LA

When one drives to Los Angeles on the southbound 101 highway, one encounters 10 lanes of highway after entering Los Angeles county from Ventura. The LA traffic is so awful, that all 10 lanes of traffic are totally jammed. Staples Center is on S Figueroa Blvd about a mile off the 101. We parked at a place pretty close by, where they were charging us $15. As we walked to take our seat, I imagined Mike Breen and Mark Jackson on ABC Sunday doing the pre-game briefing. Just as we entered the arena, the Phoenix team roster was being announced. No major surprises, that Raja Bell was starting and would be guarding Kobe Bryant.

Then the lights dimmed, and the techno-tron showed past moments of glory for the Lakers, some dunks of Kobe Bryant among others. There was a loud cheer as Kobe was introduced for the Lakers. Most people in Los Angeles see him as the new savior of the Lakers after the fallout with Shaquille O'Neal which led to Shaq being traded to the Miami Heat. However, Kobe Bryant was totally eclipsed on the day by my pick for the MVP this season - Steve Nash. Nash was in truly inspired form, setting the pace early on and setting up "The Matrix", Shawn Marion for three early dunks. Urged on by the crowd, Kobe Bryant's heroics kept them in the game till half time.

At half time, we decided to do the typical American experience, and each had a burger, fries and coke from the McDonald's at Staples Center. The second half produced some telling fast break play from the sixth player of the year Leandro Barbosa, with some typical robust play from Amare Stoudemire. The Lakers rallied briefly but their resolve trailed off towards the end and Phoenix won it quite comfortably. Understandably, the mood around Staples was downbeat. We were downbeat too, but of course took a lot of pictures of the empty arena after the dejected crowd had trooped out. A visit to the Lakers' store set us back by a bit of money too - I bought a styroam No.1 finger for $8. I nearly had a picture of myself with Bill Walton (Hall of Famer and one of the top fifty players ever) but some man had asked me to take a picture of him and his son, and I didn't want to disappoint them. Bill was much taller than me, anyway!

There were the usual faces in the crowd - Jack Nicholson at his customary courtside seat, I suspect I saw Denzel Washington. Jack Black appeared on the techno-tron and waved to the crowd when his face was on there. I also think I saw Adam Levine (of Maroon 5). Eva Longoria, of course was not to be found - she was probably attending a San Antonio Spurs game.

After the game, we drove through downtown Los Angeles. The tall buildings reminded me of New York, though they were not that many. We continued on 1st Ave, and turned off on Hollywood Blvd passing Sunset Blvd on the way. Sunset Blvd is the in-place to be, with famous parties, but we didn't stop there. One would expect Hollywood Blvd to be very posh filled with glamorous stores and posh eateries. However, it is a let-down. Despite the fact that the sidewalks are paved with golden stars with celebrities names on them, the neighborhood looked fairly run down to me. As we kept going North, however, there were signs of more tourist oriented buildings. The Hollywood and Highland center, as the name suggests is on the corner of Hollywood Blvd and Highland Ave. This building houses the Kodak Theatre - home of the Academy Awards. I was related the story of where the red carpet was, and the huge crowd that throngs there to cheer on the celebrities for the Oscar.

We also went to the Grauman's Chinese Theater. Here, handprints and footprints of celebrities are immortalized in cement. I found that my hands fit Jack Nicholson's. Hand-Twin anyone?

NY

I spent that night at Harvard Square. Harvard University, established in 1636 has lot of stately looking buildings in it's campus. As with all other universities, it has felt the force of the generation change. John Harvard's proud statue with the golden boot should usually be rubbed for good luck. A rather crude but popular graduating gesture from Harvard students ensure that the same boot is urinated upon before graduation. For this reason, I was advised not to rub the foot for good luck. Rather amusingly though, I did see a bunch of tourists rubbing the foot for good luck. Another interesting story that I did learn is that the story of Harvard turning down Leland Stanford was nothing more than an urban legend. The much popular hoax of the rise of Stanford from the rejection of Harvard has been circulating in e-mails around the world. I even saw where the famous Harvard string theorists sit and the equations and the mathematics that goes around such research.

Harvard University owns most of the property in Harvard Square. So, the shops around are their choice. Predictably, one would not find a low budget option to eat in Harvard Square. The crown of the jewel is Burdick's, an extremely expensive chocolate place. Even though it has its critics, I found its hot chocolate to be excellent and extremely apt for a chilly Cambridge night.

The next day we set off to upstate New York. Up-state means North in the state. We went to the capital of New York state - Albany. Many people confuse the capital of New York to be New York City, but actually it's unassuming little Albany. The drive from New England was punctuated with clumps of unfrozen ice in the laboring spring yet to melt on the roadside. The undergrowth didn't change much, the same barren trees could be seen right into New York. The reason New York is not part of New England, is because it's a Dutch colony. Downtown Albany is dotted with the usual skyscrapers that are seen downtown in any city in the United States. One of the most famous buildings in the landscape is the Egg, where concerts and such like are held.

