As I sit on Amtrak 85 heading out of South Station at 10.20 am, I am feeling fully satisfied with this leg of the trip. The chilly/wet weather that we started with in the early days has now transformed into glorious sunny weather. Boston is something that has grown more familiar as we have walked to many parts of the city.

Each day we clocked almost 16000-18000 steps and ate in a variety of restaurants. Harish is a great food connoisseur and liked us to share his favorite places with us. In the various gardens beautiful flowers were in full bloom, a variety of dogs enjoying their time with their owners.

There were 2 full days at Harvard as there were many activities as part of the graduation ceremonies. Harish graduated with distinction and got the award for Academic excellence. We could meet many of his friends, his dean Sarah Whiting, his thesis advisor Rahul Mehrotra. We are so proud of him not just for his academic achievements, but his humility, his keen interest to share what he loves with us and taking the time to plan out all out day to day meals. Once his job front gets sorted out and hopefully in Boston, a city which he loves, he will feel more settled and his plan for next few years. In a selfish way it will give Deepa and I to come again to a familiar place and explore more things around.

We took a day trip to Providence, about an hour’s train ride on commuter rail. It is a smallish town, capital of the state of Rhode Island and home to 2 famous universities – Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design. The walk up the Prospect Hill was little tough as we had a small luggage of Sachin and Divya’s but the journey up was rewarded with a view of some beautiful large houses on the way as well as a pretty park at the top of the hill and views of the city below.

It has also been nice to hang out with Sachin and Divya. We could meet some of Sachin’s friends. They all seem such nice kids, quite well travelled and getting started in their careers. Talked a lot with Kevin, whom we are more familiar and have met a few times.

On the Amtrak train I was chatting with a gentleman named Warne, who lives in LA but was traveling with his family of 5, to Boston, to watch the baseball game with Boston RedSox. Seems to be an avid fan of the game as he travels to various places to see his team play. He is a salesman for food/drinks, and how he does not like Trump and his policies.

We also had a shock when the accommodation that we had booked in New York cancelled on us. Then Sachin made a booking online and now we are staying in Hotel Edison on 49th St and right in the midst of Theatre and close to Times Square. Anyway we get different vibes in this area.

In the evening we walked around a bit, Rockfeller Centre, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, took the blue line metro to the restaurant where we met Varsha and Ian. Great Italian food and finished off 2 bottles of red wine. On the way back we passed by Times Square, to absorb in the crazy atmosphere, the flashy lights and collapsed happy on our beds at 9 pm.

We took a day trip to Providence, about an hour’s train ride on commuter rail. It is a smallish town, capital of the state of Rhode Island and home to 2 famous universities – Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design. The walk up the Prospect Hill was little tough as we had a small luggage of Sachin and Divya’s but the journey up was rewarded with a view of some beautiful large houses on the way as well as a pretty park at the topof the hill and views of the city below.

It has also been nice to hang out with Sachin and Divya. We would meet some of Sachin’s friends. They all seem such nice kids, quite well travelled and getting started in their careers. Talked a lot with Kevin, with whom we are more familiar and have met a few times.

A trip that started off with a bad email that came from booking.com that our booking of a 2 bedroom flat had got cancelled. We were about 30 minutes away from the Penn Station. Hurriedly we took out our laptops and then Sachin found a room in Hotel Edison that could accomodate 5 people. There were 2 rooms, with 3 queen beds and 1 bathroom. Whilst the location of the hotel worked out for the better as we were in the theatre district, it felt cramped occassionally. Overall we managed well.

An old fashioned hotel, there was jazz and blues music in the elevator and as you come through the swivel doors onto the street, you get swamped with humanity. We walked everywhere, saw the Lion Kind Musical, visited the highline with was beautiful, took a cruise on the Hudson and ate any many a restaurant from Thai, Italian to a traditional American diner.

The hotel just bordered the Time Square area and we also got a glimpse of Denzel Washington as he came out of a play called Othello. We met up with Varsha and Ian, George Koshy and his family, Sanjana, Riya and Ravin and also Mr Nataraj’s sister Prema.

Harish showed us the traditional NY bagels and kept a blistering pace and made Divya almost sprint at the back to keep up with him.

We did much shopping and even bought the Wall Street bull for good luck this year.  

My first time to Nasville and it is great to see the countryside with vast rolling plains and hills, interspersed with massive double and triple storey houses with huge spaces in between.

Sekhar and Akila and Navi stay in a place called Nolensville which is about 30 minutes from Nasville airport. His house is huge and cavernous and can easily dwarf any big villa in Bangalore. Ample space, many sit out areas and great for entertaining guests.

As I sit at the dining table I have a panoramic view of the grasslands and the hills in the distance. It is still with no breeze and almsot feels like some wildlife will emerge from the bushes …We did see a dead deer on the way from the airport.

Highlight for this trip so far has been our visit to the Broadway and the Museum of African American music. Both these places are interesting in their own ways. The museum gives a good history of African American music and how various types of music became mainstream…gospel, hip=hop, blues, rap etc.. The museum was very interactive and we could experiment, build customised music and listen to various artistes and styles.

We then did a trip to Costco, Walmart and ate Thai food at Jasmine.