Still remember the last few days of Ecuador, now it feels like a dream. Wow, time flies.....
Where to start after two years of rusted memories and more travel. Well, I will try to dig in the memories.
Did I tell you that I was in the hospital one day after I came back to the US from Ecuador? It was another long episode and really, I don't feel like pulling you in my misery. I have a medical condition called Rheumatoid Arthiritis and it got pretty severe when I first got diagnosed but after several months of struggle and pain which was almost unbearable, I finally adjusted to my medication and ever since I started doing alright along with a long list of pretty intimidating medication/ injection etc. I had situations where I could not walk very well without limping but then it got better and I pushed myself hard to get back to normal. This all started in 2007 August triggered after a lot of dancing in a friend's wedding. I still have to live with this but I have accepted this as part of the life and I think I manage it pretty well, what do you think? After almost 2-3 months of short term disablity, coming out with new energy for life with a different perspective, 5 months later quitting a stable job and then leaving the country for travelling through Western Europe, Australia, NewZealand and South America......that needed some gutts, right? That was one decision in my life I would never regret and probably the best decision I have ever made!
I started to tell you what I was doing in the hospital and then drifted to the origin of the problem, but getting to the point now, I was doing all these traveling between 2008 September to 2009 July and the medicines and injections were always my travel companions. I could not be fit and active without those and therefore, took them as my daily essential wherever I went in the globe. But in the last month of my South America trip, I ran out of some medicines which was a mistake by my pharmacist but I did not care much and supplimented my pain with painkillers in the last month before coming back to the US. I was doing actually fine. But the day I got here, I came and stayed at a friend's place who left their keys with neighbor for me as they were out of town. I do have my own place but I rented it out while I was traveling ......... Anyway, I was bored being in an empty house in South Jersey where nothing much was happening, especially, after coming back to the US after such a wonderful travel experience all over the world. I went to meet my friends in North Jersey and had dinner with them and then drove back home by 1 pm that night. My knee started bothering me a bit. I get joints pain and it is not unusual, so I just took some painkiller and my other medication and tried to sleep while watching a movie on the couch. I slept for 1-1.5 hours and then suddenly woke up with deep sharp pain in my left knee and I could not move that leg much. I felt almost paralyzed on the left leg and had no strength to walk or even trying to put pressure on the feet to stand. I suddenly felt helpless and after trying to reduce my pain with more painkillers, I decided to call 911. My voice started fading away while I was on the phone with 911 folks on the other side as I was in such intolerable pain. I somehow threw myself on the floor which was carpetted and then using my hip and waist I tried to move inch by inch towards the door to open it for the paramedics who were already at the door. The door was about 20 feet away, so I decided to take a shortcut to the other door through the garage. This door was not more than 8-9 feet away from where I was sitting on the carpet. It took me 40+ minutes to get to the door as I could barely feel anything on my left leg, it was almost numb from my thigh to foot. I could not stand on my knees or my feet but somehow managed to hold on to the door and twist and turn the door lock to open it. I did it! It felt terrible, I can't explain that pain in my words, even my enemies should not go through such pain! I hope I have no enemies!:) Anyway, jokes apart, The police was on the phone with me for the entire time that it took me for reaching the door. They insisted on me allowing them to break the door as they could not take my screaming out of pain on the phone. But I was determined, I said I couldn't do that. It was my friend's house, not mine and they were in the process of trying to sell the house. I could not possibly do it to them at that time. Although, in my mind I was thinking, had it been my own place, I would be so willing to accept that offer from those guys to break my door and get me out ASAP! I was not lost in pain and I do have a great tolerance, I realized that for the first time. Now it was only the door of the house to the garage, how do I open the garage door after that door! I had to turn a switch to do that and there was no way I could reach that switch, it is high and I could not stand! I started throwing shoes targetting the switch to turn on and after several tries, I was finally successful! The Garage door started opening:) I almost exhausted my energy by then, I fell on the