Travel Wishlist – Frozen Lake Baikal

I am on bed-rest this week. Which means I have a lot of time to kill. I usually have a long travel wishlist. And I do end up working through my list fairly often. Starting this thread to collect some necessary info about the places I intend to go to. At some point, once the tickets are booked (yours or mine), this should be good reference material.

The long flight from home

I ask for my macchiato. The  barista signals that it is a small espresso cup. I nod in agreement. It is 7.30 am and Berkeley Espresso is running full. I pick my coffee and ask for honey. Pat comes a ‘honey’ joke. It is more common than you’d think. This time the guy goes ‘I always have honey, honey’. Depending on how well versed you are with double entendres, I leave this to you for interpretation. As far as I am concerned, I like them. So I top it off with another joke, put honey in my coffee and take my seat by the window.

Austin

The thing about Sam is that she does not like visiting people. She is the quintessential host with queen bee like traits. Boils down to you visiting her. Which I actually like. It has become akin to going home once a year. There is always a fridge full of food and a home full of love. Anyway, this isn’t one about one of my visits to Singapore. She came to Dallas in December 2015 for work, and since Dallas doesn’t swing my boat (or anyone else’s for that matter!), we decided to do a road trip to Austin for the weekend. Duly pulled in Adnan too.

Manhattan

One of my favorite cities by far. The vibe of this city is one of the best in US. Living in New York for a year has been on the list for a while, but for now I have been sneaking in trips whenever possible. I am pretty sure that I haven’t even scratched the surface of what this city has to offer. But I still have a definitive list of must-do things. 

Innocence

Nikon D90 | Lens 35 mm f1.8 DX| Aperture 1.8 | ISO 200

The Saint of the Last Indian Village

Nikon D90 | Lens 35mm f1.8 DX | Aperture 1.8 | ISO 200

New Mexico

Dated – July, 2015

First long (and free) weekend of 2015. A weekend when I wasn’t required to carry my laptop or my phone. So, New Mexico happened. It was one of those really short conversations, which ended up in us booking flight tickets, with no plan in hand. The intent was to stay away from the crowd, which on a long weekend is a pretty tough thing to do. Needless to say, we were extremely successful. New Mexico is solitude exemplified. With killer landscape.

Solvang and Santa Ynez

Dated – February, 2015

This happened back in February I think. Had just got my license. So picked up a rental on a random weekend. Solvang is a three hour drive from LA (130 miles). As you will notice in this post, I don’t have a high opinion about this place. It is a fake Danish town built to cater to tourists. And I don’t do pretentious. S says that I should write about the bad ones as well. Too much of good ain’t a good thing. 🙂

New Year 2015 in Mexico: Baja California

Ok, so the names in this side of the world are all mixed up. There is Mexico which shares a border with California. But a part of Mexico is called Baja California. Which is not a part of California. If this wasn’t enough, there is New Mexico, which is not a part of Mexico. It is a state in US which shares a border with Mexico. They really could have thought of simplifying this entire thing! Anyhow, this post is about New Year 2015 that we spent in Baja California. Yes, I am trying to get all the long due posts out of the way while my vacation is breathing its last.