Preface

Having not taken a proper vacation since my 5-day trip to Scotland in August 2024, I decided to take a 17 day mammoth solo trip going from west coast to east coast, after the OSDI deadline. For three years I have wanted to do such a trip, at least visit New York, with a group of friends. But call it introversion, call it bad luck, call it being a loser, I never formed a proper group to do so. So, this time, I decided to abide by the great poet Rabindranath Tagore: "Jodi tor dak shune keu na ashe tobe ekla cholo re." (If no one comes to your call, then march on alone.) In total, the trip has 4 legs: San Diego - Miami/Key West - Washington D.C. - New York.

This is, by no means, a curated travel guide. This is just my ramblings, and as such it can be insanely detailed and boring. I am writing this down because soon my brain will be back to being filled with Byzantine Fault Tolerance, and I don't want to lose these memories.

San Diego

Day 1: Dec 16

I left from my home in Berkeley quite early as I had a 11:40am flight from SFO. This time I chose to embrace the full one-bagging philosophy, got a Tortuga 40l lite, and packed everything in it. The bag weighed in about 11.5kg, but thankfully none of my flights have a weight limit on the carry-ons. The flight was moderately filled and I had a lot of legroom, and cabin-space for my backpack (thank god!). The flight was pretty uneventful, and landed on time. But then, as I was about to book a cab for my hostel, I realized a little problem: I had booked the hostel for the wrong date! Instead of Dec 16-19, I had booked Jan 16-19. I hastily tried to get the same room for my date, and fortunately, I was able to get it, even with a lower price than what I paid for the wrong dates. On reaching the hotel, I asked the manager the next day if I can get the other booking cancelled and refunded, which they kindly agreed, even though it was a non-refundable booking. (Big shout out to Samesun Hostel in Ocean Beach!)

Once I settled in, I put my backpack in a locker, and went out. The beach is literally 1 block from the hostel. It's funny how both San Francisco and San Diego have an "Ocean Beach", but with very different vibes. SF's Ocean Beach is rather cold and windy, SD's is warm and it makes you want to go in the water. Plus, I think the width of the beach is quite big in SF. I saw people surfing and fishing in the beach. As I would soon find out, surfing is very much in the DNA of San Diego. It's everywhere!

I wanted to take a walk along the coast and reach Mission Beach, another quite famous beach in San Diego. But, nature had another plans. On a map, Ocean Beach and Mission Beach are hardly 200-300m apart, but that gap between the two is an channel of water flowing inland. The walking route takes you all along the channel onto a busy bridge, onto a wide thoroughfare, and then through another, even bigger bridge, past a roller coaster, to get to Mission Beach. I got to test the GPS Navigation on my new Coros Nomad watch (I splurged for this trip, go figure). I reached there right during the sunset, but unfortunately, the sun set behind clouds and I could not get a dramatic shot. Mission Beach has a nice boardwalk lined by beautiful single-family homes. But was it worth the 2.3 mile trip? Maybe, maybe not. On my way back, I decided to take the bus. I'm on a budget, and taking Ubers everytime would cost 10x than buses. San Diego has a pretty good bus and trolley (cf. Caltrain in the Bay Area) system, and they are very cheap! ($2.5 for buses, $2 for trolleys, free transfers for 2 hours)

Day 2: Dec 17

This day was meant for sightseeing within San Diego itself. I booked tickets for the San Diego Zoo and the Hop-on Hop-off bus tour. I grabbed some waffles in the morning and went to the zoo right during its opening hours. San Diego Zoo is world famous! It is quite huge, having multiple hiking trails in it. I first took a bus tour, with the guide talking through different parts of the zoo. It's peculiar how many of the animals do not have a fully covered enclosure. (They have pretty deep moats between their space and ours, but it's still underestimating the power of nature, I'd say!) For birds, they have big open spaces enclosed by very high nets. You can go inside these nets and observe the birds up close. A peculiar thing happenend when I went to see the baboons. A male and a female baboon, for a brief moment, started mating in front of us, but then probably saw a hoard of people looking at them, and decided they needed more privacy. I saw a tiger on a siesta cozily turning from side to side, while a bone from its lunch lay by his side.

One of the things I decided to do on this trip was to get over my introverted nature and try talking to strangers. I had a few such encounters this day: from the guy in my hostel lobby asking me where I was from during breakfast, to a random lady and I trying to get a good picture of a leopard and failing, to another old lady asking me if I saw a big multi-colored monkey (They are called Mandrils, I think). These really made my day.