floor inside the house. Paramedics guys came in and asked me what was the problem and I had no strength to put my words together to tell them what happened so I just told them to grab my little bag which had my id, medical insurance card, cell phone, medicine and keys of the house and take me to the nearest hospital. They had very hard time to carry me to the stretcher and tie me in the stretcher. Everything started hurting at that point, my bones, joints, muscles, tendons, you name it.....! They took me to the emergency room of Capital Health Hospital in Mercer County. Once the paramedics guys left, no one bothered to come close to me as I was not bleeding or had no heart/ respiratory issues and not dying right away! These are probably things you have to have to get attention in the emergency unit but believe it or not, I was in extreme pain that I can no way explain in words, I was totally bleeding inside my heart but no one could see it! I cannot make up things, I am not good at such acts but I was naturally crying and screaming to the death as i really never felt so much pain in my entire life before that incident! I realized that my other feet, leg and hands were also getting almost paralyzed and numb at that point. I could not move my hands to even lift and hold the phone to make a call to any of my friends and/or family. After 1.5 hours of suffering from pain and screaming, when my voice was almost gone, my throat was crispy and dry and I did not have any strength left to stay put, I felt like dying and would have been happier if someone would have taken out my breath at that point. I could not feel anything. An intern doctor came to me and asked me what she could do and I tried to tell her to call my friends whose house I was staying at. She held the phone on my ear and I spoke to my friends. They were shocked and wordless to know what was happening. They were in a wedding in Virginia and I told them not to worry as I already got to the hospital and hopefully would be taken care of by the doctors here. They could not really help being there! A doctor finally got the intern's attention and came to see me. By this time my knee was swelled up looking like a huge bump. My every joint of the lower body was also swelled up and numb. The doctor detected the problem as a septic knee which had a lot of fluids in it. So, they hammered the knee and made a hole to get some fluid out. It hurt like hell and they did not make me unconscious to do that. It just amplified my pain 10 times more. After an hour, they decided to take me for a knee surgery and asked me to sign on a certificate (probably some kind of a waiver to accept death!) where I had to give them permission to do what they decided to do and they would not be responsible for the consequences. I was not in a position to think straight at that moment and could barely write or even sign, was totally devastated with the pain, so I said do whatever, just please make me senseless so that I cannot feel the pain so badly! The hammering of the knee and making two holes on the knee and getting fluid out was so awefully painful, I just could not take any more. Next thing I remember is I am a bundle of bandades and gauge and I could not even move an inch from right to left or top to bottom within the bed without the help of at least two nurses. These modern automatic hospital bed has easy switches for adjusting the bed but it did not do the charm for me as I could not do those myself due to the numbness of my fingers and hands. I was numb all over,my every joints, muscles and tendons.
My physical therapist was a very motivating person and he said it was a miracle how I started being able to move again, and then walk and then take steps in the stairs from a total lying condition! I also think that I was recoving pretty fast although I had to be in the hospital for about 12 days and then I was moved to my friend's house in South Jersey. My friends tried their best to take good care of me. I had 3-5 nurses coming over the week for different purposes. I started using as it took me a while to get back to decent walking condition. 2.5 months, that stick was my companion although climbing stairs was tough even after 3-4 months. I will be indebted to them for life-time. These friends are more than family to me to some extend. They are my dear Bula Bhai and Bula Apa.
2009- Sep - Orange County, CA was my next trip after South America in Sep 2009. It was a short weekend trip to meet a friend who was going through some life troubles and my time was devoted to make my friend smile. We talked about serious things in life and then stayed in all practical curriculum of life. No clubbing, no driving around, it was a very different trip but was still pleasant. I was almost a mentor in that trip like Dr. Phil or Opera:)
A friend from my old workplace messaged me through facebook if I was interested in a role and would go for an interview. I was just about to getting my resume updated, so I definitely was interested. I went for it and got the job, started working again for the same company in a different job by end of Oct 2009.
