined up with grass and thick vegetation in between. I didn’t see any Mcd in the vicinity.  There was only subway near by to our hotel and I had my dinner sandwich from them once. It was nice. I had some sweet onion dressing on the top. Generally I like subway. In  DC, I had been to one subway and that fellow was conservative in putting lettuce but put all varieties of alapenos. I told him to put all sauses (mastard, myoneese etc). Oh boy, I had to eat that some how. I was very hungry that time and eager to have footlong.  With that experience I was careful in my slection in the sub of MA.

Besides our hotel (residence Inn), There was this beautiful church. It was like European church they show in Bollywood. Located at a height on a small slope and surrounded by a lawn and not hindered by any trees etc. Myself and collegue went inside. But there was only one woman sitting there.

We went to Walmart in WS. In that campus there is only walmart. Had it been some city there would have been all the retails giants.  I was alone in DC and enjoyed the group in MA.

The company we were visiting is a toy company. They make all board games in US.  It’s any body’s guess the play toys are made in china. The popular monopoly (trade we call in India, I forgot what my son & his frends call it in pune — not marathi word) is their game.  I wanna buy a monopoly but didn’t have time to think about it. The toy company is located in Industrial Area.  People hv been working in that company for more than 20 yers. My collegue was saying Amricans don’t change jobs but change wives and Indians are reverse. These guys work for 4.5 days only. What a nice life yaar.  I liked life style better than the hectic & artificial life of  DC. Any where you go there is this diff between city and town culture.  The manager I was working with was tall, middle age with sharp eyes.  I gave him some tough time in posing difficult questions.  He was a gentle man and for me looked like Mahatma Gandhi. I had  met this young John who was explaining me some processes. I liked his cool attitude. He was talking like grab it, this guy etc. There are 3 Johns in that office. One is Boss. All 3 are nice Individuals.

to be contd.

I became really the fan of subways here. They have names like blue, yellow, orange and green going to four corners of the city. These lines have intersecting points. So you can travel from one corner to another corner seamlessly. There are ticketing machines to issue fare cards. The good thing is you don’t need exact change to buy the ticket. The farecard carries the total amount. you have to swipe your card at the time of entry and exit out of the station premises. The exit swipe will show the remaining balance on the card.  The ticket booths even accept credit cards too. This is good for people like me who don’t keep money or need bills for reimbursement. I haven’t seen how the delhi metro is operating. I did use the Metro in Taipei, Taiwan capital. I think that was also similar more or less to US.  One thing is for sure. Most of these asia pacific countries including philippines seem to follow in US steps which is good for them. 

Let’s go bit offline… In Philippines they have a bypass roads adjoining mainroads which now India is also seem to be following but not in true spirit.  In Philippines, there are proper entry and exit points from bypass road to the main expressway. The toll is based on the distance travelled. In my current city pune, they are making bypass roads adjoining Maubai-pune old Highway.  But traffice is stiill the same.  People can cross. No fencing on either side. There is no proper exit & entry points from main road to bypass road. Infact while taking those exits, if you are not careful you may be hit.  I will be consuming the whole pages if I start explaining the Great road widening work of Pune. 

When I look at the FBI building,  I wanted to go and meet those daring & dashing agents that we see in movies and read in Novels. I guess those guys woube out there on the field and not sitting in offices doing desk work. There is this white pillar known as Washington monument. They say from the top it one can have a fanatastic view of DC. Well I didn’t try this. Downtown DC had a china town with a big banner at the starting of this street. But all it has is some few shops. It is not as big as you see in SFO. Chinese makes their presence felt in almost all US cities with this china town. The Indian business men should think about it.

Washington DC Like any other state capital is full of  state departments and whole lot of museums.  There are many sight seeings organized (Open top Bus). Even there is a free guided walking tour.  The parliament building is called as Capitol here.  I could see the whitehouse from some distance. They this National Mall here.  Looking at the name I thought it must be something to do with a big shopping mall. But guess what ? It is a just a stretch of garden in between two major streets. It seems the Independence day parade is held here every year.

One more thing DC stands for District of  Columbia.  It’s like an union territory sort of thing. DC is between the states Virgenia and Maryland. The  horizontal streets are named on numericals and vertical streets are named on alphabets excepting some major streets which have their own names. I came to know that America had it’s first president way back in 1789, Mr. George Washington.  It needs no explanation for the system they have now. People say Rome was not built in a day. But I don’t care. I want to see how many years it took for US.

Somebody told me, Germany was the first to start the Freeway. America followed imitated them. Somewhere around first worldwar US had come up with this Infrasturucture project which took them 20 yrs for building all the road network. Need to google this and verify the authenticity.

I am not a museum freak. I had been to this National Air & space museum where they display the Apollo which went to Moon.  You see the history of Aeroplane and from where it started.

There are some scientific dispalys that will teach the airflying principle. You feel the drift etc. Overall it is worth dekho, mainly for highschool kids.  The main advantage of washinton is you can roam around in subways. There are four different train routes which are well organized. In fact I use metro daily.  In this month of August (summer holidays for kids) we see lot of families visiting the city. They have map in one hand and water bottles on the other. This is the city where you can spend 3 days holidaying without using the car. Don’t about NY.

The popular Video game which is always sold out in major stores in Nintendo Wee.  I became the proud owner of  this game in this city.

To be contd….

Folks, I just want to share with you my experiences in current  US visit .  I am a typical married Indian IT guy spending time here on short term visit. My  main objective is to finish the job at the earliest  inorder to be with my family back home. Sometimes things are not completely under our control. The stay got extended by 3 weeks.  I had to take it with pinch of Salt.

During this stay I got a chance to visit three different places in US that are LA, West springfield (MA)  and DC. I was staying in a suburb called Northridge City near LA.  Northridge hosts Indian community and you find many Indian restaurants and Stores.  But I didn’t find Indians compared to Bay Area. The California Bay area is just like mini India (every body say like that).  LA is pretty costly in terms of real estate. This is OK for Indians like me who come and go but not for those green card aspiring types. They really have to make lots of $s to afford a house here.  J spent my time on weekends visiting shopping malls etc. Couldn’t do much sight seeing…

From LA I came to DC as our client had corporate office here. Infact I also pushed to have a look at US Capital . I stayed in the past in CA for 2 years and hence wanted to experience life in EAST of US. The blacks form a majority of the community here.  One of the black cabby told me that Ethiopians form the majority of the black community here.  Lot of them still come here to US on Lottery Visa. According to this you will receive GC directly.  I don’t know if Indians and Indian Gov is aware of this.  Otherwise we would have inlude that as a clause in Nuclear deal. This particular cabby is not happy with US and praising a lot on Indian food and movies.  Most of the African countries it seems are exposed to Indain culture due to some Indian population settled there long ago. He played the song ……Goron Ki Na Kalonki… for me in the cab. The other time an old taxi driver from Ghana is calling names on Ethiopians. No wonder Africans fight amongst each other. I forgot to tell you, I had one old papaji (not sardar but looks Sindhi) as my taxi driver.  He drove me extra miles as was confused on the route. To my surprise he gave me concession on the fare too.  This old man says India is best for old age. Every year he goes to India etc…

I read some where some body wrote that if he asked to make a wish then he would wish for US as a neighbour…

To be contd.