After the zoo, I head outside and saw bit of the Balboa park. I later came to know that all the trees are human-planted and is largely attributed to Kate Sessions, "the mother of Balboa Park", the first lady to get a B.Sc. from Berkeley (Go Bears!). I walked past a host of buildings resembling colonial era Spanish architecture (which I presume are now museums), and Spreckles Organ Center, a large open-air organ concert arena, to get to my Hop-on Hop-off bus stop.

The bus took me to Old Town. A town square representing the old San Diego. I pretended to be a cowboy in front of an old-timey tobacco shop and asked a pretend-old-timey-sheriff to a take a photo of me. At times, its fun to play make-believe and pretend you are Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption. From Old Town, I boarded another bus that took us to a lot of spots. We saw NavWar, the place where the navy controls its ship worldwide, the cafe from Top Gun, USS Midway and other ships parked on the harbour (including the one where they shot the Pirates of the Carribean). I learnt about how Alonzo Horton formed the current downtown San Diego, and how he wanted everyone to have a corner plot, so the blocks in San Diego are half the size of other cities. Lastly, the bus took us to Coronado Island. We got on a bridge that supposedly tore through the Mexican-American community of Barrio Logan and in protest the community painted the pillars of the bridge and that has now become Chicano park. The driver told us that we may be able to see Tijuana from the bridge, but sadly the sky was hazy that day.

Coronado Island is a nice little posh island off the coast of San Diego. The area around Hotel Del Coronado has a festive vibe. The beach is really nice. They maintain a big sand-and-plant sculpture spelling out "CORONADO" on the beach visible to pilots. I grabbed a gelato and then headed back to the Coronado Ferry and took the ferry back to San Diego.

Day 3: Dec 18

I visited La Jolla and Torrey Pines this day. La Jolla is about 1.5 hours away on bus from where I stay. This is where UCSD is located. La Jolla Cove was really fun. From the top, you can see seals and see lions chilling on the rocks below. Then you walk down on the sand and discover that there is a small cave you can just walk in and see the seals up front! I don't do bouldering, but somehow I went in. Much of the cave floor is submerged in water with rocks surfacing here and there. I asked a random guy (who turned out to be an undergrad at UT Austin), to take a photo of me doing this semi-dangerous stunt (again getting over my fear of speaking to strangers).

After this, I walked around a bit more and went to the La Jolla Cave. La Jolla is built entirely on top of a 70ft tall cliff, and this man-made cave makes it possible to go to the bottom of the cliff (without, of course, jumping and falling to certain death). It has 145 steps which, I'm sure, my mother would not be able to go up and down with her knee. Going down, you can see purple rocks (Manganese maybe?) in a cave front with sea waves coming in. There were no seals there, unfortunately. Was it worth the $13 ticket and me getting out of breath? Maybe, maybe not.

There was a trail nearby the cave overlooking the cliff. It was a short hike. On the way back I saw a man watering the bushes on the cliff face. I asked why he was doing it, since I have never seen people caring for wild bushes, and I thought they got water directly from the sea below. Turns out the plants need freshwater. They cannot survive in seawater from below.

After grabbing some lunch at a nearby Thai restaurant where the owner was keen on testing my spice tolerance, I took the bus to see Torrey Pines State Beach. I originally planned to hike the Torrey Pines Reserve, to see the trees. But the reserve itself is temporarily closed now. Torrey Pines state beach is a long strech of a beach by the side of the freeway. It's a nice family spot, with people surfing, some sunbathing. You can see flocks of seagulls and other birds on the sand finding food. I chased around a bird for some time. What's interesting is that parts of the beach are probably slightly lower in elevation than others, leading to the sea water rushing inwards more in these parts than others. There's also a channel that flows into the ocean at one end of the beach.

On my way back, I boarded the trolley to Old Town, and then took a bus from there. I met an old lady trying to figure out where her hostel was on Newport Ave. I asked which hostel. She said Samesun, the hostel I was staying at! I helped her get to the hostel. Funny how strangers can be so trusting. It genuinely feels good to help somebody.

Day 4: Dec 19

Three words that perfectly describe the day: "WHAT A WASTE!"