2009- Oct - Roadtrip to North Carolina and South Carolina for golfing. I went with friends for a golf trip for 6 days and we were golfing in North and South Carolina for 4 days, rest of the time we drove. We rented a Nissan Altima and I drove it for several hours in the trip, I loved driving that car so after coming back from the trip when it was time to shop for a car I went for the same type of car and added some upgrades to it. I left my friend's house in South Jersey after a week of long commute from there to NYC for work. I got rid of my tenant, and moved back to a routine life which was really tough after almost 14 months. I moved back to my apartment in North Jersey and started commuting to my work everyday which is in downtown near ground zero, different location and building from my old office but same company. I could not complain about the commute as it was closer than the old office!
2009- Dec - My next trip was to Florida in Dec 2009 at my uncle's house, it was a short weekend trip and was good fun as my uncle and aunt are great people and we had a blast together. It was my Birthday weekend and they made my day! This uncle of mine is actually younger than me so we are more like friends! His wife is a sweetheart:)
2009 - Dec- 2010- Jan-My niece, Tishu from Toronto came over during Christmas and New year so I showed her around NJ/ NY/ Washington DC/ Maryland/ Virgina. It was a great time while she was here. I drove her around a lot and we did ahuge amount of walking around in the city in the terrible cold weather but it was still good fun!
I just realized that I was supposed to give you a short summary of the last two years but I have started long stories. From this line onwards, I will try to really give short summaries............
2010- Feb- I went to Chicago to visit a friend who I went to school with but unfortunately he died in May-2010 leaving us in pure mystery and suspense. I miss him a lot!
2010- Mar - I went to Savannah, GA to visit that small town and I loved it totally. Food was great, the artistic nature of the twon just attracted me so much! People were friendly, it was a sudden decision to book the htel and take a flight there and spend the weekend and explore a new town/ place...... it worked out very well.....
2010-Feb end - I met my husband as we started dating on 27-Feb and by July we were quite comfortable with each other.
2010 - April - I tried Skiing for the first time and realised that it puts immense pressure on the knees and I do not have such strong knees any more, especially, after my surgery. So, I tried and gave up, concluded that it is not a sport made for me!
2010- May- Jun- I went for a trip to Eastern Europe starting from Berlin to Vienna, then Prague, Budapest, Hungary, a small town in Slovakia then Krakov, Warsaw in Poland. I ran 5k in every city I visited in this trip, it was fun and I tried to help some charity organizations through the fund raising. The history was fascinating for each of these cities and the museums, sculptures, architecture were truly unique.
My first experience with the refuge camp in Germany and Poland was shocking and wordless, nothing justified those act of evil and cruelty by Nazis. I hate them from the core of my heart as always and cannot understand how anyone can be so cruel, evil and inhuman!!!
Vienna was a beautiful city with many art and cultural component in it. We went for a dinner with live Opera and it was the 9th symphony of Beethoven that they played in the Royal Emperor's house, it was simply awesome and a life-time experience.
The museums in Germany are very rich, I had a great time in Berlin. The beergardens there are awesome. We did all the sightseeing - Berlin wall, Hitler's bunker, Nazis buildings, Checkpoint Charley, the zoo and the big park (can't recall the name but in my pics somewhere) etc.
Prague was another beautiful city and the high elevation view from the hills there was awesome. We did a city tour by cycling for few hours and it was great. We went for some traditional food and music there. We watched the big church in the main square, it was pretty cool. The artichecture and the sculptures all over Prague were pretty and their handicrafts were outstanding although quite expensive!
Budapest was one of my favorite cities I have visited so far. Buda and Pest both have their characters and the Parliament House was really one of a kind. I enjoyed the river cruise with dinner and view of both Buda and Pest on both sides of the river, it was a wonderful experience!
Banska Bystrica, in Slovakia was a cute little town and we only had half a day spent there. Some small local art show and museum were very pleasant and hidden treasures in that tiny town. The icecream I had there was awesome and they make some pretty wooden handicraft that was quite unique.
