What happened in those 24 hours....

I generally don't write about my experiences during the day. But this day was special. I was subjected to the pressures of smile, anger, sadness, thrill, confusion and respite all in 24 hours. Bole toh total Emosanal Atyachaar hogaya!!!
It was 2nd January. I had entered into the second day of the last weekend that might be in US. I had not been only to one city worth a visit on East Coast. It was Boston. This city has typical English style architecture. Friends had suggested not to miss Boston for its beauty and culture. And of course there was Harvard.
These factors made me decide at 7pm on 2nd January that I will visit Boston in a day trip. It would be a 900+ km drive in a single day. So I had to leave early. The time decided was 4:30am the next day. I decided to take Non- Toll routes to Boston all throughout.
Now comes the expressions that stretched me during the day :-P

Anger:

I started well on Route 287. I had to take an exit after 55miles towards Route 95. But in some radio channel change operation, I missed this exit and drove another 20 miles into Upstate New York. Obviously I had missed an exit. But it was worse when I came to know that it was a no turn highway and next bloody turn was at 32 miles. Then I stopped at a Rest Area. Thought what to do next...and thought means ;-)
I decided to continue and then turn to Boston Massachusetts Turnpike, which was unfortunately a full toll road of 150 miles ...grrrrrrrrrrrrr and $14 !!!!!

Confusion:

However I reached Boston earlier than I expected as the road was empty and I was on 80 miles average speed. But the city looked deserted. Woh kehte haina "Naa banda naa bande ki zaat". However after sometime, I reached Massachusetts avenue the busiest road on Boston where life came back to normal.

Smile:

I haven't been lucky with parking till now. Have collected 95$ parking tickets in totality till date (4th January, 11pm ET). But Boston has very good parking areas and pretty cheap too. I found a parking spot in one of the Park sites at meager 8$ for the day. (In New York I have paid 37$ for 3 hours too!!!). To top this I had a subway right in front of me which directly took me to the downtown. Most places are located around the downtown in Boston. After reaching downtown, I was thinking what to do next. Then I found a discounted bus tour for 20$. The smile reinforced :-)

Thrill:

The first bus I got was going to an adjacent town called Harvard/Cambridge. I was about to visit Harvard Business School!! The bus dropped me at Harvard square. After just seeing he buildings around, its not very difficult to figure out why IIM Ahmedabad is made of Red Bricks :-PPP
From Harvard Square, HBS is about 1 mile across the river. The river was completely frozen, temperature at that time being -8degrees. HBS is a set of 30 buildings and one of the 8 Ivy league colleges in North America. Mind you but they have written nowhere "Harvard Business School" except the Library. May be the whole idea is to attract as less visitors as possible. But a very silent campus, full of snow at this time of the year. Ivy on all the red bricked buildings. Halls named after Bloomberg, Morgan, Chase etc. The Harvard University has a biggest Library in the world. But it is located near the Harvard Square, 1 mile from HBS. There was a blood rush through my brain just thinking that "I am currently at Harvard Business School" :-)))

Emotionless:

After the wonderful trip to Harvard, I took back the bus that would show me Boston after that. But I cared least about it. Driving for 4 hours continuous in the morning had taken a hell lot of energy from me. Also with the wind picking up it was getting more cold. I just saw rest of the monuments, fashion street, prudential, symphony hall etc from the bus and got down at Quincy market. Spent some time in the cold that was by now passing through my bones. Decided to chuck the financial district and head back to the car at about 5pm. I thought 7 hours in Boston was worth every penny of it!!

Confusion:

Boston has these set of tunnels that take you in and out of the city. I decided not to take the toll road for sure this time and then got confused and somehow landed in East Boston instead of south. There a gentleman gave me the exact directions to reach to Route 93 South. However took a wrong turn yet again and now I was heading for Chelsea. Fortunately they had many U turns on the way. I took one of them and returned to some gas station. Another gentleman helped. This time it worked as he was heading to the same route as I. So after ending confusion...I entered a stage of frustration!

Frustration:

Left Boston...entered 6 mile of traffic... that's it!! And I was still not sure if I was going right!! A U-turn here would spell hell!!

Smile again:

After driving for about 17 miles, I saw Route 95 South signboard. I was so happy :-)
I had to continue on this for 209 miles and enter New York City...

Sadness:

Generally the Route 95 is very crowded as it a toll free route. So more the vehicles, more the Americans, more the confusion and more the accidents. I saw 2 accidents on the way that completely stalled me for like 6 miles each. The accidents were so bad that out of 3 lanes 2 had to be closed. I had thought not to stop anywhere but home this time. But the sight of these accidents and the delay just saddened me more. I was thinking of completing the journey in 4.5 hrs. But now it would be 5.5-6 hours of non stop driving. Cramps had already started to set in!!

Laughter:

To cut on the delay caused by the accidents, I started driving fast, real fast. I was almost 30 miles over in certain speed zones. They say, if you are 10 miles up you are on the line. I crossed it by a huge margin and thus had a Police officer behind me within 30 minutes of the surge!! I was caught driving at 96mph in a 65mph zone ;-)
First I thought "Ab gayi bhains paani mein". I tried to come out of the car, and was immediately warned to get inside. By then I had my insurance and International License ready. The officer took it with him. Yahan Indianness kaam. With a rental car not booked on my credit card, an Indian license , he could have done nothing more than giving me a warning :-DDD and warning was "Since you are here for short term, I will just give you a warning. Now drive carefully!!"
After that I didn't break the speed limits for next 60 miles till I left Connecticut through and through!!

Bliss:

Another 100 miles and I saw the sign, George Washington Bridge to New Jersey!! I was just 30 minutes from home....With a severe head ache, tired legs, an eventful day and life long memories :-)

Signing out...