Washington D.C, Philadelphia & back to NYC

Today was the final day of our tour. The best part I found about the tour was that it took us to so many places that we couldn't have probably covered on our own. However, the only challenge we faced everyday was getting up very early in the morning, packing, dragging sleeping kids, checking out and hitting the bus.

So here we were tired and groggy getting into our bus to Washington DC. First stop was The White House. Our itinerary had so many places to cover that we did not have the time to go in, hence we just clicked our pics and moved on. On the opposite side of The White House was the Washington Monument. The fascinating thing about Washington Monument is that the obelisk is the tallest stone structure in the world as well as the world’s tallest obelisk. From there we were hushed away to the Thomas Jefferson Monument. At the Thomas Jefferson Memorial the view of the tidal basin and the obelisk made our shots perfect. Later we were lucky to find one of the few remaining Cherry blossom trees that bloom during April. The whole view is spectacular as 1700 Cherry blossom trees surround the tidal basin with a beautiful display of floral fireworks.

Our next stop was the Korean War Veterans Memorial where on the Mural Wall the soldier’s photographs have been etched. We saw the 19 statues depicting Army, Marine, Navy and Air Force officers beautifully carved out of stainless steel marching in the battle ground of Korean paddy field. There were more memorials like the Vietnam War Memorial, World War II memorial but again due to time constraint and a little lack of interest and knowledge we headed towards The Abraham Lincoln Memorial. It is a magnificent 19 feet tall statue of Abraham Lincoln facing the reflecting pool. There is also an engraving of “I have a Dream”; the revolutionary speech delivered by Martin Luther King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

From there we headed to the National Air and Space Museum. It is the 5th most visited museum in the world and has a lot of original exhibits like the wright brother’s original plane, space suit worn in Apollo 13, the first aircraft to fly around the world and amazingly so, you can also touch a moon rock. Then we headed to the Capitol Hill which is the largest residential historic district in DC. On our way to Madam Tussauds we saw the National Archive Building where all the original documents like Declaration of Independence, Bill of rights and the Constitution of United States are stored.

We have been to Madam Tussauds in London and I personally preferred the one in London; we all still had a blast clicking pics with so many Presidents and celebrities. I sat with Abraham Lincoln, gave the “I have a dream” speech with Martin Luther King. Kennedy’s, Clinton’s, George Bush and the Obama’s got pics clicked with us. George Cloony wanted to hold my hand so I let him, Brangelina were there too, Tom Cruise was elated to see me and Oprah took my interview, I might have missed out a few more.  This was our last stop at DC and we headed towards Philadelphia.

Although our tour was supposed to take us back to New York, we decided to get off at Philadelphia since Aakaash’s nephew was staying there. The first place that we went to see was the Liberty Bell which weighs over 900 Kgs. Outside the Liberty Bell Pavilion was a beautiful garden of tulips. From there we took our luggage out of the bus and met up with Dhawal. We drove around and saw the Independence National Historic Park, Independence Hall which is also a World Heritage Site and the City Centre. He took us to the Irish Famine Memorial where they have put a 30 foot bronze statue with more than 2 dozen statues that represents the pain and suffering that Irish suffered due to Great Hunger in 1840 and suffered death and disease in their country as well as during migrating to America. We walked down to the Penn Landing area where the Delaware River and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge was our backdrop. Aan was super excited to meet his cousin brother. We have a huge extended family and Dhawal and Aan are the only Sehgal brothers who are around 20 years apart.

Later Dhawal took us to his university and showed us the oldest computer in the world ENIAC which is Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. We also clicked quite a few pics at the Penn University Love Sign. Did a little bit of shopping and then we went for Mexican food. That was the best Mexican food we have ever had till date. Later on, all around US we did try so many restaurants but nothing could beat El Vez’s delicious slurrptious food and I seriously don’t mind going back to Philly just to dig into that mouthwatering tantalizing food. The day had come to an end and Dhawal took all the trouble to drive us back to New York and went back to Philadelphia. This was the perfect ending to our east coast bus tour.

Majestic Niagara Falls & Maryland

Early in the morning we headed to the Niagara Falls. I guess no words can truly do justice to the scenic beauty of the magnificent waterfall.  The sheer size and sound of the waterfall is amazing.The rainbow across the waterfall just added more beauty to our pictures.The word Niagara originates from the Indian word “Ongniaahra" meaning "Thunder of Waters". Unfortunately the Maid of Mist was not operational during that time so after clicking pictures from different view point we saw a documentary on Niagara and then left for the Corning Glass factory.