Krakow was the center of art, culture in Poland. The art work by local artists were awesome. Warsaw was quiet and it was not a lively city by any means. The Nazis attack really affected the city pretty badly and the devastation of 2nd World War still remains in this city. Enthusiam was missing in this city. I did not get to go and run in a park area in Warsaw. So I decided to do my 5k run in the parking lot of the hotel. It was a different experience. I missed my entire tour team as they left early for the city tour, so I did see the city in my own way using few tour buses and lots of walk. It was a different kinda fun to tour on your own, I have done it in quite a few other cities in my other trips. I walked around in the main downtown area where lots of activities were happening.
I flew back from Warsaw to New Jersey by 2nd week of June and had someone waiting for me in the airport, that was a great feeling for the first time:)
2010- Jul - The guy waiting for me in the airport was Sunny, my boyfriend and lover then and husband now, same guy I met on 27-Feb. He and I went to Toronto for a short trip to see my niece and it was great. He met my first family member outside me! Tishu, my niece loved Sunny and she inspired me to be with this guy even more:) I did that!
2010- Sep - Sunny and I went to Vermont for the labor day weekend and it was one of the best roadtrips ever. We did cover most of North and West Vermont and little bit of Central Vermont as well. Burlington was a beautiful cute little town, food was awesome and I did lots of cool shopping, very artistic stuff in the little shops there! In the west, Burke Mountain was great, we did horse back riding in the mountain area, we both loved it! Shebourne Museum was one of the most interesting museums I have ever visited, an hour drive from Burlington. A ship, a light house, quite a few famous buildings were brought from their actual locations and placed them in the museum. They were presented and preserved very well. I just loved Vermont, have to go back there during the fall foliage time! My old Canon G9 stopped working on the last day of my trip so I need to fix it soon for my upcoming next trip to.........Egypt:)
2010-Oct - Egypt - I was in Egypt for 7 days and two of my co-workers joined me in that trip. We did the full historical tour starting from Cairo to Aswan, Philea, Kom Ombo, Edfu, Karnak, Luxor, Hatchepsout, Saqqara, Memphis, Giza, Citadel and spent 3 night on a Nile cruise where we had awesome local food cooked for us fresh everyday. It is a heaven for both non-veg and vegetarian people as the local food has so much variety, wow! Every temple we saw was somewhat unique and takes you back to 4700 years. The valley of the Kings and Queens were awesome, the murals are so well preserved that it felt like someone made them yesterday! The revolving restaurant on top of Hyatt in Cairo for food, view of Cairo, drinks, decor and service was the best and good value for price. Mohammed Ali Mosque was one of the most beautiful mosques that I have seem so far! the interior design and the glasses, tiles and rocks used in the built is simply beautiful. Cairo Museum was one of the richest museum I have ever visited! Everyone has little interest in ancient history must visit this awesome place, still can't belive what we saw there! Our stay in Cairo was great the hotels were very beautiful and a resort kind, so we had an awesome time through out. Gate 1 Travel was the company we used for this trip and everything was very well managed and well run and above expectation. O, the dervish dancer in the Nile cruise was an out of the world talent, this 17-18 year old 6'6'' tall boy/young man had the energy of the world and he had the most amazing and captivating technic to keep us focused on him for more than 45 minutes to an hour. If you have not seen this type of dance, it is highly recommanded. Any Middle Eastern country would have it! The belly dancer in the same cruise was probably the worst dancer ever, I saw thousand times better belly dancing in a Lebanese place in Sydney and then again in a Turkish place in San Francisco and in a Lebanese place in Melbourne. Not sure, where they got her from!!!
2010-Nov - Adina, my friend from childhood was in town with a friend of hers and Sunny, Adina, her friend and I went for a short road trip to Boston. The trip was fun and I had a great catch up with my old friend after some time. WE had some good seafood and clam chowder in Boston and the market place was very lively ad fun. Every meal we had was great and we were lucky to get a decent hotel even if it was after a long wait to find one in the area we were interested in!