Niskayuna, NY is at the crossroads of Troy and Schenectady. It's a small place with nothing much to see apart from Lock 7, a river lock on the banks of the river Mohawk. A lock is useful for boats when there is a sudden waterfall. It allows the boat to go through a small channel and lowers it through the steep grade. Unfortunately I didn't get to see this highly useful mechanical device in action because there was not one boat in sight. It was still a little cold, and we could see ice on the banks, so we attributed the lack of boats to the cold. The quaint town of Niskayuna was left behind the following night.

We needed to take the I-90S towards Manhattan. Instead of drving around the crowded Manhattan area, we decided we would stay at Jersey City, in New Jersey across the river Hudson. The river divides the states of New York and New Jersey. We stayed at a fairly low budget area where the price of Gasoline was ridiculously low (2.30$ per gallon). People who pay $3.50 per gallon (like I do) in Southern California would have empathized with my outrage. The breakfast next day, though free, was woefully inadequate. A couple of bagels and muffins were strewn around a decrepit looking kitchen counter, while the orange juice tasted worse than Rasna (if that can be believed). Later that day, we caught the bus to Manhattan. Our tour guide was a veteran of twelve episodes of the popular TV show, Law and Order. This titbit of information was gleaned from the driver after the tour. The two most popular ways of getting from Jersey City into Manhattan are the two underwater tunnels - the Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel. All suffer from traffic congestion during the day and we finally ended up taking the slow agonizing Lincoln tunnel.

Central Park was the first stop. It stretches from 59th St. to 110th St, a whole 51 blocks in central Manhattan. This 2 mile stretch of man-made park offers much needed to respite to the New Yorkers from the constant bustle in that part of Manhattan. It is said that there are parts of the park where one cannot see the skyscrapers and cannot hear the traffic. From central park, we drove around Manhattan, gazing at the abundance of the skyscrapers. We drove south towards Greenwich Village and passed Times Square. Times Square appears to be the hub of New York City. The large plasma screens advertisements and sometimes general news. There's a ticker giving news and stock information. NBC has studios at Times Square, and so does Fox, ESPN and other major television broadcasters. We would return to Times Square at a later point of time to visit Hard Rock Cafe, New York. On the way, we saw the Soup Nazi's (from Seinfeld) restaurant. It's called the Soup Kitchen. The Soup Nazi is opening a chain of outlets in downtown Manhattan called the Soupman. I would have loved to visit, but it was too much to do in just one day.

We continued down Broadway passing the Museum of Natural History, and took a small detour to stop at Rockefeller Center which is next to Radio City Music Hall. We then through the park and crossed to famous 5th Avenue. The fashion district was pointed out at 5th Avenue, SAKS 5th Avenue being one of the famous stops. Continued past the Museum of Modern Art and also stopped at the famous Grand Central Station for a quick bite and took in the sites of the huge number of rail tracks that originated here. We also went further south into SoHo. SoHo which is also called Greenwich Village derives it's name from SOuth HOuston (pronounced House-ton). Here the regular rectangular grid of NYC is lost and the roads are slanted and irregular. The artist community is the most active in SoHo, and it houses a large gay community too. The next stop was Ground Zero. Construction has now begun on "Freedom Tower" a skyscraper slated to replace the fallen twin towers. From there, on to Ellis Island and Liberty Island. We baulked at the length of the cruise to Liberty Island, and viewed the Statue of Liberty at a fair distance. We went back into Jersey City and took the subway into NYC and went back to Madison Square Garden and Times Square among other places.

The next day we drove back to Boston. That night was Belly Dancer night at the local Middle Eastern place ironically called The Middle East at Central Square. There was only one belly dancer disappointingly, though the money that was poured on her when she was dancing was quite copious. Before I left Harvard, I had a chance also to sample authentic American diner cuisine. Having missed out on Seinfeld's diner in New York, I grabbed this opportunity.

The next day it was back to the business of flying across the continent. My flights to Chicago and LAX were really close to the connecting flights departing from there. Thankfully I made both and reached home. On the flight back from LAX, I did sit next to a woman, who held her daughter on her lap. Next to the woman, was her mother who looked suspiciously whenever I tried to make the baby laugh. Annoyed at my success, she engaged her daughter in a conversation and tried to feed the baby lots of fried chicken from KFC. The baby was still quite engrossed in her game with me where both of us were trying to peer through the window of the cramped tiny aircraft. As we landed, the baby clapped her hands in glee.