trip to da 'burgh

yea, I got to go to pittsburgh !

I literally felt home during this trip...thanks to Bal, Val and my old memories. 

The weekend started on Friday with the Pittsburgh Symphony performance. Joshua Bell just crossed us on the sidewalk and Bal told me - that's Joshua... I asked Bal skeptically - really? (You never know when Bal's pulling one on you). Later, we crossed Honneck too!

On Saturday, I went to the Carnegie Museum of Art and just roamed around the Oakland area and in CMU campus to catch up with friends and my cousin Sarang as I didn't want to disturb Bal and Val's routine. They made a great dinner for Sat night. Home food - at last !

On my way from OH to Pittsburgh, I saw this funny bumper sticker... check out the picture.

"MY KID AND MY MONEY 

GO TO 

CARNEGIE MELLON"

Finally, prior to getting out of Pittsburgh, I got to check out the Nationality Rooms at the Cathedral of Learning (I missed out on those while exploring Pittsburgh...one of those too close to be important things...). Finally, caught up with a friend over at Starbucks and flew back to work. 

Pittsburgh reminds me of the days and the proverbial feeling - "The world is my oyster" . The weather was just right.... I could capture the fall season's beginning. I wish I could visit Pittsburgh once more this fall. 

These days, my work takes me anywhere. Fortunately, this time it took me to Pittsburgh airport. However, the work was at Village of Tiltonsville, OH. 

graduation

Next week is the commencement week. We have a MISM commencement ceremony and then an entire school graduation commencement. Bill Cosby is coming over and the event is already hyped up in the regional and national media.

This event also marks a significant milestone for me - an end of a wonderful journey. A journey where I met quite a few new people (from various backgrounds), and made new friends as well. There were the highs and the lows. I slogged for the studies and I partied hard as well.

My parents aren't coming down but you can't always have the cake and eat it too. I know that their blessings would always be with me. Also, Val's mom is coming over who has promised me that she shall cheer up for me.

Six weeks ago, I wasn't ready to graduate - I didn't feel like going back to the corporate world. Over the period of the last six weeks, I have made myself mentally prepared to get out of school :). I am glad that I have successfully convinced myself to go back to the corporate world.

The entire next week is going to be spent having lunches and dinners with friends I made when I came here. I hope I get to catch up with everyone before I leave Pittsburgh (it has grown on me to the extent that I've started liking it).

skiing

Location: Seven Springs

Nightlife places I got to visit: Foggy Goggle

Woke up at 7.20 am - brushed my teeth and ran to the bus stop. Alas, there's a bus on Sat morning and I reached the departure venue at 7.28am. The buses had not yet departed (or I would've cursed the movie "The Departed" which I watched the previous night till 2.30 am and slept at 3.45 am).

The buses reached Seven Springs at 9 am. Getting ready for skiing took me an hour as I had to buy the shell pants to make sure I am water-proof from head to the toe. Those skiing shoes are soooooooo non-ergonomic w.r.t. walking for non-skiing purposes. Anyways, I get ready to take my lessons at the ski-school. The first lessons went on fine except for once when I fell down due to the lack of skills to slow down my speed. As the lesson progressed, I started getting better grip of my stance and skiied better. I kept on practicing in the magic carpet 1 area.

Around lunch time, Chris (friend from MISM) came on near me and it was a pleasant surprise to see him right there. We decided to head for lunch. He was trying to locate his girlfriend Michelle so that we could all have lunch together. However, post-lunch he could locate her and it was so nice having a small chat with them together.

I hit back to skiing - this time in the magic carpet 2 area. Thereafter, I tried several slopes once I mastered the skill of turning and controlling my speed. I took another break and changed my shoes to upgrade from 11.5 to 12 size - what a relief for my left foot !

Final round of skiing was disastrous as I lost my phone at that time. I took off the skis and returned in order to search for the same. I had heard from colleagues that the place is good and ppl return the cell phones. After visiting all the 3 information desks, I returned to the second one. Rob and Rich were there. Rob had assured me that I would get my phone back if someone returned my phone back. Rich was present at the counter the second time I returned and he asked me a few questions to confirm if the phone was mine. My stylus was lost and the screen more damaged - however, I was so relieved due to the return of the phone. Many thanks to Rich !

At 6pm, I tried to connect to few MISM colleagues from fall batch (man, except Chris noone from the summer batch was present - what's wrong with the summers?). However, as none of the connections were coming through, I decided to hit the bar - it was fairly populated and the DJ had started going on -alongwith the crowd being energetic. Somewhere Sera (a fall MISMer) saw me but never joined to dance with me citing the reason that I was surrounded by gorgeous chics and that she didn't want to disturb me - silly Sera! Rest of the MISMs were too tired to even visit the bar ! Foggy Goggle was a nice little place - I wouldn't say it was the best - but say 4 .5 on a scale of 10 (with 10 being the best). The crowd was 7 on 10 for their enthusiasm. Moreover, I was there only for 45 mins as I had to come back to get into the bus by 7.20pm.

All in all - a fun outing for the winter and perfect timing as the fresh snow had made skiing environment conducive on the slopes and the day was relatively less chiller!