My original plan was to fly to Fort Myers today, with a layover in Charlotte. From there, I would take the Key West Express cruise/ferry to Key West. But American Airlines messed up big time. My flight to Charlotte boarded late, and then wouldn't leave. First due to a cargo paperwork issue, second due to a maintenance issue. It got so late that I missed the last flight from Charlotte to Fort Myers, and hence I decided to deboard the flight. Thankfully (or not), I convinced the airlines to get me a flight to Miami instead, but they couldn't get me a ticket that day. I got booked for a flight the next day at 10:30pm!

It was my first experience of deboarding a plane. I quickly booked a nearby hotel to stay the night, and mentally prepared myself to lose a lot of money on the cruise ticket and the hotel in Fort Myers. I changed my Key West trip to be by bus from Miami. It's not a cruise, but it will do for now.

Day 5: Dec 20

On my second extra day at San Diego, I woke up with some good news. The cruise company had given back about 60% of the ticket price!

Since I had quite some time before my flight, I decided to visit the only spot I did not initially have time for: the USS Midway museum. As it turns out, I would have missed a major San Diego experience if I missed this.

USS Midway used to be a Navy Aircraft carrier. Commissioned just 8 days after the end of WWII and serving up until 1991, the ship has seen a lot of combat in the post-WWII world. It took part in Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm, among many others. Now, it is permanently docked at the San Diego Harbor and functions as a museum.

As soon as I entered the ship, I saw a lot of veterans in yellow caps volunteering to talk about the ship and its history. There was even a WWII vet. Given the war ended around when my grandpa was born, I was amazed how he still was able to speak to people. I wandered on my own along the guided paths and saw living quaters, radar stations and many more. Then there was short movie about the battle of Midway, the battle after which the ship was named. Up on the flight deck, there were a lot of fighter planes and helicopters. There was a guided tour of the island: the place where the commander resides and controls the ship. We had to climb up 4 flights of pretty steep staircases to go up there. The volunteer guiding us also showed how navigation was done in those days using sextants, and that even with today's GPS sailors still practice this celestial navigation system lest the electronics fail. There were exhibits of the intelligence gathering section of the ship as well. I even went to the engine room.

After spending 4+ hours at USS Midway, I head out to the Embracing Peace statue (made after the sailor kissing dental assistant photo taken on V-J day). Then I made my way back to Seaport Village where I had a Ube Milkshake and then headed straight to the airport.

That's a wrap for Pacific Ocean, on to the Atlantic now!

Miami

Day 6: Dec 21

The first feeling I had landing in Miami is that everything is Muy Caliente. Even in December, it reminds me of Kolkata summers. That partly could have been because I was wearing my puffer jacket (due to space constraints I can't keep in my backpack). I landed really early in Miami, around 6:30pm and booked an Uber to Miami Beach where I was staying. Generator Miami is a great hostel, with its own (overpriced) restaurant and pool, and only a street over from the beach. They let me checkin early since technically I paid for the night of Dec 20, even with me not there physically (thanks to American Airlines). I got an upper bunk bed and slept for a few hours.

When I woke up I met my neighbours. One guy was from England, the other was from Italy. The third, who I met at night afterwards was French-Australian. What a multi-cultural group! (And three cricket playing nations!) I strolled towards the beach. All throughout Miami, they have this whitish fine-grained sand in all of its beaches. The water, even in December, was at perfect swimming temperature. There were a lot of people sunbathing and swimming in the beach. I saw, to my surprise, a few seaplanes flying with large banners displaying advertisement. One of them literally was for a gun range, talk about Florida showing their culture.

After spending some time in the beach and started walking along the boardwalk trying to get to a restaurant I saw in Google Maps. But after walking for 2 miles, I realized the restaurant is within one of the many seafacing hotels along the boardwalks and probably impossible to get into if you don't stay. Defeated, I took the bus back to the hostel.

Miami and Miami Beach has surprisingly good public transport. There are buses that come fairly regularly and cost about $2.5 to ride. But there are also trolleys: old-looking buses that are completely free! In addition, Miami also has a monorail service called Metromover which is free as well.

At night, I found a supermarket with a great deli, and mentally decided to buy dinner every night from there.

Day 7: Dec 22

This day was meant for sightseeing in Miami. I had booked a guided bus tour. I like these to get a nice overview of the area. The bus first showed us South Beach (which also has a muscle beach, very LA), then crossed the bridge to go to Miami. We first saw Brickell there, which is the place for skyscrapers, big banks and money.