Although we had seen Morano Borano glass factory in Italy, it was nice to see the demonstration again especially for the kids. You can also make your own glass in a 40 min class however we couldn't do that due to time constraint. The museum has a beautiful modern as well as ancient display of art collection. After travelling the whole day we took refuge in Gaithersburg, Maryland where we rested for the night. This was the end of day 2 tour.

1000 Islands & Buffalo

No, I am not talking about the 1000 Island dressing -yum ; nor am I going to give out any kind of information or experience about a buffalo... lol..

The first destination for our Bus tour was the Thousand Islands. And yes it did remind me of the Thousand Island dressing and presumably the dressing got it's name from 1000 Islands. Honestly, I have to admit I hadn't even heard about this place till the time I got to know that it was a part of our tour. I didn't know there was an archipelago of 1,864 islands that straddled the U.S and Canada border.  Some islands are spread across a 100 km and some are so small that either they are occupied by a single residence or have just a tree on it along with some shrubs. The only way for most of the people to commute is through boats or water Taxi. On our one hour cruise we also saw the smallest 2 islands on the Canadian and US water joined by a tiny bridge. There were few spectacular Castles on some islands as well as Alstar Tower which was constructed with uneven and slanting walls, ceilings and roofs. Although on this trip we could not have a chance to go to Canada but we did technically enter it through the international waters.  

After the cruise we travelled the whole day. The bus stopped for dinner at a Chinese restaurant which served an amazing Buffet with over 100 dishes. After dinner we took a 15 min detour to a supermarket to pick up some food/ drinks for breakfast for the next day as we were to leave early morning to see the majestic Niagara Falls. I think we stayed in the city Buffalo for the night which is very close to the Niagara Falls. This was the end of our Day 1 tour.

New York City BABY!

So here we were feeling the fresh breeze of New York on our face and ready to head to our hotel to dump our luggage. When we reached our hotel we got a heart attack when the bill of $180 was handed over to us. To be honest we weren't even paying that much for our hotel; the amount we had to shell out just to reach one way to our hotel was outrageous.

Finally after we checked in, we tried to find the best and economical ways to commute and found out about a great shuttle service that dropped us, just for $3, in the heart of Manhattan, right next to Times Square which is one of the world’s most visited tourist attraction. By the time we reached Times Square we were famished and what better place to have our first meal than The Hard Rock Café. We filled our belly with tantalizing food and were off to the Toys R Us store where not only were the kids freaking out but so were we J. Aananya was totally smitten by the princess section and so was I. We just wanted to stay there forever. We took a ride on the 60 feet Ferris wheel inside the toy store. This was one of the most humongous toy stores I have ever seen. Kids had a blast taking pics with Minnie, Mickey, Smurf and Smurfet and we totally lost track of time.

The next haunt was M&M New York’s largest candy store and all the 3 kids ahemm 3^rd being Aakaash went crazy buying M&M. We definitely got some cute pics there. Later we visited the toy store for the big kid Aakaash – The Apple Store. Thereafter we strolled around the streets taking in the glittering and bustling nightlife of New York after which we retired to bed totally exhausted. The next day we were leaving for our first bus tour in US infact this was our first bus tour of our lives.

Tour De Force

It seems like a holiday in US is a dream vacation for a lot of people. Although it was not a dream vacation for me but I use to always tease Aakaash that I have been to one more continent than him which was of course North America.  Now I know what people have to go through to get into one of the most powerful nations in the world. It is like conquering a war.

To begin with, the process starts of by applying for visa…... the length of the form is like writing a thesis and after submitting the form, to get a date for the interview – well there was 3 months waiting period. Finally when the day arrived of the interview I was nervous coz I had heard so many stories of the visa being declined without a reason. To make matters worse we saw a few people who were right in front of us get their Visa rejected within a matter of seconds. As we have been to a lot of countries so logically it shouldn't have been a problem still the worry about the Visa getting rejected for some frivolous reason weighed on my mind and the fact that a good amount of money would go waste was not a very comforting thought. I knew we were next and right at that moment nature decided to play Knock Knock with Aananya. Aakaash took her to the bathroom while I stared at the closed bathroom door willing it to open as quickly as possible; lo behold I was called. I started with the interview and finally after a while Aakaash also joined me. Everything went off well and within 3 days our 10 year multi entry visa was in our hands.

I personally feel that if you are planning a trip to USA, you should never plan a trip for anything less than 2 weeks. So we planned a trip for 21 days. This was for the first time that Aakaash was going to take such a long holiday; even for our honeymoon he hadn’t taken a holiday this long. Well with lots of persuasion, perseverance, fights, arguments etc. he agreed and I started working on the finer details of our holiday.

When I plan our holidays, I like to plan it perfectly and meticulously, nothing left to chance. The budget factor was also to be taken into account very seriously. I started planning with 5 and when it increased to 10, I promised Aakaash that we will not go for any holidays for a whole year and I kept my promise. However by the time we finished our trip and came back we had exceeded 15 for sure.

