Sunday, April 29, 2007

Best of Boston!

Had a trip to Boston today. Nice city... very beautiful, obviously...

All the places I have seen in U.S. are beautiful in their own way.
California was huge, groomed and modern. New york was commercial, busy and... majestic. Concord is simple, natural, and scenic. Boston is... historical..., commercial,... and very scenic. With the river flowing right in the middle, and beautiful bridges and office buildings around..., looks amazing... My bias for Boston also comes from the fact that I can roam around in this city without knowing how to drive! :)

Boston has a very good subway train network, which has red, green, blue, and yellow lines... someting like, central, western and harbour lines of Mumbai. Ofcourse they are relatively very small and less crowded. I took a "Charlie" ticket for 9$, which lets me roam around on the lines any number of times for the whole day.

My first destination was the Museum of Science. Saying "first", because I had expected many more destinations after this, but it turns out that I ran out of time, and the total was only two :-|

Museum of Science is a place where you can easily spend your whole day. They have science exhibits: nice little experiments, models, and science shows. I saw the "lightning" show. They have a "big" machine that produces lightning through particle acceleration. And, then a man will stand in a steel cage and show how the lightnng only remains on the outside of the cage :)
There are also special live shows, each of which costs 4$ and runs or 1 hour. I saw 2 of them. First a dome theater show on Grand Canyon. I had this feeling that I have seen this before (atleast a shorter version may be) in the IMAX dome at bombay! Chetan, is that right? :( But still it was good. Not a bad repeat for 4$. Second one was a planetarium show on Universe.

After this, I went to the "Prudential Center". This place hosts the "prudential tower" which was once the tallest building outside NY. They have a "skywalk observatory" at the top No, don't get swayed by the name, its nothing as adventurous. At the 50th floor (yes the ears just roll in the lift), they have an observatory from which you can see the whole Boston and its landmarks with an audio guided tour.

It was already 5:30 when I was done with the above. So, took a train back to concord, changing between green and red lines. I think I can almost count the "subway" as my third destination. Enjoyed the ride!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Let's talk America!

So, I am in US right now... observing things..., and... trying to get used to them? not so much... I have to return back in some days anyways :)
Still I have few observations about America, sharing here...
  • There is so much space all around!
  • Even the mountains look to be groomed.
  • It is Christmas every day? Or everybody gets a jackpot ! So smiley!!
  • You can see somebody "running" anytime in the day!
  • There are no "wall clocks" nowhere! Probably they are worried about having to change their time twice a year...
  • Most of the answers end up like questions.
  • What's in the potatoes!
  • What is GAS? Petrol.... ?
  • People have defied the basic rule of nature... They don't drink "water"!
Oh, but, they are all very nice people! Especially, those who live in this nice little town called "Concord"... Have to say that, especially, after having a belly full of delicious dinner at one of them's home! :)