Our tour guide apparently used to be a banker and worked there. He also traveled to a lot of countries and now does tours for fun. He also writes motivational books. He seemed a very colorful character (or he could be full of shit, who can tell).

The bus then took us to Little Havana. This is where Cuban immigrants settled. Imagine how Latin American places are shown in movies and video games, Little Havana looks just like that! We went to a cigar factory, and I got a 2-pack for my father. (I am not for enabling his life-threatening smoking habit, but you don't come across authentic Cuban Cigars everyday now, do you?) Then we went to a mojito place where a guy was playing really nice violin. Then we went to a souvenir shop where they made us taste Cuban coffee in espresso shots. The blend was somewhat sweet, I really enjoyed it! (I wish Skylab got this for our coffee machine, and not the acidic one we get now).

After this, we went to a boat tour. The boat went around all the artificial islands around Miami, built in the 1920s. These islands now have houses of celebrities. The boat tour guide showed us houses from Jacky Chan, Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, Frank Sinatra, David Beckham to name a few. The boat guide was a charismatic person as well. He could hold conversation in Italian, German, Arabic, Chinese and many other languages!

After this, we rode back to Miami Beach on another bus. On the way we passed by the Frost meuseum, made with the donation from the family of Phillip Frost of pharmaceutical fame. Apparently, making Viagra makes you a billionaire.

At night, I went to the beach. The boardwalk is very nicely lit during this time. There was cat wandering about, and according to the signs posted everywhere, we were not supposed to feed him. After this I went to bed, as I had to get up at 4am for my 5am bus to Key West the next day.

Day 8: Dec 23

This trip to Key West is definitely a highlight of the entire trip! A reserved Uber took me to the Miami Intermodal Bus Terminal right before departure time. The bus was half-full, but a nice Cuban lady sat next to me. The trip was 4 hours in total and the sun only rose halfway through.

The lady and I started chatting. (As a common theme in this trip, I have struck a conversation with many older ladies. I must be quite interesting to talk to among the elderly female population. If only people my age were interested too. Sigh, well a guy can only hope.) She was visiting her children in one of the islands in the Florida Keys (I forgot which) for Christmas. In a short span of time, I got to know that she's been married twice, the children are from her earlier marriage but her current husband Pedro still cares about them, that Pedro was a little sick so he could not join, that he was a carpenter and used to work at one time under an Indian boss. In return she asked me how Christmas is celebrated in India.

I felt asleep sometime after when our conversation went cold. When I woke up, I was greeted by the stunning view of sunrise over the shallow waters of the Florida keys, while our bus raced through US highway 1. Along the way we passed through many of the islands of the Keys and reached Key West around 9am. The bus stop is by the side of Key West's "International" airport (I have not seen a smaller airport), which is absolutely in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't much of a public transport there so I had to call an Uber to get me to the southernmost point of continental US, my first view point.

After getting a Cuban breakfast, I headed out to see the southernmost point cone, which is about 7-8ft tall cone with the writing "Southermost point in continental United states" and "90 miles from Cuba" on it. It is iconic landmark, but at the same time, very overhyped, so much so that there was a quite a long line just to take a picture in front of it. There was a pier that opened out to the Atlantic Ocean, and it kinda reminded me of Kanyakumari although I have never been there myself.

After this I started walking towards the Key West lighthouse museum. The lighthouse internally is just a narrow and steep flight of about 80 stairs. Going up and down was quite scary. There isn't enough room for a steady traffic both ways, and there isn't any railing on one side. I had to pass a guy with a DSLR camera on my way down. But the view from the top is awesome! You can look at almost all of Key West from the lighthouse. There's a separate museum in the lighthouse workers' living quarters. They kept a lot of Fresnel lenses used in the lighthouse back in the day. I had never seen a Fresnel lens in person, and this was very educational. It brought back memories of Class 12 Optics.

After this, I went to the Hemingway Home museum, which was right across the street from the lighthouse. The house, as the name suggests, belong to the novelist Ernest Hemingway. I, being not so well-read in English literature, had very less idea about his writings. I came to know that he was in the army, had married a bunch of women over the years and was particularly fond of cats. The latter is important, as the house is filled with cats! I petted some of them, and they seemed peculiarly chill to strangers petting them.

