traveltalk

Easy DC: Well not so easy to begin with. We started off from New York to Washington D C without incident but on arrival at the La Guardia airport found that Delta Airlines did not allow more than 1 check in baggaage per person. Imagine deciding which piece goes and which stays on as cabin baggage while farming out lunch to 46 people at the Airport—and having it—-and all the time taking an extensive mental  inventory on whether the erstwhile check-in and now cabin baggage has shampos,gels, lotions, toothpaste or other contraband items in it which yoyu may have to junk regardless of cost, sentiment or utility, while also enterprisingly divesting yourself of your shoes for security and still finding a window seat on thw aircraft!! All in a days work for the SVM Astrorockers.

We made it to DcC to find that the Melrose Hotel– a Boutique Hotel—while boasting of splendid rooms and located on the famed Pennsylvania Avenue where a structure called the White House among other locations of such ilk may be found, was not built around a lobby meant for 37 opinionated students. Not to worry, we did alright as the Americans say and have taught the latter how small spaces can be intelligently used when one adopts postures that adapt to the ebb and flow of the population at any given time. The rooms at this Hotel are truly luxurious in terms of space and very well appointed beds.

Dinner was pretty grand at the The Taj Palace managed by Mr.Mian, a Bangla Deshi gentleman who by his own admission `love children ‘as he has three of his own. The kids of course know a good thing when it comes their way and played the `we are the travel weary students off to NASA’ to the hilt. Needless to say the Dessert that followed was befitting of such hard working souls!!

Tomorrow is the local sight seeing day. All should go well. Abhishek, who had a cold earlier during the evening, looks infinitely better after his rest and ready to take on the Washington offerings. My `mosquitoes’ are turning out to be extremely adaptable young squirts who handle new places with the elan of seasoned travellers. My older boys are really the sort of young men who look out for you and their younger kind, the aforementioned famed `mosquitoes’.They have pretty much covered the gamut of all roles from shouldering big brother resposibilities to literally big bags, from delivering lunch and dinner packages to messages, from calculating differnces in prices from India to the US to how many cans of Pepsi a certain young man can drink in a day, thay have been admirable and more importantly been there for us when needed. The young ladies are just wondrous, young people..funny, smart, absent minded and always capable of doing 12 things at one time.

We ,the adults live and learn all the time…as always from those we supposedly teach.

Signing off for now,

hemaa narayan

~ by svmastrorockers on May 26, 2008.