So, it was my first trip outside the city since I came here and it was to Marlborough (& it's not where Marlboro cigarettes are made or not even remotely connected). Why was I there? There was a summer party/picnic from my work there at Hopkinton State Park. Remember those amazing picnics we used to have with family/friends as kids; all the fun & excitement of food, play & fun. can't do that now I guess!! So, I went a day in advance to be ready for the event. I took the commuter rail to go there from South Station (Boston) & reached Westborough station on Friday. Commuter rails are pretty cool, they are double storied and I traveled on the top floor to get the experience (reminded me of the double-decker bus we used to have in New Delhi when i was a kid, they are not there any more. It was like a bus on top of the bus, without a driver!!). You can buy the ticket at the station or you can even buy inside the train when the TT comes (without any fine... but make sure you buy it & don't think of going WT i.e without ticket plz). The ride was nice & the view outside the train was fine too. I reached my destination in evening & stayed with my friend for the night.
Saturday was the 1st day of Navratri so after waking up in morning I thought of going to temple. There's a temple nearby in Ashland called Laxmi Temple. It is a south Indian Temple (yeah, south Indian temples are different from North Indian Temples. They had a temporary made up Durga for navratri!!). So, I went to the temple... It's quite large in a nice place & it was good. Then I went to the park. As usual, weather was fooling & faking it. Yeah, here in US it's normal... It's so damn sunny outside but you step out & its chilly cold. Same was the scene there, it was very windy & chilly outside (& inspite of facing it so many times, I got fooled again & I was wearing just a T-shirt & left my jacket at home. it always happens here). Luckily it was better later in noon with sun kicking the heat up. It's a huge park with fake beach (it's normal in US to make fake beaches in these lovely parks. I could understand in Kansas which was thousands miles away from real beach but why here??), lovely greenery & nice grounds. Friends & people (well, everyone is not a friend) showed up in some time & they started with a game of cricket (now you get a bunch of Indian guys in a ground even in US, all they want to do is play cricket). We tried to get some American folks too to play with us (why am I saying we, I never played. I don't play cricket, or any outdoor game much for the fact!!) & taught them cricket & how similar or different it is from baseball. Suddenly they decided to quit cricket as its not fun & play soccer (yes dear, in US the football is what is played with hand & also known as American Football. & what the world calls football is known as soccer only). After some gaming the time came for food & the grills were on. The food was good & there was lots of stuff to eat, I had samosa burger (just stuff samosa inside a bun, easy-breezy. make sure you use lots of ketchup or sauce too!!) for 1st time which was actually nice. Then time came to play some team game with everyone & they decided to play rumal-dupatta (you don't know rumal-dupatta, c'mon!!) and my team won (& I did play this time & I played well!!). We also did kayaking in the lake there & I did pretty well there too. Kayaking is fun, but it needs skill too & it's real full upper-body workout. Overall it was a nice day of fun at the park... meeting new people, hanging out, eating good food & having lots of fun.
Then we drove back home & rested. In the night we went to dunkin donuts for dinner... I asked for there special toffee donut they had on display but turns out they didn't have it. Then I took a low fat blueberry muffin (I am really into low/no fat/sugar food these days. however the muffin was coated with sugar!!) & the guy offered free donut with that. I like this thing about American service industry, they always try to make sure that customers are happy & will do anything needed for that. You can't do that in India, can you?? We know how to take advantage of everything, I know people taking advantage of the return policies here (would get into more details some other time but many of you know what I mean). The mufin was actually nice & donut was okay too, then I went off to bed for the day. That's all I got for today, I know that Cambridge Carnival blog is till pending & would be coming soon. Until then guys & galz & friendz & foes... bye, take care & Jai Ho!!!
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