Music Report

Hey friends,

sorry I haven't been keeping up with the Music reviews but if you read my previous post, you would understand how busy I was with work and school. So I'll just list the songs I have been listening to in the past and right now.

Fashion Movie:

Fashion has some really nice tracks. Starting with "Fashion ka jalwa", it couldn't have been better if someone other than sukhwinder singh sang it. The song is foot-tapping number. Then there is "Mar jawa" which also has nice music. Then last but not least, "Kuch khaas" is my favorite track. When I first listened to this song, I felt the female voice is "Asha bhonsle" but I was wrong b/c the female had the heavy tone in her singing. I love the music of this song as well as some of the wording. In short, listen to these tracks when you get chance, you'll not be disappointed.

Yuvvraaj Movie:

First and for most I want to say that this has A.R.Rehman's music so that tells a lot in itself. I am a big fan of A.R.Rehman and this movie's tracks just rocks. It's got the best music with best singers singing it...well not all of them are best singers yet! My two favorite tracks are "Tu muskura" and "Tu meri dost". First, "Tu Muskura", Soft, soothing, melodious, and the best part, alka yagnik is singing this one. It feels like I haven't heard her in years since all the songs now days are either sung by new singers or have a combination of shreya ghoshal or sunidhi chauhan (which I don't mind because both of them are rocking), but it's nice to hear Alka Yagnik's voice after long time. Second is "Tu mera dost" song which is sung by shreya ghoshal and some new singer. Initially I didn't like this track because of the male singer. I really feel that Sonu Nigam would have done true justice to the song but oh well. I heard the song first time and I think when you hear shreya taking over the song, at that point you just love the song. Then when you hear it again, you already love the tunes and ignore the male part....hahahah...I don't know what I'm saying. In short, I love the song :P. Other tracks are also good which are sung by sonu nigam - "mastam mastam" and "dil ka rista". Background score is pitch perfect.

Ghajini:
Another movie whose music is composed by A.R.Rehman. Two of my favorite tracks in this movie are "Gujharish" and "kaise mujhe tum". Kaise mujhe tum is kind of weird song because the lyrics are like sentences that you would tell someone but the music is really good.

There are couple other songs that I've been listening to which I'll list in my next post. Listen to these when you get chance and tell me what you think. :)
Bye for now!

Something to relax your brain!! - Hillarious!

This is something one of my collegues printed out and posted in the lab. I read it and it just cracked me up. So I thought of posting it here, so everyone can enjoy this :). Click on the picture above for bigger view and to able to read the article.

Around the Clock Schedule!

Dear blog and blog readers,
Sorry I have not been able to keep up with the blog entries. It's because my hectic/busy/exhausting schedule that I hardly get any time to do anything else other than work and study. My school is almost over so I'll be free after I'm done with my finals. On weekdays, I have about 12-13 hour long days from Monday through Thursday. I leave around 7:30 am and come back home around 7:30/8 pm. By the time I get home I am completely out of energy. Many people are happy when Friday comes b/c it's the last weekday at work and you get the saturday, sunday off, well not in my schedule. I have friday packed with other work items and my weekends are just as busy as weekdays. My most of the saturdays have been on campus trying to finish the homework that's due the following week. Sunday's schedule is somewhat similar to saturday except that I'm finishing homework at home instead of going to campus. At work, during September/October month, one of my colleague was gone for 5 week vacation so covering for him was a big task. In the month of November, another collegue is gone for training in India so I'm covering for him which has caused a lot of work. Right when he left, all the testing problems had to occure :P. Ohh don't forget, my class schedule in between all this chaos. I have my first final exam on Dec. 6 and second one on Dec. 11. I will truly be relieved after that. I have got a big project demo in front of more than 100 developers on Dec. 9th which I'm really nervous about so Wish me Luck!! I've worked really hard on this project and to present it in front of this big group of people is nervewrecking! When you have group of people where there are developers who have been with the company for a decade and who are so experienced is the ones that scare me the most since they'll always have some input different from others. Well, let's see how it goes..I'll keep you posted once it's done.

I would also like to update my music reviews section since I've been listening to some of the songs non-stop and would like to share them with you. After all, music is the source of relaxation in the midst of all this hectic routine :).

Well that's it for now. Thanks to the Thanksgiving break at school that's given me some free time to write this blog. I'll write more once my finals are over.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Love :)

Funny incident in my AI class

So finally I got few minutes to share a funny incident from my AI (Artificial Intelligence) class.

My professor was just about to start the lecture and the professor from next room came and took the chalk from our room. My professor realized that he took the ONLY chalk we had in class. So he went behind him to get it back. The other professor said.."how about we share it ..50-50" and he broke the chalk in half and gave one to my professor. He told my professor that this is "Financial crisis right now" :P.

