Day 2 of our Dec 2009 Vacation

Woke up at 8:30 and had a quick breakfast at our hotel (Quinta Inn). Started driving towards Miami. The road was fairly boring, and I somehow managed to stay awake. One close call, as we approached Miami. I noticed a Volkswagon Beetle in the right lane, a little behind us. I put on my indicator and tried to change lanes. The Beetle guy accelerated like a possessed guy and came in to close the gap. I made the mistake of not checking before changing my lanes. Uma's gasp alerted me to it and I came back to my lane. Car swerved a bit but everything else was ok. Phew! We then proceeded to Miami Intl Airport and dropped off our car at 1:30 pm. Now we had to get to the cruise by 2:30 pm. We asked the car rental guys if they could give us a ride to the Port of Miami (where we had to board the cruise). They told us a bus could pick us up but it would show up in 30 mins. We panicked, as we didnt want to barely make it to the cruise. We got ourselves a cab (for 26$), and drove off. As we left the rental car location, we saw what seemed to be our bus, just pulling in to the lot :) Oh well.

As we pulled towards the Port of Miami, we were very eager to catch a sight of the cruise ship. I had no idea of what to expect from the size of this ship, or what the harbor front would look like. My first glimpse was not disappointing at all. This was big all right! It looked pretty colorful too. And there was lots of activity at the harbor front. A porter came to talk to us. He asked us to drop off our heavy luggages there. He was also nice enough to point out that any tips for him should be made right then, since we would not see him after that. Good job, man! This, my friends, is begging in its truest form. Not asking for tips! After that, Uma was visibly anxious about the next steps. I was unusually calm for my personality. We walked in through some procedures which seemed fairly similar to the airlines check-in procedures. A security screening for your carryon luggages, followed by printing of boarding passes, and finally taking the walkway to our cruise. There were a lot of people high on red bull (or something else ?) welcoming us. We were offerred free champagne or orange juice (in a champagne glass) at the entrance. Once you enter the cruise, nothing really feels like you are on a cruise. Excepting that you keep reminding yourself of that all the time. We entered what seemed to be like a bar area. There were a lot of the ship's crew who had set up shop there and tried to get us to buy something. It could be either a reservation for two, for dinner or a chance to enter a lottery, or something to do with the casino. Somehow, we avoided this trap. We were kind og eager to see our rooms at this point, as it looked like there was no real exit route from this trap! We found our way to the elevators. By that time, Uma had regained her composure. She was ready with information on which floor we should be going to, and what we should be expecting. We reached out room, which looked pretty much like the pictures on the net. The first thing I noticed was a small portable tv. Not just because I am a guy, but because it was switched on. There seemed to be some sort of a safety announcement being made at that point. We sat for a few mins, freshened up and walked out to explore the rest of the boat. We were actually very hungry at this point, having not eaten anything since breakfast. It was around 3 pm. Now, food is one of the things I was very curious about, on this cruise. I had heard stories about the famous buffets on cruises. Not particularly that they are delicious, but that they are available at most times, and people end up eating a lot. We asked a crew member for directions, and she directed us, to THE buffet! Here I was, 3 in the afternoon, standing in a buffet line, snacking on pastries, lemon rice, breads, and pretty much anything else vegetarian they had to offer!

After we had eaten lunch 1, we set off to explore the rest of the cruise. Uma was like a person who had 50 redbulls! She was not tired and wanted to see what the cruise had to offer. It turned out to be a blessing, as we became aware of almost everything that was free on this cruise! There were 3 important activity places - The Stardust theater which had a lot of free shows, the buffet place on the top deck, which had free, unlimited food almost any time of the day, and the deck area itself which had a couple of pools, hot tubs, ping pong tables, basketball courts and a whole lot of other activities. We hung around near the pool area for a while, relaxing on the beach chairs, under the sun! Oh yes, did I mention the sun ? It was mid 70s when we started and we were expecting 83 degrees C the next day, at Nassau, Bahamas. But like the cruise director warned us, they were expecting the wind chill to bring it down to 82 deg C! After a while of lazing around, we went to other floors (there were floors 5 to 11 to explore). We were then given a security briefing, about how to use life vests. The crew were very particular that everyone do this training, at a specified location, as against seeing the video from your cabins. We returned to our room after a while, to see the ship set sail. It was wonderful to stand in the balcony, and face the Miami traffic, who were waving from their cars, as they were driving! Some of them pulled over to just wave to us! All this while, we were also enjoying beautiful views, and taking lots of pictures. This is probably one of the few times when I thought the upgrade was totally worth it. We had a choice of taking a room without a balcony, and we chose this one. I strongly recommend this!

