Spice of life..

Yesterday as usual on the way back from her daycare, I asked Anoushka how her day was. She told me several things and also told me how three of her classmates told her that she was a small baby. Well, to begin with Anoushka is the one who walks around telling everyone that she is a big girl. (Becos I told her that when she started her preschool.) And the girls whom she is talking about have moved to that class long before her. So technically they were right. Anyways. But that did trigger a whole chain of thoughts of when I was a kid. I played with everyone but always had one best friend whom I hung out with all the time and was very possessive about. Every little thing that anyone said or did bothered me and I came home to tell my mom how bad I felt and how I was right and so on. Slowly, I learned to get over things and not get bothered about what others felt about me.

And one day in my college(in India), a friend of mine made a racist comment about me and another friend. My friend got very offended and told her how it was not appropriate to say it. I, on the other hand, very cooly ;) told her that it was her opinion and I could not care less. I still remember the look on her face. LOL And ever since I have had so much fun because nothing seems to deter me from doing what I want. So when my gym class instructor says "10 more crunches for those awesome beach abs. Lets all go to Santacruz this weekend", I am thinking I can go to the beach without those awesome abs too.. Heck I dont get paid to look good! I dont care.

But I must confess I thoroughly enjoy looking at awesome abs and the gossips of people who care! LOL I think that is THE best entertainment and its free too! If I am getting bored, I know exactly which neighbor to talk to hear the neighborhood gossip (I am told that my next door neighbors are nudists.. too bad I did not find it out myself LOL), whom to talk to at work to get the scoop and if nothing else there always are 'tantrum queens' (or kings or couples). There stories are like tequilas- straight to the point and potent. And more than likely, you actually have a big role that you play in that, which ofcourse, you find out later. Anyways, thank god for that. I just realised I miss the budweiser radio ads - Real men of genius .. we salute you!

Solvang

Solvang was a different experience altogether. Its a Danish town with very interesting stuff and like I said for Cambria has a character of its own. Their website is funny too and says "no passport needed to visit this Danish town in CA". And describes it as, "The gentle rolling hills, windmills, quiet streets, horse drawn carriages, family bicycles, golf courses, horse ranches, wineries, Danish bakeries, authentic Danish costumes worn by some shop keepers, Danish morgaasbord restaurants, museums of racing and Solvang history, in the Danish atmosphere and architecture" is what you get to see. We had really good lunch buffet at this place shown in the picture. Everything was yummy. Too bad I cant remember any names. And those shoes are a little too big for Anoushka. no? They had wooden shoes her size which she wanted to buy. I wonder how they feel. wooden shoe? And then the best part was the cycle ride with everyone.. We raced with another family and it was totally fun! The town is bigger than Cambria but the main area was still very small. We saw old Danish architecture buildings etc and stopped to eat the famous dessert 'Aebleskivel' which tasted even better after riding the tandem cycle. This was a day after the inspirational Hearst castle trip and Anshu says to me, " This is so cool. Why dont we do something like this?" Just when I started to feel really proud of him for thinking 'out of the box' (now the swirls as he joined Nvidia) he says, "buy a small store in the town like this." I was thinking more in terms of creating a small Indian town like the Danish town. (Not something that was so mundane and doable) Talk about thinking big!

Hearst Castle

I can't seem to get over my Cambria vacation still. Though not intended to be so, my blog has become a travel blog more than a personal blog. But there were so many wonderful things that I saw and I want to capture that I cant help but write about those.

And then I want my blog to have some nice pictures (eye candy. becos I know no one really reads the text anyways.)

These are famous swimming pools at Hearst Castle. Views from here are breath taking as the castle is on the top of the hill. The story of this castle and the guy who built the castle is as interesting as the things in the castle itself. WR Hearst, the guy who build the castle really pursued his dream. He collected art from all over the world and transported it over the tiny, dirt road to the mountain top. The best part of this was the fact that he loved to share his dream and entertain all kind of people notably Hollywood stars and all the whos-who of that era. His guests were seated at the table based on how much he liked them and if they were fun to hang out with. I was thinking to myself how lucky all those people were who got invited to that wonderful place. For the people whose ancestors did not accidental find silver ore, there is another way to enjoy the luxury and share the fun. And that is to befriend the ones that have..

And I am thinking in my mind- Go Foundry Go!!

In tandem..

We did kayaking at the San Simeon bay. Water was beautiful and being the week day, we were the only ones in the water. We asked the lady at the store to take our pictures. I was not too hopeful about her taking good pictures but given that we did not have many choices we just figured it was better to have that than nothing.
When I saw the pictures I was extremely pleased. (And by no means am I easy to please :) ) Since I was in the front I never knew if we were doing it insync or not.
As I browsed through the pictures a very calming and soothing wave of satisfaction rose in my mind. Just like when I had seen the picture of us snorkelling together at keys west in Florida. Though it was a simple thing in itself just doing it in sync is like reassuring the togetherness and renewing the faith. (LOL) Just like the one when you see two kids (your own) playing with each other. By themselves, they are fun to watch but together they are extraordinary.