Discouraged by a lot of people we were told not to do east coast and west coast at one go. However we/I felt differently. I was not sure that we could cough up a huge amount so often and take so many holidays. Now that Aakaash’s leave was approved, we just decided to go ahead and do it all. We knew it would be hectic and tiring but what the heck. Sometimes it’s worth it.

So we booked our ticket almost a month before from Lagos to New York and back. Now the internal flights were to be done, so after deciding how much time to be spent where, I came up with tentative dates and the cheapest flight options, however later we had to rethink about the flights leaving the best deals and taking into account the time factor and convenience coz of the kids. I have to admit a lot of planning went in to execute this trip.

15 days prior to our trip we sat down to book our internal flight tickets. For some airlines we got to know that they accept credit cards only from US and not from any other country. This slowed down our booking process. One desperate call to Aakaash’s friend in US, Sundeep Dhaliwal, turned things around – he was extremely helpful and shared his Credit Card details and we proceeded with confirming our bookings.

So till now I was on my A game- month before international flight tickets done, 15 days before internal flight tickets done, 7 days before hotel bookings almost finalized. Just then we realized that there was some glitch happening in the west coast sector especially when we were trying to figure out our trip to Niagara Falls. When you Google Niagara Falls you would get that it is in NY. So we thought that we can cover that in a day since we were landing in New York City. Being our first time in NYC we didn't realize that Niagara Falls is located in the State of New York and is nowhere close to New York City. I can’t even begin to describe the last minute panic that I was struck with. However the years old adage came out to be true in this case – Whatever happens, happens for the best. While trying to figure how to get there with the cheapest and best way possible, considering the time constraint because we had already booked our internal flights, Aakaash stumbled upon a Bus tour company which was working out perfectly for us. We were able to cover so many more places because of it and it was a superb, comfortable and economical as well. We had to make a few changes but it turned out to be the best decision for us. After finalizing with the tour company, we finalized our hotels and booked our car for Florida. Now we were completely set and were just counting days to board our flight.

Well as I have mentioned in my previous blogs, nothing comes easy to me. There is always a twist or a tale somewhere in our trips. So all excited, bags packed, kids in place, all bookings done, printouts neatly kept, empty suitcases packed (lol for shopping of course; what do you expect), reached airport on time, it was a direct flight. I despise hopping flights and in 11 hours and 20 mins we would have been in U S of A.

So we were waiting in our lounge when we were told that our flight had been delayed indefinitely. That was of course the first blow. We waited for hours and the kids got impatient by the minute. Hours passed by and before we knew it the flight got delayed by 11 hours. Meanwhile, Aananya had managed to break the foot rest of her stroller so we tied her bib and made a make shift foot-board which was actually no good. Hence it was decided that we would have to go there and first thing buy a stroller coz it was not possible to carry a 3 year old everywhere.

While we were boarding, there was a cheer and relieve in the air. After exhausting 24 hours including reaching airport 3 hours before the time of the flight, delay, the check-in etc., we finally touched down at the JFK Airport. We were in a hurry to leave the airport and carry on with our plan since we had already lost out on 11 hours. But wait… could we leave that easy… Not just yet… Our bags were out thanks to the priority tags but we were waiting for the stroller. Waiting … waiting… waiting…. Wait a minute, the whole airport was almost empty and we were still waiting. Finally we had to go and ask for assistance since the special baggage belt was now empty and our stroller was still nowhere to be seen.

We finally got to know that our stroller had been lost in the transit – we had an option to either waste our next day to come back for it or the Airline was willing to replace it with an old stroller which was unclaimed. I was eyeing a beautiful princess stroller abandoned on the airport. The person in charge came to me and said “Let me see if I can find a more appropriate stroller”. I immediately asked him with a little hesitation about the abandoned princess stroller. He said, “Oh I thought you have a boy, if you want to take it, go ahead”. Aananya had really small hair then and was fully packed from head to toe with winter clothing to face the cold weather of New York, hence the confusion. I grabbed the almost new princess stroller with the price tag still on it and strolled out of the airport happily. Although we had spent more than an hour in the airport with the outcome that we had I didn't mind it at the end of it. Finally we stepped out of the Airport –exhausted and happy as we had finally got victory in a long unending combat. The fresh cold breeze of New York finally welcomed us.

Adieus Istanbul

Finally our wonderful trip came to an end and it was our last day in Turkey. Topkapi Palace is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that has to be on one’s check list before you leave Istanbul. So in the morning we left the hotel to tick this box. The palace is huge and is built on a hill right next to the sea. The palace also has a museum inside where all the original swords, cloaks, bone china, manuscript, jewelry etc are kept.

