Tuesday, July 8, 2008

My lost cause of a weekend

So, AB and I got super excited about the long weekend. The first long weekend after I came to the US was spent with 'let's spend some quality time together at home and clean and do all that newly weds generally do' thing. We got stiff bored after a point. So, this weekend was planned. The one thing that AB hates about Atlanta is that it is sunny to the point of being extremely hot during the week, while it rains and crackles during the weekend. Back to our long weekend trip.

I was asked to plan for the long weekend (ayyayo!) and work on the food, the necessities (which did not include my sunscreen and lip gloss per AB. Humph!) and the perfect time to leave our home. I checked the weather forecast without which this country cannot survive and found that the intended destinations of Pensacola and Panama were predicted to have thunderstorms through the long weekend, while Savannah promised sun only on Friday. So, Savannah it was. A flurry of emails, some ghost tour bookings, dreams of hitting the beach on Tybee island, some more planning later, we slept at 1 AM to get up at 5.30 AM in the morning.

AB being AB made a chutney/dip with sun-dried tomatoes and I made one with coriander (mine sucked btw) for bread. He made loads of these sandwiches while I preened in front of the mirror, so I could look good for the 6 AM traffic. We set off, full of hopes, dreams and expectations to Savannah, America's romantic destination. We sang along the 3 hour drive, ate, joked and were in good spirits inspite of my goofy navigation. We reached Savannah earlier than the Google Maps predicted time and were jubiliant that we will get to spend more time. Sigh. One, it was HOT in Savannah. Like Chennai or something. I hate that weather. (Sigh, all my readers are mostly Chennai boys missing home..so!) We roamed around the pier/harbour, whatever you call it, at Savannah, took pictures, and proceeded to find out more about Savannah's history. We found very little to keep us amused. And our ghost tour started at 7 PM only.

Oh, I forgot to tell you that our first stop was at Oatland Island Wildlife Center, Savannah. Except for a small croc, a couple of owls and a turtle on the street, we did not see anything else. It was hot and AB and I lost patience. The croc was smaller than the ones I saw at Lake Alice on the Univ of Florida campus. Very, very disappointing. We saw turtles on the road, and I refused to allow AB to drive over one (not kill, but that the middle of our car comes over it, instead of our wheels) and we took the wrong way to get back. See?


Then, we decided to head to Tybee island. That was probably the biggest mistake of our lives. We got stuck in a traffic jam for over 5-6 miles and we were smack in the middle of it. Like the Kingsford Grill ad, people stopped cars, switched on Hip-hop music, took out chips, coke and other such unhealthy, fatty food and munched on the road. Yes, kids, women, all dressed for the summer were out and generally having a picnic! This, of course hurt our meticulous South Indian, well-planned (at least we thought so) trip minds after waiting for a good half hour or more, and we turned back to Savannah only to wait for lunch at an Italian restaurant for over 45 minutes. Again, we walked out and had salad for lunch in a predominantly non-veg restaurant. Sigh. There was no veggie food available except for salad. Of course, we treated ourselves to a gelatto and left Savannah without the ghost tour. I was just worried that something may really, REALLY go wrong in that tour ;)

The next day dawned with aching limbs for both of us, and we took it easy. However, Sunday turned out to be a nightmare. The weather predicted thunderstorms. But, we decided to take a chance with God and went on to the temple and from there to JC Penney :D We finished the temple, did not eat (for the sake of socialising!) and left for JC Penney. After I spent an undiscloseable amount of time there, we left the shop only to realize something was wrong with the car. A very smart and practical AB decided to park on the roadside and figure out what went wrong. This, thankfully, was very against my 'let's just keep on going as long as the car moves' plan. We had to call 911 because the gear refused to move from parking to anything else. Apparently the sensors failed due to the rain. What do they do in this country when it rains? Ride those Harley Davidsons kya? Bah! It took us until 4 PM to get home and we'd left at 12 noon or so. We were starving and we stuffed ourselves with whatever we found.

The whole American hype of long weekend only left us with lighter pockets. Believe me, they are really light now :(

P.S. - This post was totally inspired by NRI Maami's recent post.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

bang on when you said most of your readers are chennai boys missing home :p

And as far as I've seen, in this country, when they say thunderstorms, orru ezhavun varadhu!! At least in NC, like that only.

Macabreday said...

yaaaayy..u called 911 :P lol makes me feel better....!!

and yea..my mom is in atlanta and she was tellin me abt the thunderstorm.. it seems their apartment lost power.

Nandini Vishwanath said...

@ Gradwolf: Teriyume! And nee NC yaa? Max Detroit nu sollaraan? I've come to NC - Raleigh for a weekend.

I think I did not mention in my post that it was raining throughout and I stood outside in the rain and we were towed back in a monstrous truck!

@ Macabreday: You're having the last laugh aah? :D I love calling 911, dunno why. I feel good. AB hates it. Anytime something happens, I say, let's call 911! Though this was the only time AB obliged!

Cynic in Wonderland said...

all these plans never work sigh.

you are in atlanta eh? should tell the husband. he spent years there and occasionally gets all maudlin.