Hehe...I thought it was funny because the way economy is going right now, anything is possible whether if it's got to do with the wall street or shortage of chalks in classrooms ;).

Bachna Ae Haseeno

Well I've been bit behind on updating my blog because 1) I've been busy and 2) When I think of something to write I get distracted by something and forget to write :P.

If you remember, in my earlier post of "Teri Ore song" I said that I will write the post on the song reviews if I like something I hear. So here it is.

Recently (not too recently, probably when then movie came out), I heard the songs of Bachna Ae Haseeno and the minute I heard each song, I didn't like them at all. I'm a big Vishal-Shekhar fan because their compositions are danceable, soft-soothing and just fun (and importantly not copied form someone else's composition)!! I heard the same songs again after few weeks and I loved them! I guess I didn't have the patience to listen to the full song the first time and just listened to first few seconds and switched to the next track if I didn't like the beginning. But I was wrong! Each and every song is beautifuly composed and sung by some talented singers. Let's go through the tracks:
Ahista Ahista: Beautiful song sung by melodious Shreya and cool brizzed lucky ali's voice. It's soft but also foot-tapping number. Lucky ali is back after long time but back with a bang! Must listen to the track.

Lucky boy: The first time I heard this song I said "What kind of song is this" right when Sunidhi sung "Lucky boy, you're my lucky boy" and the way she says "Luuuu....cky" in the song sounded odd to me. But when I heard it again, I loved the music, the beat and couldn't really find any faults in the song :P. This is a complete club number and Sunidhi masters in these kinds of songs and so did she in this one.

Jogi Mahi: Nice punjabi song by Shekhar, Sukhvindar and Himani kapoor. Danceable, nice beat and soothing touch by sukhvindar's vocals. Beautiful song! If you like to dance to punjabi songs, this would be a good one to listen to :).

Khuda Jaane: Romantic song sung by none other than KK who masters in these kind of songs specially if the song is emotional or sad. Remember his songs "Dard me bhi ye lab muskura jate hai" from The train and "Laboko labo se" from bhool bhulaiya. Well this one isn't emotional, but it's romantic. It's very soft track. I initially thought that this song was sung by Alisha chinai but it turns out it's sung by Shilpa rao. It sounded so much like Alisha, but overall she has done really nice job.

There are two more tracks to the movie that I haven't listened much. They are "Small town girl" and the title song and my least favorite song is the title song. I have listened to the original song and after listening to that one this new track just doesn't fit in my system. I'm not saying it's bad...it's alright but the original is the best :).

Overall, Vishal-shekhar has done a great job with keeping their compositions fresh and enjoyable.

First week of classes

My grad classes have been started and I completed my first week. Just by looking at this past week, I can gurantee you that I will be super busy with my weekends :( and won't really get any time for myself. I am taking two courses this semester, Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence (AI), both of which are harder than my last class, Database Systems.

AI's professor seems good and the activities are very interactive so the problems make more sense and students learn better. We have homeworks due every week :( and I just spent my entire weekend trying to finish the homework that's due tomorrow :(:(. I still haven't completed it as I have some doubts in one of my solutions but I will figure it out before I go to bed (hopefully?).

Algorithm's professor on the other hand is really nice too, very smart, and funny. Before she starts the class, she asks if anyone got a good joke to tell, if not, she just throws some joke in which either is funny or sarcastic or something which ends up being funny. This class is going to be tough too since there is a lot to cover. I have 10 pages of notes just in 2 lectures so imagine how much material she could cover in one lecture. Her notes makes sense but somehow it seems she teaches fast in class. I guess I will get used it once couple of weeks passes and before the semester ends :P.

That's it for now. Ohh...the rain kinda cooled down colorado which was nice :). It was nice to have that change. Let's hope it doesn't continue raining because that brings the cloudy weather which is dark and depressing.

2008 Olympics

As all of you may know, 2008 olympics have started since Friday (8/8/08). I'm not really an olympics fan or have never been excited to watch it. But somehow I've been watching it everyday this year since it started on Friday with the opening ceremony. It's been like an addiction. As soon as I get home from work, the first thing I tune in is the olympics channel...no matter what sport is competing. BTW, I got to tell you that the opening ceremony in Beijing was pretty amazing. I was really impressed with the whole olympic enviornment whether it was the performances delivered by 15,000 performers, the stadium look, or the audience and the backdrop of chinese culture was fantastic.

So far I've watched the following sports where US is competing against another country:
Swimming:
I saw live competition of Michale Phelps 400 m individual medley where he won the gold medal. It was pretty amazing. As soon as he got in the water, he was ahead of everyone and his timing made it to second world record. As of today (8/11/08), he won 3 gold medals!!! Also I saw the female 400 m backstroke which was cool and US won gold and bronze medal in that one too.