After the museum, I headed towards Zachary Taylor State Park. This spot has two parts: a fort and a beach. The fort was built in the civil war era, and served as a military establishment up until Cold War. A park ranger was explaining the story behind the fort: how confederates surrendered to rifle cannons from union ships, the role recycled metal from cannons played in the US expansion to the west, and story of the Spanish-American war over Cuba. Apparently, while many civil war era cannons were reportedly melted to form railroads and fences, there were no records of Fort Zachary Taylor's cannons ever going anywhere but they remained missing for years, until later they realized that they have been used to fortify the walls. (For AoT fans: the titans cannons are in the walls.)

I went to the beach after this, and it was lovely! It had a small juice/fast-food shack and several tall trees lining the beach, a few benches to rest, and a lot of people on the sand or the water. This is the place I sincerely wished I had come with more friends, I badly wanted to go for a swim, but just ended up going into knee-deep water.

After grabbing a quick Pina Colada from the shack, I kept on walking towards Mallory square, which is a town square by ferry port. On the way I saw Little White House, but did not go in. (At this point, I had filled my mental quota of going to museums.) On the square, I saw a guy play BeeGee's "More than a woman" on a Steelpan. Walking around a little bit, I found a art gallery where the artist specializes in drawing a peculiar looking ostrich everywhere! The owner and I had a quick chat about art, where I was from, and that if and when I buy a mansion, I am to come to him for all the artwork. I also walked into a small Rum factory.

Then I got a Key Limeade (yes, the Key Lime in Key Lime Pie is from the Florida Keys), and headed back to the bus stop. The trip back was mostly uneventful, but I learned how the Airport bus stop works in Miami.

Key West was so wonderful (you can see from the length of this entry). Thanks Shistata for recommending this!

Day 9: Dec 24

I went in the morning to take a quick swim in the ocean. It felt refreshing. I tried doing freestyle and breast stroke. Maybe in 2026, I should resume swimming much more reguarly. It's great cardio.

This day was meant for me to travel to the Everglades. But when I went to the tour office to check-in, they said the park was closed. Another day wasted!

Instead, I decided to explore Miami on foot. I walked to Muscle beach and then onto Playa in South Beach. Then I went to see the South Pointe Pier. Afterwards, I took the bus to visit Brickell and Midtown. It was a nice stroll, but nothing much memorable.

Coming back to my hostel, I chatted with a new roommate, a lady that works in Miami and NYC. She was hyping living in New York too much. I really hope I have a good time there.

Day 10: Dec 25

My flight to Baltimore (to get to Washington DC) was at 5:10pm this day. Before the flight, I went to the famous Versailles Cuban Restaurant for my lunch. I got chicken-and-rice with Cuban Mojo and a Mojito. It was awesome, and totally worth the 30 minute wait time to get into the restaurant.

I saw a couple fighting on the very next table. They were talking (I was not eavesdropping, so I don't know what they were talking about). Then the lady said something loud and got up and left. The guy looked defeated and just paid for the meal and left as well.

I took a cab to the airport way ahead of time. The day was Christmas day and the airport was very empty. I had never seen no line at TSA. The gate agent was playing Christmas games.

Washington, D.C.

Day 10 (continued): Dec 25

My flight was Baltimore Thurgood Marshall Airport. It is about an hour away from Washington, D.C. I booked an Uber. This continued entry is specifically for the interaction with the cab driver, Cecil.

As it turns out, he is from Trinidad, one of the many islands that form the West Indies. He was telling me about his love for cricket, and especially Sunil Gavaskar. I came to know that there are songs written about him in the Carribbeans. He also told me that the islands have a very diverse population, with a lot of Indian and mixed-Indian people, and that Indian street food is very popular.

Then we discussed some recent politics. He asked about my research. He also showed me where to go for the attractions in DC.

I checked in to Duo Housing in DC, in a 10-bed dormitory. Honestly, Duo had the least bit of privacy out of all the hostels I had stayed in at that point: just 10 beds crammed into a small spot, and shared bathrooms for the entire house. But it was a very diverse crowd there: there were people from Brazil, Korea, France and even locals who just came to stay the night after clubbing.

I ended the night by going to a Salvadoran restaurant and having a Chimichanga.

Day 11: Dec 26

Most main attractions in DC are in this big park along the south of the city called "National Mall". In the morning I headed down there. My first spot to see was, of course, the White House. I walked into this field called the Oval in front of the White House, where a big Christmas Tree was kept on display. The path around the tree were lined by small trees representing each state. It was the day after Christmas, so the festive mood was definitely in the air.

