My experiences in the United States of America

    Our California Trip - Jul 25 to Aug 2, 2017 It was just a few days to our California trip and my wife and I were unusually nervous. We normally look forward to these trips but this was not one of those times. For starters, the trip was the longest that we had ever taken in some time (9 days) and for me personally there was a lot of driving involved. Though I have been driving in India for a long time, this was the first time I would be embarking on a full fledged driving expedition in the US. Jul 25, 2017 Tuesday Our flight to LA was at 8 am. Just as we were getting ready, we received a message from the airline that the flight was delayed by an hour and a half. It doesn’t seem to be the ideal start to the vacation. We just hoped that this was just one small inconvenience in an otherwise interesting trip. Our flight to LA was rather uneventful and after 5 and a half hours we were at the Enterprise Rental car pick up area. As usual, they do not have the co...

We had planned a summer vacation at California. Since we envisaged a lot of driving, I felt it was prudent for me to acclimatize myself a bit with the US road conditions and also sharpen my driving skills. ( I don’t drive regularly and the last time I drove was in Feb 2017). Therefore, on Jul 15, 2017 we hired a car (Kia Sportage) and decided to go to Philadelphia. Philly is around 85 miles from where we stay and it took about a couple of hours to get there. We went to the visitor center to get some information on the must see places though we had done our own research. We were told that the tickets for the Independence Hall were exhausted for the day but there was a special entry at 5 pm. We visited the theater in the visitor center which was playing a movie on the American revolution. After watching the movie, we headed to view the Liberty Bell. There was a queue and it took us around  minutes to get in. Once we were done with this, we took a lunch break and then decided to...

My wife, daughter and I left for Niagara falls on Jun 28 th , 2017. It was an overnight bus journey from New York City to Niagara Falls ( Greyhound partner – American trailways). Reached Niagara Falls (American Side) morning jun 29 th . Freshened up at the drop point and headed towards the Niagara falls State park. The first spot that we visited was Prospect Point. That was the first view of the American falls that we saw. We took some pics. Called up home and showed the view to our parents. We had breakfast at Starbucks and then headed back to the park. We bought the discovery pass. This pass provided us access to a number of other attractions at Niagara falls. Since there was a forecast of rain, we decided to do the maid of the mist boat tour. This was an amazing ride. We had to wear blue raincoats before stepping into the boat. The boat ride takes you close to the falls. We first went to the American falls and then to the Horse shoe falls (Canadian side of the falls).  This...