OMG! Michale Phelps is on FIRE!!
After Yesterday's (8/12/08) swims, 200m butterfly and 4x200m relay, add two more gold medals to Phelps' achievements!! So far 5 gold medals won and 3 more to go. He's on his way to break the world record to get 8 gold medals in one olympics :). Luckily NBC is showing the live telecast of swimming competition from two days at night so it's so much fun. Don't forget to tune in on Thursday, Friday and Saturday for his other 3 swims!! Go Michale Phelps!!!!!

After Thursday's (8/14/08) 200m individual medly, Phelps won his 6th gold medal making world records in all of his races.

Friday's (8/15/08) 100m butterfly race was quite interesting to see. If you didn't see it, the race was very tight in the last 15 m where phelps beat the participant from Australia (I think?) by 1/100th of a second and won his 7th gold medal. With this gold medal, he has tied with another 1972 olympian who also won 7 gold medals in one olympic.
Here are my thoughts on the 100m race. I could see that phelps swam really fast in the last 5-10 m to get ahead of Milorad Cavic but I am having hard time believing that Milorad didn't touch the wall before Michael Phelps. I didn't believe when they showed on TV that phelps touched the wall first and I certainly thought that they cheated somehow to get Phelps his 7th gold medal. BUT, when they showed the underwater video of both swimmers touching the wall, you can somewhat see that even though Milorad had his hands near the wall, phelps' hands came super fast from the sides and touched the wall. I have to see the video couple more times to actually get it into my system that phelps won!! I'm a Michael Phelps fan after watching all his races in 2008 olympics but still the fact is hard to believe :P.

AND Michael Phelps has won his 8th gold medal in his last swim!!!!! In history of 112 olympics, he's the first olympian to win 8 gold medals in one olympics!!!! Go Michael Phelps!! Now that he won't be swimming any more I don't know what's left to see in the olympics game :P.

And for my earlier statement regarding his 7th gold medal which he won by 1/100th of a second, I'm not going to think anymore about it on who touched the wall first because since the difference is 1/100th of a second, it's nearly impossible for a human eye to catch which swimmer touched the finish wall first. So I think anything is possible in that 1/100th of a second. I'm just really happy that Phelps won 8th medal and made his dream a reality on this olympics :).

Women's Beach Volleyball:
This one I've been watching since saturday when they first started playing. In Yesterday's match, Misty May and Karen walsh won against Cuba. This is a really cool game to watch because it kinda keeps you on your toes. You never know who'll snatch the game point when and how. This game has so much interaction which makes it more exciting.

Men's and Women's Gymnastics:
This one I've been watching on and off, so don't really know where US stands in this sport.

Men's Synchronized diving:
This was alright for some countries while other countries like China or Russia were 99% synchronized in their diving. One advantage of watching this sport from home is that once they dive, the recap is shown from like 4 different angles and in slow motion as well where you can clearly see the different timings of actions taken by both team members.

So if you haven't tuned in to the olympics channel yet, do that and I'm sure you'll find a sport that won't let you move away from your seat.

PS: I'll update this post on regular basis if I can on olympics for the games I watch. So come back to read more if you're interested in Olympics news :P. I'm telling you I'm addicted to this thing. I was really sleepy yesterday (8/12) but didn't want to go to bed until NBC showed the Michale Phelps 4x200m relay LIVE!

Obsession of Art

There are two reasons for naming the title the way it is: one is because this post has to do something with art (drawing) and second is my obsession of it. It's 12:20 am as I'm writing this post and usually I go to bed around 10 - 10:30. The reason I am still up is because I wanted to finish a drawing that I started around 6 pm yesterday (since it's already past 12 now).

I was chatting with one of the friends yesterday and she mentioned me this place called "Golconda Ruins" which is in Andra. I have never heard of the place so I got curious and googled it up. I went to the wikipedia site which showed some really cool pics of this place. Surfing down my way to the bottom of the page, I found row of pictures for this place. I've always loved to draw and my interest became my hobby since I was in 9th grade when I did my first big art project. Then life got busier and never really got a chance to sit down and draw something properly. I might have drawn something once a year maybe if I was bored. Once I saw the second picture on the wiki site of the Golconda ruins, it suddenly hit me that I should draw this. Don't know from where and how it came to my mind but somehow it got in my head that I have to draw this when I get home. I couldn't wait to get home from work and guess what? As soon as I got home, I changed, ate something, took paper, pencil, and started sketching down the picture. I felt silly but then I was so focused on it once I started it. I couldn't sit still and finish it in one time since I was interupted many times, and may be that's the reason it took me so long to finish it. I finished it and I feel great about it. I feel I have accomplished something today and it kind of brought back some of the high school memories.