After this I went towards the White House, but honestly the view was unsatisfactory. Between us, the tourists, and the White House, was a inaccessible street, then a high fence, and then the White House lawn.

Then I went to see the Washington Monument. The height of this stone structure is impressive (it is the tallest of its type in the world). However, I quickly realized that going up the monument needs tickets, which are released at 3pm every day for the next day. So I couldn't get inside that day.

Then I walked over to the WWII memorial. It was dedicated to all the American soliders that lost their lives in WWII. There were two opposite points in the memorial with domes dedicated to the Pacific and the Atlantic fleets, and then one stone-engraved wreath for each state. There was shocking display of a wall with stars where each star represents 1000 lives lost. There were over 600 stars!

It was 3pm after this, so I booked my ticket for the Washington Monument just in time. And then I walked to the Constitution Gardens behind the WWII memorial, and then to the long rectangular Lincoln reflecting pool that borders the Lincoln memorial.

The Lincoln memorial is built like a Greek temple, fitting because it is the temple of democracy. Going up the stairs, I saw the renowned large statue of Abraham Lincoln and the inscriptions of the Gettysburg address and the second inaugral address.

After this I headed to the Smithsonian museums, but to get there I did something I have never done before: I took the electric 2-wheeled scooters! I have never ridden one before, mainly because my parents were too scared I would fall down and hurt myself. But that day I thought I would try, and it was not hard at all!

I went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. I had previously seen the British Natural History Museum in details, and compared to that the Smithsonian is not that big. Still, I stayed until closing time. I mostly saw fossils, human evolution and ocean life.

After all this, I went to eat at an Indian restaurant, as I had not had Indian food in more than 10 days! Then I visited the DC City Center, which is lined by expensive clothing brands. I wanted to buy a pair of gloves, as my hands were getting too cold (as if I put them in the freezer) if they were out even for a minute. But, I wasn't gonna buy them at a Gucci shop! I am not that rich (yet). Luckily, I found a Macy's a few blocks down that sold some for a reasonable price.

Day 12: Dec 27

I started the day by going to the kitchen where a staff was making pancakes for everyone! I had some before checking out and stashing my bag at the hostel's storage.

First, I went to see the Indian embassy. It was great to see a small piece of motherland, so far away from home. I saw a statue of Gandhiji at the nearby square. I wish there was more wind so that the flag could flutter high. Then I headed over to the Indonesian embassy which has a tall statue of goddess Saraswati in front of it. This was my mother's recommendation. I have not been to a Saraswati puja in years.

Then I went to visit the Washington Monument for the second time, this time to go up in the elevator. This required me to do an almost TSA-like screening, and then the park rangers took us up. The view from the Washington monument is fantastic! You can see all the major memorials from up there. It is totally worth the $1 ticket!

After this, I went to the Smithsonial African American History Museum. This is the part of history not taught much in Indian high schools. (We had our own history of oppression, and as a high school student you can only cover so much.) I learned about slave trading, seggregation, African-American contributions in wars, and also about music.

The museum took a big chunk of my day. As a result when I went to my next stop: the Library of Congress, I was just 7 minutes over the last entry time. I took some photos in front of it. Then I did the same in front of the Supreme Court and the Capitol building.

Then I had some coffee, went back to the hostel to get my backpack, and then to the Union Station where I caught my train to New York.

New York

Disclaimer: I may sound a bit star-struck as I write my New York experience, and it is not just because I have been willing to go there ever since I started watching American sitcoms, but also because New York proved worthy of the pedestal I mentally put it on.

Day 12 (continued): Dec 27

I arrived at New York Penn Station past midnight. As I walked out, I found myself in front of the legendary Madison Square Garden! To think of my personal heroes that have graced this hallowed concert grounds: Hendrix, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, (and David Gilmour and Roger Waters, separately, on multiple occassion, after the band breakup), and in more recent times: Vulfpeck, it was quite a mix of emotions!

I noticed that it had snowed heavily in the last few days, and there was still a thick layer of snow on the sidewalks and on top of the cars. I also noticed how, despite the sub-zero (Celsius) temperatures, a lot of the shops seemed to be open close to 1am. I took an Uber pool to my hostel, which was all the way in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and met three co-passengers along the way.

