The news this time around is my Austin trip!
It was rather a hurried trip because I could not spare much time ..Rather my advisor could not spare much of my time!!! I reached Austin on Friday evening and Anjum and Pulkit were at the airport to receive me.. and so were a couple of their friends ..Pallavi and Virat. We went straight from there to see Dil Chahta hai….Unfortuntely we were late and the tickets wee sold out..But that itself was an amazing thing for me to see a houseful theatre swarming with Indians J.We resolved to come there the next day and set off towards the univ area.
After dropping rest of the public at the respective houses ,Pulkit gave me a tour of Austin downtown by the moonlight!!! The university of Austin is situated right in the downtown area with the University Tower facing the state capitol, both of which were illuminated beautifully. The capitol in Austin is grand and actually bigger than the one in Washington D.C.
The next day we went to see a few sights in Austin…..The Austin tower …we went up the tower to get a birds eye view of Austin.The Austin tower is something like the center around which the university is built ..It’s a pretty tall structure and although closed to the general public at any time we could up in a guided tour..The guide did babble a bit about its history and the quality of cement used to build it etc but all in all it was pretty cool…. Visited the O Henry museum..actually dragged Pulkit to the O Henry museum..He barged into the house asking to speak to Mr.O Henry ..The museum curator loved him and insisted on telling him the entire story of his life …which fascinated me but am sure bored Pulkit to death …O .Henry lived here and was actually takem to prison ( where he wrote almost all his works) from Austin..It was a pretty small house and had all the artifacts they had collected of him like his books ,his desks ..etc…
Another must see sight in Austin according to the guide books is the colony of bats near the down town,,,Pulkit gave me a look that suggested”Finally she has gone of her rockers ” when I mentioned bats but as he was trying to essay the role of a perfect host had to take me there. To my obvious disappointment and to Pulkit’s not so obvious relief the bat colony seemed to be depleted and unlike the “millions and millions of bats which the guide sites suggested there were just about a hundred or so) Still the Colorado river by the night,framed by the Austin skyline was a pretty neat sight .In the evening Anjum, Tejas,Pallavi Pulkit and I went to see Dil Chahta hai… Really liked the movie…The fun part was Aamir Khan is related to Anjum and Tejas said that the girl who played”Deepa” ( the only thing I hated about the movie…couldn’t they find any other name) was his cousin…This prompted me to adopt Akshye Khanna as my cousin and Pulkt claimed that the second girl on the left in the third scene in the first dance sequence was his long lost sister !! All in all FUN movie!
After that we went to sixth street ….the “place to be in Austin” …..Most of the guys would have loved this place ..It is a street with pubs and pool parlors and occasionally you might even run into a sozzled First Daughter!! 😉 Many of them have live music bands like jazz ,rock etc and Austin does live upto the name of being the LIVE MUSIC CAPITAL …It’s the alive place in Austin and the party goes on till 2 in the night!! Oh yes that day we also went to a bookshop where we get books at half prices…Great place I HAD to buy a few books and Pulkit in his newly found status of earning good money rashly promised to pay for them ..and he did pay dearly for that promise!!
The next day we went to Dallas ( which is a three hour drive…) .Texas is such flat country compared to the hills in Virginia ..nor is it that green..Although there are fewer African Americans there it has a large number of Mexicans. And I thought Public displays of affection( smooching, kissing making out!!) were much more here than in Virginia!!
Met Vijaya and Sundar.( my classmate and her husband) Vijaya had made lunch with kheer for dessert! With them we went to this chaat place where Pulkit insisted on asking the Chaatwala…what kind of water he used and where he got his water from..much to the embarrassment of Sundar..He was trying hard to pretend he didn’t know this person!
Coming back was fun though….With my sense of (mis)direction and It being Pulkit’s almost maiden ride out of Austin…we got lost in Dallas downtown several times..We reached this godforsaken place and then Pulkit got down to ask at a gas station about the directions.We were told”This is not a good place to be on foot, mate”.Apni to fatli ..jhat se car mein aur phat se car chalu!! Dallas has these flyovers in layers ..almost like 5 layers and would you believe it we passed through all of them in our quest to get the right road!…….Although we manages to see the Dallas skyline from all possible angles …it was a relief when we finally reached back home..tired and worn out at 3 in the morning!
Next morning a brief spell of shopping and me back at the airport!
I left Austin on Monday morning ,,,and now its back to work…
Anyway back to courses and research and dreams and plans of the next vacation!