Below is the original picture along with my drawing in two different shades. It's definitely not perfect and not same as the original but I tried my best and to me, it looks good :). Tell me what you think. Do you think it turned out ok? Do you think it's so bad that I shouldn't have wasted my time in it. I would love to hear from you.

PS : Thanks to my friend for letting me realize my interest and love for drawing :).

Damaged Baggage Situation..

Alright, so if you have read my earlier post "Back to US Journey", you might remember that I said that almost all of our bags were damaged (well 5 out 6) when we got back to US. Just to refresh your memory, we came back in United Airlines. The bags didn't come with us in our flight so we had to wait for 1.5 hours for the next flight since our bags were coming in next flight. Once the bags arrived, almost all of them were damaged badly such that we were sure that those bags can't be used again. We filed the complaint for the bags. The lady who took our complaints said that they can't guarantee that any of the bags will be repaired or if they will take responsibility for any damages (since the lady thought that some were manufacturing defects :P). This statement made us mad but it was 1 am and we didn't have the energy to argue with that lady. I told my dad that let's at least file the complaint and then we'll see what can be repaired and what not. We couldn't leave our bags there since they were all full but we came back in 2 weeks and dropped off the bags. The damage luggage agent was very nice. She talked with me on the phone very nicely insuring me that she'll do her best to get the bags repaired and if they can't repair them, they'll negotiate something with us. I was relieved after hearing that :).

It had been two weeks and I still didn't hear from her regarding the status of the bags or anything so got little concerned and called her up. Couldn't get hold of the agent so left a message. She called me back and said that 4 new bags have been bought to replace the 4 damaged big bags and one of the bags will be repaired...so they'll probably ship them out to us once they get them all in (Wooohoooooo!). I was really happy and satisfied to hear that they got us 4 new bags to replace the old ones. I'm very glad that things worked out and now we don't need to worry about our bags.

Advice: If there is any kind of damage, definitely file a complaint. File the complain and see what can be repaired. It is the airline's responsibility to reimburse us, or repair the damage they did to our bags. Worse comes worse, they might say "no" to have anything to do with your bags, but it's worth a try. You might get lucky or unlucky depending on what kind of person you deal with.

Tata for now!!

Jaane tu ya jaane na

I recently watched "Jaane tu ya jaane na" and it was pretty good. It's got all new faces in it including Imran Khan (Amir Khan's nephew). The movie was funny at times and silly at other times..Imran acted well and so did Genelia. It's a complete youth movie and some scenes in the movie are hillarious.
For example,
The scene where Jai (Imran) wants to drop off his girlfriend to her house, Aditi (Genelia) says "Aur kitna drop karega tu, saamne hi to hai uska ghar".

The scene where jai comes to aditi's house thinking he has come to give job interview and his parents on the other hand think that jai has come to ask for permission to marry their daughter (hahaha!! hillarious). The first thing aditi's parents (btw, aditi is from rich family) ask is "Are you sure you are ready for this?" and jai answers "Yes, of course. Afterall I have to do it for money!" Shocked parents ask..."You are doing this JUST for money??" Quickly Jai responds and says "Yea of course..oh and also for status, and image in the society and also because I love you guys!!". I can't describe the whole scene but you have to watch it to enjoy it!!

Also the fights between aditi and her brother are quite funny! And who can forget the climax scene..(don't read further if you don't want to know what happens at the end!!!!)
The police caches jai in the middle of the airport for getting in the airport without authorization and he's screaming "Meow! Meow!" and start singing a song "Jaane tu ya jaane na" to stop aditi from leaving mumbai.

I am not too excited about the music of this film except one or two songs. I am a big fan of A.R.Rehmaan but it didn't feel like the usual A.R.Rehman music. The song "Kabhi kabhi aditi zindagi" is a light hearted and foot tapping number. Another song "Nazrein milana nazrein churana" is also a soft-paced song. The harmonica tune at the very beginning of this song sounds very much like the tune in "Bum bum bole, masti me dole" song from "Taare zameen par" if you listen to it carefully. About "Pappu can't dance" song, I didn't like it when I heard it at first and I still don't like the middle parts but I like the opening of this where it starts with "tirkit dana tirkit dana tiri nana westerns....hai muscular, hai popular".

Well, that's my review on the movie and thoughts on the music! ENJOY!

July 4th Weekend FUN + YJA!!

So after coming back from India, I had to work the next day and then leave for chicago trip the day after...crazy, huh? But I was looking forward to my chicago trip because I was going for the YJA (Young Jains of America) convention and I knew it was going to be a lot of fun. The convention actually was from July 3rd - July 6th but my brother and I went 4 days early to stay at my aunt's place. We got good rest there since we were really tired from our India trip.