So we entered through the Gate of Salutation which connects to the courtyard and the rest of the palace. There are tons of things to see but hard to remember once you have left the place. The Iftar Kiosk was one of the places where the Sultans were believed to break their fast after Ramadan and is an ideal place to take picturesque photographs. Later we headed to see the panoramic view of the Marmara Sea. Another interesting pic that we took was that of a hollow tree which became a victim to fungus but is still standing tall till date.

It was already twilight and we headed straight for Blue Mosque to see the fancy fountain lights. We were pleasantly greeted with the brightly lit colourful lights. We took our pics with the lovely display and headed for dinner at this beautiful restaurant on the top floor of a building with the stunningly lit Blue Mosque as our backdrop. We had traditional Turkish food and relished every bit of it. This was a beautiful way to end our trip to Turkey and it was all the more memorable coz it was our first trip with Gagan and Shweta.

Izmir – Unreal landscape

So we boarded our flight from Cappadocia to Izmir. The main attraction of Izmir is undoubtedly Pamukkale. Everyone stays in Izmir the third largest city in Turkey but not us; we decided to stay in a small town around 1 hour from Izmir called Kusadasi. Major reason to stay in Kusadasi was that we were not able to get a hotel befitting our budget and requirement in Izmir. This in fact turned out to be a blessing in disguise and was the best decision for us.

The scenic beauty of Kusadasi was breath taking and our travel agent did not disappoint us a bit. This small coastal town has the sea hugging it on one end and the mountains embracing it on the other. To surge up our excitement we found out that our hotel was on a hillock overlooking the sea. So we dumped our luggage and went straight to soak ourselves into the sea. We reached back to the hotel right on time to witness an amazing panorama of the sunset from the dining area which was overlooking a small island in the middle of the sea. After dinner we just decided to call it a night and straight went to bed.

We got up early in the morning, dragged the sleeping kids for breakfast and waited for the honeymooning couple Gagan and Shweta. We were losing our patience when they graced us with their presence and decided to have breakfast while we were ready to run out the door. Anyhow we finally boarded our vehicle to take the journey of 2 and ½ hours to the World Heritage Site - Pamukkale. The landscape was absolutely unique and breathtaking. I have never seen or experienced a phenomenon like that. The ground is as white as snow and water as blue as sky. Pamukkale the name says is all. In Turkish language it means cotton castle which is a perfect description of the place. The place is covered by hot water springs, travertine’s and terraces of carbonate minerals. People come here and stay for long periods in the hope of healing themselves from the therapeutic minerals. Make sure that you carry an extra pair of clothes when you go there. Shoes are not allowed to protect the deposits.

When it was time for us to move out Aakaash suddenly realized that the lens cover of our new camera which was in his pocket fell out. It is practically impossible to find anything in the clayey sand below the water. After trying to sift through the mineral soil we gave up and decided to leave. However my 5 year old Aan kept going inch by inch trying to find it. It was an impossible task, quite akin to finding a needle in a hay stack. While we were out of the water and persuading Aan to abandon the search and join us; we suddenly saw a victorious smile on his face and out came the lens cover from his hands. He had finally found it and all of us cheered for him a lot. Soon after that we went to change to dry clothes but we just did not want to leave the fascinating place. However we had to continue our tour by visiting Hierapolis which means the sacred city in Turkish language. After the tour we headed back to Kusadasi and went on a stroll on the Beach Street.

The next day was full of sightseeing and loads of monuments to cover in our itinerary. We started with the House of Virgin Mary. It is believed that Mary had spent her last days in this house. The story goes that a nun had a vision and heard some voices which indicated that Virgin Mary moved to Ephesus and this nun had the full description of the place and wrote all this in her notes.  Later when people researched on it finally found the place and in the 18th century this place was declared as the House of Virgin Mary. There is a wishing wall where people write their names on a piece of fabric or paper. We did that and moved on our tour to Ephesus. 

We saw the Odion – a small theater, Prytaneion, Temple of Hadrian and the Temple of Artemis which is one of the Seven wonders of the Ancient World. The guide also took us to the Latriana – the public toilet with no partitions, the Ephesus Library, Marble Street and the Ephesus Theatre which is believed to originally accommodate 24000 people. We concluded our trip by visiting the Isa Bey Mosque which is one of the oldest mosques. So yes there was a lot of walking; a lot of history and culture to see and by the end of the tour we were simply just exhausted by the overload of information and heat.

This was our last evening in Kusadasi and we wanted to make the best of whatever time we had left, so we walked around the town, did a little bit of shopping and had the feel of this small but vibrant town. Next morning we were ready to head back to Istanbul to bid farewell to Turkey.