Dean Martin's Definition of Drunkenness
You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.

North-East USA Trip - I
Well, after titling it appropriately, so that everybody can know what I am trying to approach it, let me proceed on with what I was trying to proceed on - my trip to North Easternn USA - mainly Maryland, DC, NYC and Detroit - this being the first part of the many that I will be posting.

Lot of pics included.

First - my trip. After having left the warm confines of my home at Austin, and lugging along a 35 pound (thats 16kgs for you) suitcase and a fully filled backpack through 2 free bus-rides to the airport, I reached the ABIA. Unfortunately, having wrongly predicted that the security check would be too long, and then proven wrong, the resultant long wait for departure proved a bit boring. Fortunately, time passed by with The Golden Rendezvous. A short 40 minute bumpy ride landed me at the IAH.

The futuristic Houston Airport - a eerie blue dome of some sort to represent the sky

Another planning mistake made 2 months ago in order to save money resulted in another 2 hour wait, the time happily spent in snapping more snaps, and reading more words in that suspense filled book mentioned above in passing.
Soon, I was on the four hour journey to BWI. The only thing that made the journey difficult was that, after having had NOTHING from noon (when I had had delicious pasta mentioned in the previous post), the only thing offered on the aircraft was small snacks - thats common in all american aircraft - another cost-saving technique they use. What made it more pathetic was when the hostess came and asked what sandwich I want - turkey or ham. C'mon people, I am a vegetarian (an ovo-vegetarian, in any case). And my answer of neither took her by surprise, I must say. Finally, I just had chips and coffee.

Arriving at 11:10pm local time in Baltimore - I had luckily remembered to shift my watch time 1 hour forward (my mobile does it automatically) - the agonizing wait for the baggage followed. After a REALLY long wait, made more confusing by the arrival of baggages of 3 flites on the same carousel, I finally got a my suitcase, an odd-man out among others. I was picked up by my uncle, and an hours drive on an interstate, I was at home. Feeling tired, I had a small dinner, and went off to sleep.

No snow yet. Not cold enough, apparently. No white Christmas in the Tri-state area here.

The next day, after a lazy morning, I went to a local mall - the Lakeforest mall. An hour of window shopping later left me feeling with mixed feelings. Not that I do not enjoy shopping, but I am not a window shopper. The Christmas Decorations there (remember, its still the 22nd of December at this point) took me by awe. Nice ones, really.

A fully decorated tree with Santa at the bottom for the kids.

The end of the day was spent in studying the maps for a long 9 hour road-trip to Detroit, where another of my uncles is there. Atleast, I was happy that there was a heavy snowfall going on.

To be continued...

Addendum
I deeply mourn for all the victims of the Earthquake and Tsunami disaster that has hit South East Asia, and more importantly the East coast of the Indain Subcontinent.
Thousands of lives have been lost, and many more bodies washed out to sea, and yet to be found. The humanitarian scale of the disaster is just too much. Help as much as you all can. I know I will.