My uncle dropped us off at the Lincolnshire Marriot Resort for the convention on July 3rd. This was my first time at the convention, so didn't really know what to expect but I guess that's what made it more exciting. The convention was divided for 3 age groups: highschool, college and after-college. I was in the after-college (called JNF) group, so I didn't know anyone even though there were 5 of us from Colorado. We had an opening ceremony and dinner around 6 o'clock and then right after dinner, we had to get ready for Raas/Garba night. In the meantime, my roomie arrived at the room. She came late since she had terrible delays with the airlines....We got ready and straight to the garba floor! It went on until past midnight. Well for the JNF group they had meet-n-greet program planned which was also fun. They had a deck of cards and cut each card in half and distributed among everyone. We basically had to find the other half of the card we received. It was nice activity to get to know other people. I had nice chat with everyone and then headed to my room around 2 am and went to bed.

Next day, July 4th:
I had schedule packed with sessions from 9 am to 5 pm. My first session was Jainism skits. Basically everyone was divided into groups of 5-6 people and given a fairytale story. Now the challenge was to act out the story you're given in any other language than English! Well this wasn't hard for me as I spoke gujarati fluently but other members of the group spoke broken gujarati which was very cute! My group got the fairytale story of Goldilocks and three bears. I became the narrator since there was more to narrate and other members acted out the scene. This was a lot of fun. Also to see that other people were giving their best to try to speak in gujarati/hindi was very cute. It would come out very different like a small kid had just learned to speak the language. Anyways...after that we had a relationship panel where they brought in 3 couples from different backgrounds telling their stories on how they met, what challenges there are in a marriage and what are the ingredients to make marriage a successful one. This was one of the best sessions I had. Then there were couple other sessions but I don't remember them :P! Towards the evening, for JNF, there was a speed dating program for 1.5 hours. I thought to myself that what are we going to do for one and half hours?? But boy was I wrong..once the speed dating started, I had a lot of fun talking with all the boys. What was funny is that every other boy I talked to was a Pharmacist! And I didn't come across any engineers at all! Some were shy and some were talkative. Overall I had a great experience! For the evening, there was dance fusion competition where 11 teams were competiting. Full of fun and entertainment. I hope they continue doing this. After the competition, there was "MELA". Actually for JNF, it was 80's night so everyone was supposed to dress up in 80's outfit. Unfortunately I didn't have 80's clothes, neither my roomie did, so we both decided to wear indian clothes (salwaar-kameez) which was weird because we were the only ones in indian clothes and everyone else was in their 80's outfit...BUMMER!! Well at least we were there to enjoy it! That night I went to bed early.

Next Day, July 5th:
Again today was pretty packed with sessions but these sessions were more focused around jainism than yesterday's fun sessions :). For some reason I got a headache, so I skipped a session and took a nap. We had a 2-hour recreation break which was very nice since we got to go out and breathe some fresh air!!! Aaaaaaahhhh! Since today was the last day of the YJA convention, we had a formal dinner and then dance!! My friends and I dressed up, took some pics and then headed to the dinner. Dinner wasn't that good but we had good time at our table. After dinner, we had the dance and boy once I hit the dance floor, I danced till 3-3:15 am....and I wasn't really tired (can you believe it?). Then my roomie and I went to the room, changed into pajamas and then went back out to hang out with friends. We were up till 5 am chatting with other friends. Right then my eyes started to close, started yawns and I felt really sleepy. I said goodbyes and came to the room to get some sleep. Unfortunately I couldn't sleep because I had to pack my bags to be ready to go next morning around 9 o'clock. I hardly got 2 hour sleep that day. I woke up around 8, got ready and we left the place at 9 am on sunday morning to head back home.

Overall, it was a great weekend at the convention. Met some really nice people, made great friends and got a really good experience out of it. I would love to come back again for this convention!!!

Teri Ore from Singh is King

I recently heard a song "Teri Ore" from an upcoming movie "Singh is King" (starring akshay kumar and katrina kaif) and it's a beautiful song. It's soft soothing and melodious. I can't stop humming it since the time I heard it. Rahat fateh ali khan's rendition makes the song complete with Shreya ghoshal's honey sweet voice. If you haven't heard it...don't wait any longer to hear it!
I'm sure you'll love it :).

Dil kho gaya, ho gaya, kisi ka
Ab rasta mil gaya, khushi ka
Aankhon me hai khwab sa, kisi ka
Ab rasta mil gaya, khushi ka
Rishta naya rabba, dil chu raha hai
Kheeche mujhe koi dor, teri ore
Teri ore, teri ore, teri ore, haay rabba,
Teri ore, teri ore, teri ore....

Back to US journey...

Time really flies when you're having too much fun and that's what happened while we were in India. First we were gone for short time so obviously there wasn't enough time to explore everything, but we got to meet the familes from my mom's side and my dad's side, visited couple of temples and went out with relatives and spent good quality time.