After we were well away from the port, Uma and I decided to get ready and explore the rest of the cruise again. We were also slightly hungry (again!). First things first, we stopped to get Uma flip flops from the gift store. Expensinve, but not as bad as I had expected. We then stopped by a restaurant to eat. They had very interesting sounding food, which tasted weird. Uma was not able to eat much. I asked her if she would be ok for the night. She indicated in a not-so-subtle way that we should go upstairs, for another round of the buffet! :) One good thing that came out of eating at this restaurant, was that the staff alerted us to a free song and dance show that was to happen, in their theater. The cruise is full of free food and free activities. You have to put in a little effort to find out where these food and activities are. Not very difficult to do, but you have to put in some effort. When you board the cruise, you are given a room card, which opens your cabin. Funny thing is, they also tag your credit card with this room card. So, when you go to a restaurant or a gift shop and pick up something, the staff simply ask for your room card. The thing is, they ask you for your room card for some of the free stuff too. So, you have to be careful to know which one's paid for and which one's not. Anyway, after dinner, we stopped by to see this song and dance show. It was pretty good, especially the dancing. The singing just reminded me of American Idol and America's got Talent kinda shows where it is considered to be an insult if someone was judged to be good for cruise ships. We ended that night with one more round of eating, and retired for the night. Before sleeping, we stepped in to our balcony to see how the ocean looked like in the night. It was one of the most disconcerting views. It was a cloudy night which meant there was nothing to see for hundreds of miles. Thankfully, at the bottom of the ship, there were a few lights that showed us the water level. The weather was still pretty warm and humid. The ship's rocking motion was something that we were now getting used to. The motion was not too harsh to cause any sort of sea-sickness, but it was still pronounced enough to notice. I had a good night's sleep, not waking up even once. The bed was rather comfortable.

Day 1 of our Dec 2009 Vacation

Woke up at 9 a.m. at home, had dosas for breakfast, while I unplugged several chargers and packed them. I counted 9 batteries that we charged before leaving. I dumped some movies on my laptop for good measure. We contemplated having breakfast at ihop but ended up eating dosas and coconut chutney at home. Turned out to be a fantastic decision. Within the extra 30 mins that we stayed, the USPS delivery person showed up with my Canon 18-55 mm lens that I had ordered a while ago!! I had really given up hopes on getting this lens in time for my trip. That would have meant that I would not have any wide angle lens for the trip. I swear that just picked up my mood!!

We made a quick stop at walmart, picked up some essentials and went to the airport. We bumped in to someone from Columbus, that we knew (Joseph and Sangati) who happened to be flying with us for the first leg of the flight. We had a nice talk with them, till we had to part ways. Southwest airlines has a weird seating policy where you get to pick any seat of your choice based on the order in which you checked your luggage in. Since we checked-in only 2 hours earlier to the departure, we were pretty low on the boarding order. Consequently, our seats were not together. Oh well, just a 1 hour journey to Chicago. The next flight was better, we sat together but we slept most of that leg anyway! The air hostess was very nice to us. She offered us a drink after we woke up, since she missed us while we were sleeping. Next stop, Orlando!

Orlando was nice and warm when we arrived. It took us a good 45 mins to get out of the airport in our rental car. We went to our hotel, dropped of our luggage and drove to TGIF one of the few restaurants, that was open on Christmas eve, at 10 pm in the night. The waitress was once again nice to us, pointed out veggie dishes and made suggestions. Turned out to be a great dinner, even though I was not hungry :) That was way too much work for the first day of our vacation. Hoping for better days to follow.

Keeping up with the resolutions

Firstly, I am sorry for conjuring up images of a dysfunctional family that has now began to claw its way into main stream television by dating NBA and NFL stars. Secondly, I am kicked at being able to keep up with my resolutions so far. I know its a tall ask, but hey, I will take any credit I can give myself.

So, here's my entry about the "Dish a month (new)" or as my wife would exclaim each time she encouters this - "Damn!"