That made me think about other things that we managed to do insync. One thing that amazes everyone including us were our business trips to India 3-4 times a year for last 3 years. And then there were several others like well timed common desires and food cravings, first time parenthood ( LOL but its possible to not experience it together) and other wonderful moments.

Cambria experince-Part 2

After indulging in variety of cool deserts and candies at the local shops, we explored other stores like the book store and the nursery. Not surprisingly, this small town has exactly one of each type of a store. And more interestingly, each store has really unique stuff and offers great selection. The bookstore had this book in the showcase that was written by Hollywood director Richard Taylor after he moved to Cambria. I almost bought it and asked the seller if it was all fiction or had anything to do with real Cambria ghost citings. Wrong question. She promptly replied telling me that _all_ ghost stories are fictions. That really was brutal and snapped me out of the wonderful imaginations of seeing ghosts hiking alongside as we drove at midnight on the deserted highway 1. (oh and when I told Anoushka about the ghosts, she took it a step further and told me how ghosts drive the car!) So this book store had good activity book and everything else like preparing for SAT, GMAT et al.
The nursery was another such place. I have NEVER EVER seen a nursery which such variety and beatiful layout of things in there. It had a lot of different types of succulents and Cactus. It has all types of native and other flowers, fruits etc. It was just so relaxing to walk through the different sections and look at all the amazing selection they had. We got a stone studded tortoise and a colorful mushroom. I think numero dos needs me so I got to go. more later.

Cambria experience- Part 1

Long time no post.. That's because I was thoroughly enjoying every second of the vacation time. Not that blogging is not fun, its just lesser fun than actually living the fun. :)

When we booked a week long vacation in the small town of Cambria, everyone wondered what we would do in such a small place. (excluding me becos I can never get enough of Anshu and the lil ones and could be on an isolated island forever!)

Cambria is beautiful and has a lot of character.

In my previous post on frogs, I kept on wondering about significance of frogs in Cambria. Sure enough after a little bit of googling I found out that it indeed has frog fascination. It has something got to do with the Artifacts Gallery, the favorite gallery of the famous “Frogman” artist, Tim Cotterill.

So what did we do in Cambria.. We went for walks along the beach and other beautiful trails.

Oh and the city ordinance does not allow any chains like Starbucks, Kmart, Safeways etc. No wonder the experience was like going to a foreign land.

How far can you drive without hitting a McDonalds or Burger King? Main St is lined with beautiful local stores with local art. So just walking on the Main street was a great experience. We bought a lot of interesting art work.

And there was the famous olallieberry pie at Linns and the fudge. Stay tuned!

Home away from home..

When we were deciding to go on a vacation, I went through a long list of vacation destinations - in Italy, France, Spain, Mexico etc. The list quickly reduced given that we had a 3 and half months old and a 3 and half years old! (And the soaring gas prices that made tickets twice as expensive) We were looking for a change(and ofcourse in a good way) .. but then with the kids the question was 'how much of a change?'

Because--

When I order a $20 main course in a restaurant and my snob daughter refuses to taste it, I am not sure if I should feel bad for her being hungry or about the wasted food!

When I wake up in the morning (or should I say when I am half asleep) and have to leave the room for a breakfast that I dont really enjoy . (Other than Mc Donald's sausage biscuit on the way to Tahoe before skiing)

I dont want to spend more money on cabs than I spent on the air ticket but I cant walk for miles with little ones hanging on to me.

And most importanly becos vacation was meant to be relaxing!

So I concluded that a kitchen is a must and started looking for vacation rentals. After looking through pages and pages of really grand villas in Italy, Spain, France and Mexico, I was totally disappointed by the fact that I could not go there. And, air fare was least of the problems. They were all booked! (This was 2-3 wks in advance.) So I started searching in US and in California specifically with an intention to drive. Imagine not having to pack up everything in suitcases of certain size and number or waiting for the cab to show up or to worry about missing the plane, running through the lines of security and having to throw baby milk as if it would explode! (Having done that for our quarterly business trips to India, we had enough already.)

Anyways, I bumped into the listings of Cambria which I had never really heard of. Not all listings had the calendar online so I copy pasted the standard email that I had written. It started of saying, "Your house is beautiful.." I was trying to impress the unknown reader to give me a chance. So long story short, we got this beautiful home in Cambria. Its a (did I say beautiful already?) gorgeous 3 bd 2.5 bath with view of the ocean and newly built! (My nightmare was going to a house not half good as my own and paying for it too.)

The interior is asthetically done with all the necessities including a pack and play, crib, castle home, hide and seek tent, booster chair and walker for the kids. Anoushka was thrilled to see all the 'new' toys and Sania got hers along so both of them were very happy. I wake up with the usual steaming hot cup of ginger tea with toast. Anshu can bath for an hour in the jacuzzi tub and has plenty of room to throw his clothes around in the big walk-in closet. so everyone feels at 'home'. :-)