Create a schedule, stick by it and don’t get distracted. Must start blogging regularly and get my son to do the same. It’s a good outlet for me, even if no one reads the entries.
Last week(March 28th)I went to California for spring break(5th Grade). I stayed at my cousins Aaliyah and Anya’s House. We were in the Bay Area, near Oakland and San Francisco.
On Saturday we went to the Tech Museum of Innovation(San Jose). There was a lot of interactive this-thats and What-nots. It was a TON of fun.
We did nothing on sunday(WHO CARES)
On Monday we(we=Aaliyah, Anya, Bilal and Me) went to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. 1hr 28 mins to be exact(I remembered that, I didn’t look on Google).
I concurred a ton of my fears in the Amusement Park section of Fears in My Head. (?????????????????????????)
We were there for 6HRS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But alas we start a new day on Thursday( i couldn’t remember what happened on tuesday and wednsday.
Thursday was epic!
We went on a Zipline in Sonoma County: Sonoma Canopy Tours, Bohemian Highway
It was awesome! I could not believe how fast I was going. The fastest was at least 24 mph. Adults would have gone 32 mph. When your standing on the redwood tree, it’s actually swaying , so it feels like you’re going to fall. Which combined with the wooden stairs you have to go on, it’s REALLY freaky!
On Friday we(My brother, Aaliyah, Anya) went to the WWII submarine in San Francisco. The place was epic.
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There was a rainbow before our flight
San Francisco at 10:00(end of flight)
In the distance is SF
Alcatraz
WWII Submarine
Inside the submarine
Bilal at the turrents
The Golden Gate Bridge
Guess what it is?
The first set of pics from our trip to Ajmer, Jaipur, Agra and Delhi. More to come soon. These aren’t the original size because those are way to big to upload. They will go on smugmug eventually. Read the commentary. 
Amber Fort in Jaipur.
The dude that built this fort had like 12 wives and the rooms on each side of this courtyard is where they lived. There were no doors between their rooms and the only place they could congregate was in the middle of the courtyard under that gazebo-like structure. He would sit about where I took the picture from and watch them to make sure they didn’t claw each other’s eyes out. Quite interesting.
…some are not. A little collection of the different ways Bilal and Humza can sleep. We are waiting for him to fall asleep standing up for the final pic.
I spent two weeks in Kolkata, mostly working, but I did get out to take some pictures of some of the well-known landmarks. Victoria Memorial, dedicated to Queen Victoria, is quite nice…from the outside. Inside are a number of galleries with art and some recreations of old Kolkata villages, but it’s nothing special.
Here is another from the right side of the building. It’s quite a sight.
On the way into the grounds there was a guy entertaining the crowd with his monkeys…REAL monkeys.
The last weekend I was in Kolkata I went to Chowranghee Street (Remember ‘City of Joy’ and ’36 Chowranghee’?). It’s a simple street, but it has some historic significance and it has seen its share of movies filmed on it.
Need some meat? This place had an interesting smell and ambience to it. It’s one of the largest meat markets in the city.
The foreign service made the New York Times last Sunday. The article described the increase in hiring at the State Department and interviewed some officers, including yours truly. Well done by the New York Times.
( Photo by Daniel Rosenbaum / for The New York Times )