This month, I attempted a Vegetarian Quiche. I found its recipe on the web, while looking for dishes that can be made with feta cheese. Ironically, I ended up not using much feta cheese. I give myself a 6 on 10 for effort and taste, on this dish. It is one of the easiest things I have made in a while. Given that I have not cooked in a while, I would actually give myself a pat on the back for not screwing this up royally. I made this as a potato crust based quiche, with vegetable and cheese filling. It sounds rather yummy and would probably have been a lot better too. My first reaction was that it was too salty, but I realized later that the salt had not mixed well. My second reaction was that the potato had not baked uniformly, especially under the pie. So while, I had an overall good consistency, I would have liked it if the potato had solidified all around. The final thoughts I had were that this might have been a good dish but I had no reference to compare this to, and hence I declare this a success :)

An interesting thing happened when I popped the first piece into my mouth and realized it was a little salty. I turned to my wife who was also sampling her first piece and said

"Ok, my resolution said I have to cook a new dish every month but no one said it had to taste good. So I guess this cuts the bill"

Once again, without wasting a second, my wife chimed in with

"Of course, honey. No one said it had to taste good. I agree with you."

New Year's resolutions

I always try to make resolutions for the New Year. I like the idea of bringing some changes to my lifestyle and I think the resolutions are a good way of enforcing that. This year I wanted to make 3 resolutions which are not related to each other. I have so far come up with two.

1. Read at least one new book a month.

2. Cook at least one new dish a month.

I will try and post about what I cooked, or what I read each month. That way I can try and keep track of my resolutions. And speaking of resolutions, this is what I had resolved to do in the past years

1. 2006 - My resolution was to finish everything I ordered to eat, at a restaurant. Of course, buffets were exempt from this. Getting left-overs was not an option. This turned out to be a fun resolution. For the first half of the month, I ended up stuffing myself so badly. There was one particular trying moment at a Chinese restaurant which was close to Grand Junction, Colorado. This was on my trip from Denver to Salt Lake City, Utah with a couple of my office colleagues. We stopped by for dinner and I ordered Moo-Shu vegetables. Given the price, I expected something small. I was not prepared for the one entree serves three kind of dish! I immediately realized what I had to do. I had to eat before my body sent out feedback saying I was full. I am glad to report I kept my resolution that year!

2. 2007 - Do not eat chocolates unless someone offers them to you. I kept up with this for a good amount of time. I initially thought I will plainly stop eating chocolates or candy of any form. Then I realized there are quite a few occasions when people would offer my candy, and I did not want to draw unnecessary attention. The funny thing about chocolates is that I love them. However, three months in to this resolution, I had no craving for candy. Ofcourse, I am back to devouring chocolates now. Esp, white chocolates!

3. 2008 - Run a mile a day. I like to keep up with my running habits. I started running in Colorado in 2004. After slowly having picked up some stamina, I lost it completely in 2007. I came up with this resolution to get back to enjoying running. I maintained a blog of my running thoughts. I used to run at least twice a week and I ran at least 3.5 miles each time. Towards the third quarter of that year, I started developing cramps in my leg and could not continue this. I thought that doing the elliptical was a good alternative. I matched the number of calories, and the intensity of the workout on the elliptical for a while. I think I accumulated around 310 miles that year. We were building a house in the later half of the year, and I had to compromise with all the work that was going on for that.

4. 2009 - Try at least one new, exotic restaurant a month. I think this was my weakest year in terms of resolutions. I did a poor job of keeping up with this one. Sadly, this was one resolution that my wife was looking forward to. I hope to make it up this year, with my resolution to cook at least one new dish a month. We did try a few exotic restaurants throughout this year, just did not keep track of doing one a month. I think our favorite new restaurant this year was Stir Crazy - a Chinese/Mongolian place where you can pick your veggies and sauces and the cook stir fries them for you.

A week of firsts and something to think about...

It has been a week of firsts of all sorts. I had beetroot sambar for the first time in my life. Its amazing how I have had beetroot and sambar independently but this is the first time I had it together. You have to get past the different color but then it is a good taste.

