When the cab driver in my last post was telling me about his weekend trips to New York, I think he was being prophetic in a sense. Having driven to NY 3 times in the 4 weeks that I have been here, I am clearly heading for some kind of record. Although, to be fair, not all trips were purely for my amusement.
I moved to Gaithersburg, Maryland on August 6th (with a lot of help from Krish) and began work at Hillcrest Labs the following Monday. There was this sense of deja vu as it began to sink into me that I was going to live the suburban life again. I did it before in St. Louis and I can do it again, I told myself.
I thought I was doing pretty well for the first few days but it wasn’t until the weekend, though, that the depression began to sink in. When you live in New York, it’s easy to forget that the rest of America is nothing like it at all. America really lives in its suburbs. It’s the people in the suburbs (and small towns and rural areas) all over America that elect George W. Bush and care most about being able to drive giant SUVs (have you seen a Hummer in real life? It’s a travesty of the modern, efficient, and environment-friendly automobile that one can buy from any of the other auto makers). It’s also a place where contact with humans is minimized to the maximum possible extent. So much so that if all you want to do is see some men and women looking dandy and just hanging around, being cool, and eating at restaurants, you need to go to the most American thing of them all – the mall.
I decided I needed to just see some life for a change so I spent a majority of my Sat’day that weekend at the Barnes & Noble bookstore looking at books. And well … people 
Before I go on, I’d like to digress a bit to note something that I realized only since I moved. New York easily has the highest concentration of hot women in the country (at least, in my humble opinion). In NY, my morning commute involved being squeezed into packed subway cars with good looking women some of who are probably the models you see in the Victoria’s Secret ads. Even if most of them are not models, they sure looked like they could all easily pass for them Trust me when I say this – you don’t know what you’re missing until you move to a city like Gaithersburg and only see cars all around you on your daily commute to work!
Anyway, my first trip back to NY was the following weekend. It was Sharat (my former roommate) who suggested that I spend the weekend over there. I didn’t need much prodding, of course, and I merrily made my way on I-95 N in 4 hours on a Friday evening.
My parents arrived in DC the following Monday after spending 2 weeks with Rahul in St. Louis (my parents were visiting us in the US and the four of us had had a lovely vacation in California in July, right after I quit Morgan Stanley. More on this in a later post). My father had to advance his ticket and leave earlier than expected so I drove to JFK and back the following weekend. That was my second trip.
My mother stayed with me for another 2 weeks and that is when I actually ventured into Washington, DC. We saw the White House (from a distance, of course) and the Washington Monument. We went to the Museum of the American Indian, the Holocaust Memorial museum and the National Gallery of Art. We even went to the Kennedy Center for a performance.
Having my mom around was a welcome change and I’m glad that she decided to spend that extra week. I eventually drove again to JFK to see her off in what was my 3rd trip in 4 weeks. This time though, I didn’t drive back immediately. I attended Jui’s (a friend who works in Reuters) birthday party and spent time chatting with Sharat. I headed back home around 10:30 pm and made it in 3 hours and 20 minutes flat!
Although the trips to NY are always welcome, I don’t intend making them a habit. I really am growing to like the DC area and although I don’t have many friends around here, I am sure with time I will make some. I am looking forward to fully furnishing my 2 bedroom apartment (that’s right, I indulged myself just so that I could have a separate study!) and living by myself for the first time since I arrived in the US.
NY might be the coolest city in the world, but I think it’s time I began discovering the charm of DC.