Day 13: Dec 28

I began my day by figuring out the public transit in New York first. The Uber rates were outrageous, and the bus and the subway saved me from a financial wreck. I first went near Williamsburg bridge. It is one of the three bridges that connect Brooklyn to Manhattan, the others being the Brooklyn and the Manhattan bridges. There was small park in front of the abandoned Domino Sugar Refinery, and a skating rink which was in full swing.

Then I took the bus to go to Brooklyn bridge. You can quickly see which of the bridges is more famous! There were lines of tourists on the streets close to the bridge just to get a good photo. I somewhat found the angle seen in the Brooklyn Nine-Nine title sequence, took a few selfies and had to be happy with it, there being no one else to take a proper photo of me. I walked out the park beneath the bridge, which was filled with snow. Kids were playing with snowballs there. On the way, I even saw a tiny New York rat!

I decided not to go on the ordeal of walking the Brooklyn Bridge in that cold, mostly because I had learned my lesson on walking through bridges on the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead, I took the subway to cross over to Manhattan and land in Wall Street. I saw the New York Stock Exchange (nothing fancy, just a tall building and a one digital board showing stock prices), and then went on to see the famous Charging Bull statue. As with all touristy spots in New York, this was quite crowded as well. There was a ~20-minute long line which I joined, only to realize quite late that that was to touch the bull's balls for good luck. Like a sheep in a heard, I complied, and touched the balls (Ew!) and even let a stranger take a photo on my phone of me doing it (Brother, Ew!). I also tried taking a picture in front of the bull, like a normal person (?), but the crowd wouldn't let me have as good a shot.

I tried a busy pizza place nearby. New York pizza is famous, and my New York friends had hyped too much about it. The place was crowded, the pizza slices were quite big (2 slices were enough for my lunch), but taste-wise I did not get the hype at all.

I then walked over to the 9/11 memorial. They created giant waterfalls in the places where the two towers used to be. I got tickets to enter the memorial museum an hour later, and headed inside the Perelman Performing Arts Center to kill the time and warm my bones.

The museum is dedicated to all the common people and firefighters that lost their lives on 9/11, and filled with artifacts from the erstwhile Twin Towers. The most notable among them was the remnant of a pillar from the towers that since then have been graffitied with NYPD, PAPD (Port Authority Police Department) and other patriotic insignia. I also learned how the World Trade Centers were engineering miracles back in the day and the sheer volume of people that worked there.

After this, since it was already the evening, I head back to my hostel. However, on reaching my hostel, I realized that I was falling into my old pattern of not exploring the nightlife at a new place, especially at a place like New York which is known for its nightlife. The city really does not sleep! Hence, I rested and recharged myself and my phone for a bit, and then headed back outside. This time to Times Square!

Times Square is all that you see on TV! Crowd, public performances, and large digital advertisements. I made my way through the main streets and then got dinner at a busy Greek/Mediterranean place. I walked one block over and I was in Broadway! The theaters were all closed by then. I had checked the ticket prices for Broadway before coming, and they were pretty much out of my budget at that point. I would definitely like to come back to NYC again someday to see a Broadway show.

At this point, it was already past 11pm and I was half-contemplating going back. But I found this small bar called "Birdland Jazz Club" and walked into it. As I would later find out, Birdland is a legendary Jazz venue in New York. It has witnessed a lot of Jazz legends perform there, from Ella Fitzgerald to Miles Davis. Weather Report even has a song called "Birdland".

I was lucky enough to find a $20 ticket to the venue after their house band for the night had already started playing. I sat at the bar, and in front of me sat an older gentleman visibly dancing to the virtuosic wind section playing Latin big band Jazz tunes, many of which were composed by Tito Puente. As I was enjoying the music quite a bit myself as well (so much so that the lady sitting behind me left early), the gentleman and I quickly hit it off, chitchatting about how great the show was. He also told that their last piece, named Lagrimas Negras, was a classic Cuban melody. Before I left, I learned that the gentleman's name was Jimmy, he lived in New Jersey, and he went to Birdland at least once a month to listen to the house band play. On my way back, I also got to interact with one of the trumpet players. I even saw someone doing freestyle rap on the subway back. It was so cool!

My heart was full at that point! I had seen many of the things I wished to see, including a freaking Jazz show at a legendary New York nightclub.

Day 14: Dec 29

The day started really rainy, so I called off going to the Statue of Liberty that day, and decided to sleep in a little bit longer. The day marked my two weeks being out of home, which also meant I had an unkempt 2 week old beard, that only just started to get itchy.