2010-Nov-Thanksgiving weekend - Sunny and I went to Dublin, Ireland to visit my travel friend Steph whom I met in South America trip. While I was traveling , Steph was in a sabbatical and spent her last 3 months of sabbatical in NYC, so Sunny had a chance to meet her quite a few time during her stay in NYC from April-Jun2010. She became good friend of both of us and we did spend some really good time while in NYC. Steph moved back to her own house after a year and half and we decided to visit her before she disappears to visit some other place in the world! Steph and I also share the same birthday and we almost used to finish each others sentences towards the end of our Chile to Lapaaz trip in South America 2009. Those days make me so nostalgic!!! Anyway, our visit to Dublin was very pleasant and we stayed at Steph's place. We did some city seeing by ourselves and her location was very convenient for Dublin city tour. Her only family is her sister and her family and we all went out for dinner together, it was one of the best crab salad I ever had! Food was great in that place where we went, can't recall the name, Steph's suggestion it was! The first snow of the season was on Thanksgiving day in Dublin and Dublin people was not at all happy about that as they are not used to such weather, they get snow once in a few years!My friend Steph who climbed the Mount Kilimanzaro and Machu Pichu, was walking like an old person stepping very carefully on the slush after the snow. I could not stop laughing at her and teasing her on that:) Steph made us some awesome pattice with salmon and she made everything in front of me from the scratch, it was awesome! I tried the guinness there with Ribena (not sure if that's the right spelling!, blackcurrant juice famous in the UK), it was very good:) We saw some traditional Irish music and dance with dinner, that was nice. Trinity college was great to visit there. Temple and nearby area was great to visit, we had a great time even if it was for a few days only. We could not go to Dublin mountain due to the snow, we will do that another time. What I hear is, my friend Steph is renovating her place, so we may make another long plan to visit her again in the coming years:) She is a sweet heart and one of my best travel friends!
2010-Dec- I went to Dhaka, Bangladesh after almost 2.5 years and found it very charming this time as I had my entire family there. My sis from Sydney also went around the same time, I spent almost 4 weeks there and Sunny came to meet my family for 3 days and my family loved him! We got engaged end of Dec after being back from Bangladesh. I went out of Dhaka with my family to the coastal are of Bangladesh and had an amazing time there. The coral island named Chhera Dweep was simply awesome, I had my favorite coconut juice as many as i wanted. I am addicted to them inly when I can find them. My almost four weeks stay made me consume at least 70-80 coconuts in that time period:) Yes, you can say I am obsessed but I don't mind at all! I wish I could get them in the US as tasty and fresh .......
2011-Jan - We had a sudden short trip to Toronto, Canada to see my darling niece as she was the only one who could not be there in Bangladesh in our big family gathering. We missed her a lot so, Sunny and I decided to visit her during the long weekend in Jan for Martin Luther King's Birthday. My dear friend Deepa has been pressing me to visit her since she moved their in Oct, therefore, we decide to kill two birds at the same time. We stayed at Deepa's and visited Tishu, my niece. I also visited my aunt's place and gave her almost a heart attack as I never told her about Sunny and took him to her place in very short notice. We already decided our wedding date by then so mamamami, my uncle-aunt and their family was excited to meet him. We had some awesome food at their place and Sunny died for the tea my uncle made for him. He still keeps telling me about that tea and I simply tell him to drive to Toronto for another cup similar:) He tends to indicate why I can't make that, I said I won't even attempt to! it is the special from my uncle and he should only get it from him:). I offered him the microwave tea that he hates and he never asked for it again!!!