Ok..so you can tell from the beginning that it was time for us to leave and I wasn't happy about it. We wanted to stay longer and spend some more time there but we had to head back since I had to leave for another trip in 2 days. We packed our bags. It was hard saying bye to everyone and as soon we started leaving the home, there started the tears running down from everyone's eyes. First my mom and then me and then my cousin... now that I think about it, it was quite funny scene :P. We all got to the ahmedabad domestic airport and met my other aunt there so she joined the circle of crying as well. We all went in and waited in jet airways line for our turn. The agent tagged the bags and let them go through.

We got our boarding passes and went out to the seating area where my family members were waiting. We sat there together, talked and laughed until it was time for our boarding. We said final goodbyes (no tears this time :), we all were strong) and headed to the gate. Got through security, waited near the gate area and then boarded on the plane to Mumbai. Again we had nice meal in the plane even though it was just an hour long flight. We got to mumbai domestic airport. I didn't know this but found out since I travelled through Mumbai. Once we got off the plane, we waited for the bus to take us to the airport. Since we had to tranfer to the international airport, we went to the transfer desk, showed them our tickets and in return, they gave us tokens for the coach (bus service) to go to international airport. They gave us departure forms and we basically fill out our general information in it such as passport info, departure flight info, etc. We waited for our number to be called and once they did we got on to the coach. It took the coach about 10-15 minutes to get to the mumbai international airport from domestic. It was crowded but we just followed the sign for jet airways and got in. Since we already had the forms filled out, we went to the immigration service desks, gave them the passport and form, he tagged the departure info in our passports and then we were off to our departing gate to london. Let me warn you though that it was long walk to the gate which I didn't expect at all. It was 12 o'clock at night and we had left home around 5 pm, so we were really tired. Our flight was not till 1:45 so we just relaxed a bit near the gate. Once the boarding started, we went to the the plane and as soon as I got to my seat...we all fell asleep. I don't know what time it was but I just woke up when they started serving food. My mom was sooo tired that she didn't wake up for food :(. My brother got his plate but didn't eat because he was still sleeping. I was the only one who ate but the food wasn't that great...or at least not as good as it was when we came from london to mumbai. Also their breakfast wasn't good...it seemed that it wasn't cooked properly.

Anyways...I don't remember much of that flight since I slept most of the flight. We got to london and again it was a long walk to the flight transfers. Luckily United airlines hadn't changed the terminals yet so it was still functioning from terminal 3, otherwise we would have had to go to terminal 1 and for that we would have had to catch the bus to get there and all that. We got through security in no time and it was very smooth. Got to the departure area and got our onward boarding passes from united airlines counter. We freshened up a bit and headed to our gate. Again it was a LONG walk. So our United Airlines flight wasn't that great either. We got the last seats and the food was definitely not good. It was not cooked properly and I think they might have burnt it too from the bottom. The entertainment wasn't good either since they did not have good selection of movies. Anyways, at this point I just wanted to get home but there was long time for that. Ohh..we had to fill out customs form in the plane so we could give to the immigration people at washington dulles airport.

We get to the washington dulles airport and give our customs form to the officer. Here we had to get our bags (6 big bags) and go through customs. First of all it took such a long time for our bags to come and when they came, they were in full surprise. Most of our bags were damaged badly enough that we can't use them again. Either they were ripped from the chain or the base of the bag was broken. I got so mad and upset that I just wanted SCREAM!! Well we had to wait for all our bags to arrive and then go to the customs line....but the line was so big that we thought we might miss our flight (we had like 5 hours halt for our next flight). I thought that we would actually go through customs where officers check our bags and then clear them, but instead we just had to hand our baggage to the people on the other side. I will NEVER EVER go through washington dulles airport again because it was crowded like hell. Finally after waiting for 2 hours, we got on the plane to come to denver.

Guess what when we got to Denver. None of our bags arrived and it wasn't just us, there were other passengers who were waiting for their bags too. After inquiring they tell us that the bags are coming in the next flight which was 1.5 hours away. We got our bags and filed a complaint for almost all the bags which were damaged badly. It was about 1 am by the time we got home.

Conclusion: I'll NEVER EVER fly through washington dulles airport again EVER. I'm very mad at United airlines service in handling our baggage. Well we have to take our baggage to the airport and then they'll examine what they can do to fix them. They better fix our bags or do something to replace them because otherwise i'm not going to be so happy....I'll keep you guys posted on what they do for our bags.

Bye for now :)

Much developed Ahmedabad

When I went back to my hometown, Ahmedabad, I saw a compelte change in it.... In fact, it's completely turned upside down. Now there are multiplexes on every other street...big malls, for example, Himalaya mall, Iscon Mall, Reliance Mart which are facilitated just like malls in US, big and beautiful, construction going on everywhere (which is not new at all because that's going on all the time), etc.

