… this was a classic picture taken by Natasha. Sharmila, Nikita and I had left for the airport. The Roys from Dallas, Haldars from Minneapolis and Sanyals from New York hung back with Natasha for some time. Then Natasha hailed an Uber to go back to her apartment. Just as they turned the corner on Broadway, she spotted the Beatles like moment with the three families crossing the road!!
… a gargantuan feast cannot be too far behind. Especially, if you throw in the reckless wanton of the New Year’s spirit to go with it. Even the chefs at the Grand Sichuan were going “Dude! We got to eat too!!” Speaking of reckless wanton…. that wonton soup was to die for!!
That was excellent food! And it was great to have the four families from Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis and New York together for the New Year’s!
This is the view from our room in Times Square at midnight of New Year’s. You can see below the stage on your left and a slice of those incredible number of people (2 million to be precise) who come out and stand on Broadway to usher in the New Year. With people showing up from 8 in the morning, the place goes on full security lock down. We were able to move around due to special passes from the hotel but even then it was a mess trying to navigate the crowds. Amazing energy to celebrate an arbitrary moment of a planet going around the star. Strictly speaking, it is not even that accurate!!!
We had a fairly messy schedule – to reach the Azores islands and come back, we had to use three different airlines, seven different flights, three different countries (I am counting the autonomous zone of the Azores as the same as Portugal) and five different airports. Not a single flight was delayed or had any other issues. Every single flight was early in landing at its destination. That is some real good airline karma.
Also, we had some great luck in getting local spirits this time – we got a gin and an anis liqueur made in the Azores Islands, another anis liqueur from Porto area in Portugal and of course, some Port wine. Even the TSA folks had become suspicious. Every one of our suitcases had the note from TSA that they had to open the suitcase for inspection. But each of the bottles and the ceramic pieces made it without any damage!!
Finally, the weather Gods were super cooperative this time. The whole week was supposed to be raining in the Azores and Portugal. For some reason, for every day of the week, the weather forecast would change the previous night to no rain and full sunshine. That followed us the whole trip!!!
We can do with some luck like that. Of course, if not, we had some spirits with us to keep our errrr… spirits up!
Mauricio and I worked long time back. I think I have met him twice – once in Buenos Aires and once probably in London during our office meetings. He was working in El Salvador (where he is from) and I was in our Atlanta office. He is one of those persons who I have kept up with after meeting once or twice thru birthdays and Facebook.
Last month, I had called him up to wish him for his birthday and realized that he now lives in Lisbon. (moved from El Salvador to Portugal via Peru). Turns out he was going to be in the Azores too. However, we missed each other there by a few days. On the other hand, we did meet up in Lisbon!
We went thru at least twenty of our old friends and updated each other on their thereabouts. Also, learnt a lot about El Salvador and a particular beach on the Pacific Ocean that might be a a great target for us to visit some day!
Thank you for taking the efforts, Maurcio! It was great seeing you!
