Virginia Trip - II

Virginia is a beautiful state, clean and green. The highways are in great condition and driving is a pleasure. Unlike NY where the roads are lined on both the sides with tall buildings and Indiana where roads are lined with miles and miles of plain boring fields...here you will lush green trees....such a soothing view!

Roughly after about 3hrs or so we reached our first destination, the CBBT or the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. As the name suggests, it is a long bridge cum tunnel that extends to about 18 miles. It is considered to be a modern engineering wonder and the view on either side of the bridge is breath taking. About halfway through, the bridge passes through a tiny man made island, where you can stop and park your car. The island also holds a restaurant and a souvenir shop. Its a nice stop to stretch your legs and that we did along with taking many pictures. It seems some chase + crash scene in Mission Impossible III has been shot on the bridge.

At the end of the bridge, we stopped again for a few clicks and then headed back to Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach is like any other beach town - small, lively and invitingly relaxing. By then we were famished with hunger. We drove for quite a while and finally found the perfect beach side. It was quite crowded but not too overbearing. We quickly changed to our beachwear and headed out towards the beach with all our beach-ware - chairs, mats, towels et all. Just by the beach there was this lovely posh-looking restaurant Catch 31. My vegetarian friends moved on to find their food while me and my non-vegetarian friends enjoyed delicious Catch 31 sea food.

The rest of the day passed in the beach. While I spent most of the time relaxing and sunbathing, my daring friends were more into playing in the water.

After everyone had their full, we moved towards town, which was just the matter of crossing the beach. We noticed people dressed nicely and soon realised we were about to witness a wedding! They were having a wedding at the beach! The funny thing was, the bride and the bridesmaids were wearing lovely gowns, but were barefooted while the bridegroom and his friends (what do you call them?) were wearing black suits and tux but were wearing slippers! It was indeed a quaint scene!

As a part of the Memorial Day celebrations, the town had organised a rock show. The band playing has flown in from Texas and they were pretty good. We passed the remaining of the evening lazing on the lawn listening to rock songs. Later we once again split into veg-non veg group for dinner. This time we had to walk quite a bit in search for the right place to eat. Our efforts were well paid coz the restaurant/bar that we ended up in served us yummy scrumptious sea food. I was so tired that as soon as I sat in the car, I dozed off. It seems on our way back to the hotel, we were stuck in the traffic for a good 1hr or so. By the time we hit the bed it was almost 2am!

Next The Busch Gardens

Virginia Trip - I

My weekend trip kick started on Friday. We were given an early release from work. My best friend Dee arrived at Port Authority bus terminal from NJ.

I then took her to see places in NYC. We had 4hrs in hand before our train to Washington DC. We went to Times Square, sat for some time in Bryant Park (I remember some scenes of Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna was shot here. Any idea when its getting released?). From there I took her to see the Grand Central Terminal and then to the UN. I was basically showing her my daily route to work. By then we were totally exhausted, walking so long that too with the luggage. We came back to the Penn Station from where we boarded the train to DC.

We reached DC at around 1.30am. A couple of our friends had come to pick us up. From there we were to go to one's home in Virginia. The Union Station in DC is amongst the most wonderful stations I have ever seen. Its grand and huge like a big hotels lobby. It has a shopping mall and restaurants. Even though the Grand Central Terminal in NY is also quite grand, I like Union Station better...maybe since it has lesser people comparatively?

As we exited the station, we missed an exit and soon we were lost. Guys as always try hard not to ask for directions, so we kept on going and ended pretty messed up. We soon had to call the wife of one friend to tell us the direction. The guy driving was talking to his wife on the phone figuring out the way to the interstate when a cop saw us and pulled us up. I know in many states it is against the law to use the cell phone while driving, and I guess we were close to the White House area, so there were extra security. Thankfully the cop just gave a warning and waived us the fine of $100.00. He even directed us to the correct way to the interstate.

We had moved not more than 3 blocks when we saw another set of blinking lights behind us. There was however a car between our car and the cop car so we were assured that the cops were not behind us again. All of a sudden, the car behind sped up and tried to overtake us from the right. However unluckily for that guy, the right lane ended, and since our car was on his left side blocking his way, he could not make a dash for it and was forced to make a right turn, where another cop car was waiting for him! Though it was a bit scary for a fraction of a second when I thought he is going to dash into us, we felt good later on thinking that we helped the cops nab a runaway!

By the time we reached home, it was 3am. V and a couple of friends were already on their way from Pittsburgh to Virginia. I slept for a couple of hours. By then they had arrived and after breakfast we all started for our vacation.

Next CBBT and Virginia Beach

On Cloud Nine

I am overwhelmed, I am happy, I feel great and I feel grateful!
In spite of my disappearing act from the blog scene (that too without any notice), you guys took time to wish me on my birthday. Thank you all so much for your wishes and thank you, Silky Moon and Ricky, for writing such lovely things about me. Thanks to all the wonderful friends I have, in real life and in the virtual life, my birthday went really, really well. I cannot even count the number of people who have wished me from all over the world. Many went out of their way to make me feel special. This birthday was also special because my best friend who recently came from India, was with me. We are back together after three years... its great staying together again....just like old times.

This Memorial weekend me, V and our friends are going to Williamsburg, Va. As always, I will be (hopefully) posting my travelogue once I return.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.