But one thing I will say that hasn't changed (and won't change in near future) is the Ahmedabad traffic. Remember one thing when you're there - THERE ARE NO RULES OF TRAFFIC. You drive where you want, you park where you want ..oh and there are no lanes -- Fun, right? Well, not really! First day I was there and sat on the passenger seat in the car with my cousin and as soon as we came at an intersection, vehicles from all the directions drove right on us including a rickshaw, car, scooter and 2 cycles....Obviously, no one was concerned about an ACCIDENT but I was scared as hell. Not a good experience but oh well...I was just glad that I didn't have to drive on those streets. I got used to the craziness of traffic in few days but I still imagine how people handle it. And it's only going get worse once the new Tata nano car comes out since it'll be very cheap like $2500 (Rs. 125000). Then possibly people who owns a two-wheeler can even afford a car and with more cars, more traffic and more chaos...

Here is what I think: If you have driven a vehicle in India, you can drive on any possible road/street/corner of this planet. If you have not driven in India...don't even think about learning how to drive/or even ride a scooter there:). Take this Advice.

Small World..

We all hear people saying or we say it ourselves that "it's a small world". I bring up this point because while I was in India I found out from my masi (aunt) that she had attended Shaan's (singer and one of my favorite) wedding. Shaan actually married to a punjabi girl who lived 2 houses down my masi's house in Paldi, Ahmedabad and they had attended the wedding. Isn't that awesome!!! I asked her if she took his autograph and she said that "what would I do with his autograph...all the young girls were taking his autograph :)"...hahahaha...well and I agree, if I was there I would be rushing through the crowd to get his autograph and click a picture with him.

Journey to India begins....

Here comes June 5th morning...
We all got ready and set to leave for the airport for our 11:55 am flight. Excited and really happy and just counting down the hours now. We reached the airport around 9:05 am and since 3 of us were going to India, we had 6 BIG bags and 2 hand bags, plus 2 purses (I know what you're thinking..). One of the portars helped us get our bags near the counter and we standed in line for our turn.

BTW, we were flying with United Airlines from Denver to Washington Dulles (IAD) airport and IAD to London and then flying with Jet airways from london to mumbai and mumbai to ahmedabad. If you don't know, United airlines and Jet airways have through check-in partnership which means that you get all your boarding passes at the first airport and your bags are through checked to the final destination BUT surprisingly United airlines doesn't know this themselves....continue reading, you'll know what I mean.

We got our turn for check-in at 9:35 am and an agent tells us that the machine doesn't recognize us and since it's international ticket we need to stand in another line (Great!!!). We get to another line. Just to be sure I asked the UA agent that we will get all our boarding passes from denver, right? and she replies saying ..."No...you will get to check in with jet airways at london to get your boarding passes for onward journey"....BOOM...I get in PANIC MODE. I called Jet right away and talked to thier agent and he said that we should get all the boarding passes at denver since they don't issue boarding pass at london within security limits...BOOM BOOM...another SHOCK!!! The lady behind the counter said let's see what prints out and when she started printing, luckily it printed all our boarding passes through the final destination....PHEWWWW (what a relief!!). Things started to calm down, they checked our bags through the final destination. It was about 10:25 when we headed for security and guess what? We've got another huge crowd in front of us but surprisingly the crowd moved faster and we got through security in short time :). We got to our gate and relaxed there until we boarded the plane and the plane departed around 12:20 pm.

The journey has just begun...We were supposed to reach Washington dulles airport at 5:25 pm and catch the flight to london from there at 6:05 pm. The plane arrived at the gate at 5:25 pm but here is the next challenge...the plane wasn't taxied properly at the gate and the pilot said we have to wait 10 minutes to get off. It was 5:30/35/45 and still no sign of plane moving toward the gate...and I get really worried because we didn't have much time to get to the next gate (panic mode again!!!). As soon as the line started moving, we ran to the next gate and phew made it on time. Here comes the trip to London..........

United Airlines Experience on long flight:
We had economy plus seats for this flight so it was nice to get some more leg room. I got to my seat and relaxed for a bit. The plane soon took off and I fell asleep due to the morning stress. I woke up after few minutes and it turns out that we're still on the ground and it was 6:50 pm. Our plane was in the line for our turn to take off...I guess we must have waited an hour on the runway for our turn to take off. Well the plane took off and they served beverages. They had many selection of the movies as well; among them were fool's gold (didn't want to watch it), Horton hears a who, 27 dresses (nice movie), 10,000 B.C (couldn't stand it a minute), Vantage point (nice movie...bit different from usuall action/suspence movies), Penelope, Jumper and couple others. Now let's talk about the FOOOOOOD...since it was United Airlines, I wasn't sure how the meal would be since we asked for hindu meal and surely the food was good. They served rice and 2 vegetables (chana & califlower) in one bowl, yogurt, salad, and one small paratha (which was straight from the fridge; cold). Also they gave one paratha with strawberry yogurt for breakfast (odd combination but whatever) one hour prior to the arrival @ london heathrow airport.

