The Week's Story

I try to catch up with what happens each day and as you see, i don't. I don't exactly what happened during the week in an order, so i'm just going to put it in a more or like a mess.

On some weekday, Ma, Shriram and myself went to Palo Alto downtown. It's a small town, 10 miles from Santa Clara. The single street was the main place where everything happened. Pet shops(saw some of the cutest turtles there), restaurants, ice cream parlors, petite art galleries, hi-fi boutiques and grocery stores, all along one street. The street was decked up with lights and x-mas trees. We went to an indo-asian restautant,... mmm. yummy food and dived ourselves into the ice cream parlor. We thought we were the only people to have ice cream with the temperature about 8 degrees outsie. Soon, people crowded the the little shop. It was Gelato ice cream, it was different.

I'm really getting bugged writing this, but let me finish what i started.

We went shoppping for a winter coat for me and couldn't find anything my size. everything was huge. I found one really nice one in some hi-fi store in Great Mall and it was just like what i wanted. Long, reached just below my kne, black, perfect collar and the tie-up around the waist, but guess what, it wasn't my size either. Duh, i only need an S. Shriram bought something called pretzels. they were just sweetened dough shaped like long stems with flavored sugar. I actually liked it.

I still haven't found THE COAT.

Oh my god, i'm watching this show called 'The Real Housewives' and this lady wants a pink motorcycle just to match her goddam pink skulled bandana. some people are just soooo crazy.

Anyway, back to where i left.

I was waiting for the weekend for we were leaving to San Francisco. We left home aound 10 a.m. We headed straight to the one place san francisco is known for, The Golden Gate Bridge. We took a walk on the world famous bridge. People are so health concious here that i saw so many people running and cycling around in the cold and i saw an insane guy rowing in the bay alone.

After that, we headed to this town called Sausalito. It was an english-styled toy kind of town. It had small shops alond the shore. We visited this humor gallery called 'The art that makes you laugh'. thiss gallery had paintings that had one-liners below that makes you laugh. the website is http://www.leedyart.com/.

This is how the houses are decked up overlooking the shore of the bay. Most of these are retirement houses.

It looks so beautiful during spring with pink flowers between the roads. I'll try getting the pictures.

I wanted to go to this place called 'The Stinking Rose Cafe' about which i had read in the newspaper back home for lunch. It was on this list on one of this must-visit places in SFO. This place has evrything made of garlic. We ordered pasta and then came the tiramashu. There was this lady walking down the street and she paused, gawked and said 'That looks nice'. Really, it tasted awesome. Whipped cream, the tiramasu(which was like cake) with some kind of alcohol in between.

The garlic garland goes all around the cafe !

After lunch, we went to Pier 39. It was an entertainment spot near the bay and there was a ferry tour for an hour. They took around The Alcatraz(a prison in the middle of the bay). It was abandoned in the '70's and the indians were the last ones to leave the island UNWILLINGLY.

At Pier 39.

One of the most beautiful christmas trees I've ever seen.

ALCATRAZ

We reached home around 7.00. We planned to visit this temple which was a 45 minute drive the next day. It was a simple temple which housed all the deities you ever know. We could find a whole load of indians there.

We went for lunch to this south indian restaurant called 'Tirupathi Bheema's'. Had a decent meal. We then caught up with ajith's new movie 'Billa' in this theatre which releases only indian movies. It was a decent movie and gosh the clothes were super sexy. I liked the new Ajith look.
i think he looked smart inspite of the little bulging tummy he had.

At last, i've covered the week's post. Will be back soon.

The Big Sur Drive

Shriram(my brother) had this plan of driving to a place 3 hours from Santa Clara to a castle. It's a drive along the Pacific Bay for 95 miles and it's supposed to be the one of the best drives in the USA. It was in fact. It would've been even more perfect if i was behind the wheels.

The journey started around 7.30 on a supposedly clear satuday morning. After Shriram having his caffeine shot of the day, we hit the highways. The highways had 4 lanes, the rightmost being the slow lane and the leftmost being the fastest. Whatever lane you are in, you got to maintain the speed limit which was a decent 65 for us.

There's nothing much to see in these highways and expressways than an ocasionally chain of retail stores. It was cloudy and the air smelled of GARLIC. There's a huge area of garllic cultivation somewhere along the highway and their smell was so strong.

The journey became the most spectacular when it started on Highway 1 which runs for 350 miles along the Pacific Bay upto Los Angeles. The sun popped himself out and the skies were clear. The weather prediction in Santa Clara proved to be right...... 90 miles away ! lol.