2011-April- We got married on 21-Apr in a very small and simple occation first in the court and then in a mosque. We did not have any big party it was mainly our close friends who could be okay with all our informality:) We invited people through texting and phone calls and the dinner was arranged at the last moment in a weekday, so it was not the best party of course! But my friends said they were happy with the party and the arrangement and a short list of people made it cosy and sweet. We could talk to everyone properly and everyone had a nice fun time. My only family in the wedding was my niece from Toronto, she came the evening prior to the wedding and left next day early morning when we left for our honeymoon to Hawaii. The Honeymoon was wonderful and we had a 8-day cruise starting from Honolulu back to Honolulu with 2 days each in Maui, Big island (Kona, Hilo) and Kauai. We stayed 3 extra nights in Waikiki-Honolulu and visited all over Oahu Island which was awesome. When I get time, I'll share more detail on my Hawaii trip, I simply loved it, Kauai was my personal favorite among the four main Hawaiian Islands that I visited in that trip!
My intention of writing this post was to fill you in with the two years time that I did not do any blogging and I am almost there to catch up with the current time.
2011 - Jul- We just went for a roadtrip to New England in the 1st week of July and we had an awesome time traveling through NJ-NY-CT-MA-RI-NH-VT-ME. Our trip highlights were White Mountain area in NH, Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park in ME. We also visited Plymouth, Portland, Sebago Lake,Casco bay, Bailey's Island, Orr's island and drove through Freeport, Brunswick, Harpswell, Belfast, Ellsworth, and stopped at Augusta for gas and Pleasant Valley for some food. Nilie, my Uni friend who also lives in NJ and Radhika, my co-worker, neighbor and friend also joined us in this trip. We all had great fun pulling each others legs and teasing each other, sharing loads of stories, having laughter and jokes throughout the journey. Nilie and I shared some of the driving in this trip although Sunny was the driving Guru. We drove up to the Mt Washington. Radhika loved her Maine Lobster at Cook's Restaurant, the fried clam was my personal favorite and Sunny loved the clam chowder soup there. Poor Nilie had to stick to vegetarian as usual but Radhika gave a thorough demo of how to eat lobster to Nilie, not sure how Nilie felt, probably gross and miserbale but we have good spirits to keep it fun and exciting! In the same evening we picked up some good Aloo paratha and kabab and Daal Makhani which tasted great, so Nilie did not feel neglected. We drove around within Portland and realized that it is quite a sad place to be! And, I have decided to buy my new DSLR during this trip. We drove to Bar Harbor from Portland and it was aabout 5 hours drive. It was a great small town and our hotel was very close to Acadia National Park. We drove through Park loop and stopped at the Sand beach, Thunderhole, Otter point, Jordan Pond House and then climbed up (by our Cadillac) to Cadillac Mt. The color of the water in Atlantic never looked so beautiful before we went to sand Beach. The fog covering the mountains and the sea greenish blue water with nice sand beach just made it a wonderful place to visit in this trip. We realized that we should have spent more time in Bar Harbor than in other places, hopefully in our next Maine trip, we will not do the same mistake. We did decent amount of walking in the thunderhole area and also in Otter point. The desserts in Jordan Pond House were the best in the trip - popover icecream, lemon tart and the choc cake everything was delicious. The pizza at peppers and the root beer were also very good. The Bubble Mountains from Jordan Pond House was quite a view and we were debating over silly things and got some evidence on the pics taken from there. Somehow we skipped the idea of hiking, I think time was less, but then we were kinda lazy too, were looking for excuses to avoid the hard work rather:) Sunny and Nilie climbed up some cool rocks in the Thunderhole area and then later in Otter Point and on top of Cadillac Mountain. Radhika and I took lots of cool pictures throughout the trip. We drove back to Jersey by 9 pm on 5-Jul and the traffic was bad from CT onwards but Sunny did a great job in the driving as usual so we did not feel much frustrated in the return journey. We may do a fall trip through New England and that time we won't drive through the coastlines rather we will drive through the mountains and the forests.
My planning for next trip has already started, so not so far until I write about my trips again........until then.......get some rest.........