At this point of my trip, I was slowly starting to feel museum fatigue, but chose to power through the famous few in New York. I went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). You know that this place is the original MoMA, since it did not have to say NY-MoMA, unlike SF-MoMA. These modern art museums always make me tad uncomfortable with the amount of pretentiousness oozing through every pore of it. I am not much of an art guy, I prefer the subtlety of the written word. Still I tried my best to absorb some of this pretentiousness and try to understand the meaning behind the pictures.

Of the artworks I do remember, I particularly liked "The Dream" by Henry Rousseau, "The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali, and a host of paintings by the Cuban painter Wilfredo Lam which I thought would make for killer Sunday Suspense posters. I liked a series of 11 potraits of women of color by Gabrielle Goliath, called "Berenice", that serve as memorial to her friend Berenice. There were some wire installations by Ruth Asawa that looked really nice.

After spending the better part of the day at MoMA, I sought to explore NYC on foot. I started making my way towards Central Park, and on the way I passed the Rockefeller Center and had a hot chocolate at a Ralph Lauren coffee truck. I saw the signs of Radio City and was immediately reminded of the Dave Matthews album that was recorded there. Close to the entrace of Central Park, I even saw the Trump Tower.

Central Park at evening is nice. You can see the setting sun's reflection on the highrises around you, and the mix of asphalt, mud and snow really make for an interesting texture to walk on. There are boulders scattered here and there that you can climb on (and maybe call yourself an honorary rock climber for a day?!). At one of these rocks, called the Umpire Rock, a stranger took the most high-effort dramatic photo of me. I found a large ice skating rink in Central Park. I wanted to go and learn, and I had asked my friend Jemma to come over from Syracuse, but she betrayed and I couldn't go.

At night, I went to dinner to this chic Indian restaurant called Dhamaka that I had bookmarked a while back. I went with 3 strangers I met on Nomadtable, an app to meet fellow solo travellers. I met Genu, who is a 2nd generation Malayali from New York and Noor and Lahdo, both from the Netherlands. We quickly hit it off, discussing about our jobs, Indian customs and dating/marriage trends, and of course, the food! Noor was discussing her experience of travelling to India, and I felt quite embarrassed by behavior she had to tolerate. (There's a lot of great things about India that I am truly proud of, but the way we treat foreigners and/or women is certainly not one of them.) The food was great, at least the goat curry I got reminded me of home, but it was funny watching white people explain my food to me. I am proud of myself to be open enough to meet complete strangers. Now I have 3 new Instagram friends, and a nice memory to cherish about the night we spent chatting.

Day 15: Dec 30

I took the day easy. I could feel the trip fatigue setting in. Clearly, the career of a travel vlogger is not for me.

In the morning, I took a ferry trip around the Hudson and the East River learning about the NYC Skyline, the ports (of New York, Jersey and Hoboken), and the bridges. The tour guide, dressed up a Santa, spoke quite fast and since my ears were covered in triple layers most of the time due to the freezing cold, I could not understand or retain most of what he had to say.

Next, I took the bus to see the UN headquarters (very Half Girlfriend-y, I know). I had to get a formal security checking and a visitor badge, but they sold out of all the guided tours, so I just walked through the publicly accessible parts of the campus and left.

In the evening, I went to the 86th floor observation deck of the historic Empire State Building. All of New York City is visible from up there. It is truly stunning! But also, it is freezing from the open-air deck. I later realized there is 102nd deck as well, but I did not have the tickets.

Day 16: Dec 31

The New Years Eve was legendary and will definitely be a core memory! But let me back a little bit first.

In the morning I took the ferry to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty up close. I learned about the history of the place, from early Native American settlers to Bartholdi designing the statue and it serving as a beacon for immigrants coming to America, and soldiers going to WWII.

Then I went to see the Ellis Island, one of the main checkpoints for immigrants up till 1954 when America had open-door immigration. The museum is decorated with collections and stories from these immigrant families.

As fun and educational as this was, I was really looking forward to letting it loose at the OCT concert in Brooklyn that night. Heeding the advice of the many a native New Yorker, I skipped the ball drop in Times Square, but had gotten the New Year's Eve tickets to OCT right when they announced the show more than a month ago. If you don't know OCT, it is Eurovision style band that makes parody songs.

TBC

Day 17: Jan 1