The first view of the coastline from highway 1


We stopped the car here and there to click some pictures and i turned stone cold in the very short time. My teeth would clatter rather than to give out a nice smile for the picture.

The sunlight was filtering through the clouds and the ocean was dazzling. The tides were high and there are no proper beaches along this drive. There were a lot of small and inviting inns and restaurants and some warm art galleries. There were small exits on our right which led to private houses by the bay. These were people who could catch a glimpse or rather the entire view of the bay EVERYDAY. The highway had neat curves and anybody would love to drive. There were some bikers trailing around against the wind and i went 'Are they crazy?' . lol. ;)

We finally reached our destination, THE HEARST CASTLE. We took the 12:00 tour after grabbing a quick snack. There was a bus arranged for the visitors from the summit upto the hill where the castle sat. A 4 mile journey and the bus played an audio recording explaining about the place.

I have to mention this. What could be more uncomfortable than sitting behind a couple who were acting so lovey-dovey. The worst scenario: Your mother is sitting beside you !!! I'm sure my mom went aghast. lol. ;)

The castle was tooooooooooooo good. All that glitters is not gold but al the yellow you see in the pictures were pure 22 carat GOLD. The castle was designed by a lady who was the first lady architect to be certified by the CA state.
It just wasn't a castle, it was a ranch. It was owned by Sir William Hearst. The ranch is spread around 250,000 miles and the best part is that it was called A MINI RANCH. What the hell was the guy thinking ??? His father discovered some silver mine and Hearst inherited all of it. He added his contribution to this wealth. He handled over 90 businesses.

The castle sat atop a hill and the water was provided by 3 natural springs. The castle was a melange of meditteranean cultures which includes the roman styled outdoor swimming pool, the spanish main house, the egyptian stone statues and collections from around the world. The castle had a view of a PART of the ranch and a spectcular 30-40 miles view of the coastline.

The Roman styled outdoor swimming pool.

This lady sure has to be credited for you know why...

The main hall
The Dining




This is the indoor swimming pool. All that is yellow to your eyes are gold. The ceiling, flooring, the floor of the pool and the walls, all gold. The staff of the castle get a 2 hour swimming in the pool at the end of summer. Lucky them !











Hearst had a private ZOO nestling animals like lions, polar bears, wild dogs, reindeer and cattle.
All the wild animals were donated to the SFO, San Diego and LA zoos. The cattle and zebra still graze in the ranch.

Hearst had a lot of guests invited to this castle. Some of them were Charlie Chaplin, Sir Winston Churchill and a lot of blondes and brunettes from the film industry.



The castle is now preserved and maintained as a heritage site by the CA state. The wealth of Hearst is maintained by the Hearst Corporation.

We drove back along the sae highway. We stopped to watch the sea lions which were basking in the sun and snoring away to glory. They were sleeping giants !!

I was getting travel sick and slept through most of the journey back home. Shriram, Andy(Shriram's friend) and myself caught up with a movie(The Golden Compass). It was kind of boring. Maybe i would've found it more interesting if i had read the book.

That's the end of my journey on 8.12.2007.

My Maiden Voyage

After much thinking i've finally created a blog for me. I've been havin this thought of creating one for almost a year and here i'm. i don't know whether i'll ver catch up with it because i get bored with anything after sometime but if life goes as it is today, i'm sure to come back.

I must mention about two people who are responsible for driving me towards creating this blog. They didn't technically force me into this but it were their blogs.

Shiva: One of my best friends back from school. We hardly knew each other back in school but soon grew out to know each other since a year(thanks to some very awkward situations) for which Shiva is solely responsible to.

Chinmayi: She's a very famous....umm... person. I was thinking it to a singer for which she's very famous than most other professions she handles. She's a classical dancer, vj, translator and a very active blogger.

Theirs are the only two blogs i've ever read. I read a year of Chinmayi's life in 3 hours. Do not mistake me for a voracious reader. ;) There's truth(in shiva's) and messages conveyed(in Chinmayi's). Though i may not turn revolutionary and go protesting through the streets shouting slogans, i can still try making a difference.

I do have a personal benefit out of this. I may improve my writing standards. Who knows, you may end up waiting for long hours in a stinking crowd craning your neck just to get a glance of me or even worse watch the movie made out of my blog which maybe nominated for an oscar. lol . :)

Sometimes i would wonder that reading somebody's blog is almost like you are watching their life in close scrutiny. It's invading their privacy to shorten it but duh, why else would they post it them in public ???

I think i've mentioned enough for my maiden blog. i'l come back for more.
take care !!