London Heathrow Airport Experience:
The plane landed @ 6:35 am. We landed at Terminal 3 and we had to catch another flight with Jet airways from Terminal 3 itself which was really nice. Once we landed, we followed the "flight connections" signs which was 10-15 minutes walk :(...then comes the security check which was very smooth and we were through the security in no time.
So I had my digital camera (with its Li-on battery and memory card), its cables, ipod, my phone, all with me in my purse and we were through the security check in less than a minute since we put all this through scanning. No Problems at all!!!
Then we got to the departures lounge and Jet gave us new boarding passes for flighs from London-mumbai and mumbai-ahmedabad. Getting to the gate was another 10-15 minutes walk. My advice to all would be that if your parents can't walk a lot, definitely assign them wheelchairs because there's a lot of walking at london heathrow airport. Overall, if you're connecting @ london heathrow, wear tennis shoes and keep plenty of time for walking :). Once we're at the gate, we get some relaxing time before our next flight.

Jet airways experience:
Seats - good, nice small screen tv in front of every seat, good food and great selection of movies. I couldn't decide what to watch, hollywood or bollywood, drama or comedy shows, I like that about jet that you can manage your own video screens rather than fix time table of movies.

Arrive in India (Mumbai):
When we arrive in Mumbai, we're welcomed by the thunderstorms and heavy rain, however that's the usual condition of mumbai when it rains. It turns out that due to the weather conditions, we landed an hour later than we should have. We had our next flight to ahmedabad from mumbai at 2:45 am, so we had plenty of time but I was wrong. We had 4 hours gap for our ahm. flight but we lost an hour since we arrived one hour late. Then comes the baggage claim, where all our bags arrived 1 hour late and WET...so we already lost 2-2.5 hours. The customs was a joke. We put our bags through scanning (not the handbags) and take the bags from the other side of the scanner. No one asked anything about any bags neither they checked our handbags. We handed our baggage to Jet staff and it was 2:00 am already. Since we had to catch the flight from mumbai domestic airport, we had to take the coach but due to heavy rain, the coach service was late and we were told that we might miss our flight (SHOCK!! SHOCK!!). We couldn't even find taxis that early morning. Being so close to home, trouble was all over the place. Luckily there were 5-6 families with us who needed to go on that flight so they made sure that the flight wouldn't leave without us. We get to the mumbai domestic and then take the plane to ahmedabad. Again the food was great (ragda petis) for mumbai to ahmedabad flight.

FINALLY.......we get to ahmedabad...we are transported to the airport baggage claim area by bus from the plane. AND I see my masa/masi/mama and cousins.....couldn't believe it. They all looked different after so many years, just wanted to go and hug them but still had to wait for our bags to arrive. GUESS WHAT???? We only got 2 of our bags out of 6. It turns out that baggage of half of the passengers hadn't arrived. Honestly, I didn't care much at that point for the bags as I knew they'll come in the next flight. The agent took down our information and promised that the bags would come by 12 o'clock . We rushed outside the airport and hugged our family....awwww it was joyful moment.

Well, I wanted to give you detailed info so it can help you in any way for your travel. I never found the info that I was looking for so that's why here you have a long post info in my words, hope this helps. More to come....

Pre-Travel Preparation

Whenever it comes to travel, I get paranoid and I need to know exactly what needs to be done (only when we're travelling to another country). With the long travel comes all these responsibilites in making sure you have the right passport, visas, necessary documents, identification, baggage rules, security clearance etc. etc. etc... Also don't forget if you're changing planes, then I get nightmares of delayed flights and missing my plane for the connecting flight.

I always call the airline and make sure that I get all the answers before my flight but the problem is that you never get one answer...you get many answers and many different answers each time you talk to an airline agent. One person says something and other person says something else. I've realized this after making many phone calls to united airlines. Finally, the last agent I talked to, I asked her to confirm her answer with her supervisor and then I get an answer that I'm satisfied with. Phewww....well this is just the beginning, the real fun will start when we take our trip to India. Changing planes in Washington dulles and London....THAT WILL BE AN EXPERIENCE OF LIFETIME. Don't worry, I'll keep you posted on how it was!!

Finally started my own blog...

Hey friends,

So after continues efforts by my friends to get me to start a blog, I finally get motivated and start my own blog. I'm excited and I promise I'll update it as much as I can with the latest information (depending on the work load ;) and other priorities)....

That's it for now but I'll come back soon with another hot topic..

See ya later....