Other than that I have had my first good dental experience. I have had a cavity bothering me for a little while now and with lot of hesitation, I took an appointment with this dentist that Uma had seen earlier. The doctor was very friendly and made me feel very comfortable. However, I cannot get past the idea of a dentist talking to me while I have a plumber's kit in my mouth. You see, the dentist was filling my cavity, so he stuck a device under my lips to keep my mouth pried open. Seeing that, this was not enough he wedged a bean shaped thing at my molars so that I could not bite down any more. Leaving me in this awkware position, he reclined my chair a little further than 180 degrees so that I felt a little bit upside down. He and the nurse then stare down my mouth while I try hard not to fog up his tiny mirror that he is using to see the underside of my tooth! While doing this, he told me some stories about his daughter and explained what he was doing with my teeth. I could not understand if he expected me to answer back or acknowledge that I heard him. At one point, he asked me if I was doing alright too!

At the end of the day as we were driving back after watching Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, I told U about my experience with the dentist. I told her that I found it awkward to listen to a one-sided conversation without being able to acknowledge it. Without missing a beat she remarked

"Vaadiki entha bore kodithe vachina prati addamaina vedhava tho vaadi inti sangatulu cheptaadu ??"

(Loosely translated: "How bored must this guy be to narrate his personal stories to every dumbass who visits him ?")

When the wife is right...

It seemed like a bad idea. It had taken us a lot of effort and quite a few months of labour to get our lawn in shape. The idea of ripping out a piece of it felt just wrong. U tried to explain to me that it wasn't that bad. You see, we did not have a clear path from our front door to our mail box. We usually walked on the lawn and I did not mind. I did not mind when the Pizza delivery guy walked on the lawn to get to our door either. So, I had my reservations against clearing out a part in front of our door to get the stepping stones. I resisted the idea because it involved more work, something that I have gotten used to not doing :) But you know how the wife is right on most things. Yes, it is true. For most part, she knows exactly what to do, where we should be investing, when we should be spending and when we should be saving. She convinced me that it was a good idea to invest in landscaping. It would look great and would increase our curb appeal (another word I hated due to HGTV). So anyway, the wife is right on most accounts and I know it. I look for stupid things like maths, science fiction and "art" movies to convince myself that I can appreciate certain things better than her. But in things that *actually* matter, I had to hand it to her.

We drove to this nursery that she found about and walked around the shrubs and trees they had there. She suggested that we plant a tree in our lawn as we could enjoy the shade later. I shot it down (another thing that I would probably regret in years to come). When we came to the stepping stones, I actually liked them. They were shaped like rounds of a pine tree and were named "Pine round stepping stones". They were also painted to look like they were actually cut from a pine tree. I was sold on the idea but they cost around 7.5$ a piece. A little on the higher end, I thought. They seemed to be about a feet or feet and a half in diameter. So I asked U, how many she thought we needed. I had already calculated in my head that we would not need more than five. She gave me the thinking sound "umm...." and said ten.

"What ?? Ten ?? I thing thats too many. Our lawn is not that long."

"Well, I think its about 20 feet, right ? So ten sounds about right"

I was about to argue back when she looked at a man who seemed to be working at the store and asked him

"We are trying to fill a 20 feet distance with these stones. We might want to place them about 6 inches away. How many stones do you think we would need ?"

The man asked questions to which she had already given him the answers

"What kind of stones do you want ? How far apart do you want to place them ? How much distance do you want to cover ?"

After checking that we were interested enough to survive his stupidity, he turned his back on us and pulled out his cell phone. He called up someone and repeated our question to him! The mathematical wizard that he called, told him that we would need ten or eleven stones. I wanted to tell my wife how this was too many and that we might not have a distance of 20 feet to cover, when she turned to me and said

"So shall we buy 10 then ? "
I had to agree. No point arguing in front of the shop owner. Later that eveni

ng, we got to work laying out the stones. The sun was shining brightly even thought it was past fi

ve. I was exhausted having spent some time on the treadmill. As I began digging, U walked

out with two glasses of lemonade with ice in them. It was perfect because I had to end up taking a break every 10 mins to sip the lemonade. By the time I was done with the lemonade, I looked back to see our stepping stones all laid out perfectly. All ten of them. I was dying to find out. So I swallowed my ego and asked

"How did you know ? How did you know we would need exactly ten ?"

I was hoping she would say she got lucky, or that she had manipulated the layout in to fitting exactly ten of them. She picked up the lemonade glasses and walked back in to the house. Not before saying

"Isn't it simple math ?"