First snow fall ever

Today Liya and I watched snow fall for the first time ever in our life. It is really beautiful, words, photos or even videos can never tell you how beautiful it is. Indeed a wonderful experience. One should 'experience' it to know the beauty and beast in it. The greenish lawns, roads, steps, pathways, withered trees...all turned white in few minutes.

                                                 

 
Photos just before snow fall

Day 1 in Buffalo

The day one was much better than I anticipated. Liya was kind of tired due to travel and jet lag. She did not like the sudden change in her sleeping, playing and eating timings. The climate was suddenly gone bad and had fallen into -3 to -5 range.

J's friends (Amit and Mansoor) took us to Walmart  for our quick shoppings and then we went to rent a car. Liya did not seem to be comfortable in her new car seat. She was crying terribly. Amit had to park car many times in between the travel. Looks like she was caught by jetlag badly.

Trip to US- Part 6: Reaching Buffalo

At last, the long awaited boarding for our flight to Buffalo announced. It was so relieving, as we were all tired and were simply sitting in the Dulles airport. The flight was too small, I could hardly walk inside. Felt like my head might hit the roof. Liya was getting irritated in the small flight. I think, domestic flights in India are much better and are heaven compared to this 'match box' like airbus. It was almost an hour journey and we landed Buffalo safely. The airport is not very big, but very beautiful and hygienic.
This is the main airport nearby Naigara falls and hence this is one of the popular one in New York state.

Our bags which came much before us (in the 5 o'clock flight) were waiting for our arrival. As soon as we got out, Buffalo weather hit us. It was too cold outside and Liya's cheeks immediately turned red. We reached Residency Inn (which falls in Marriot hotels network)in another 10-15 minutes. We including Liya slept peacefully through night.

Trip to US- Part 5: At Dulles international airport

We landed Washington DC (Dulles international airport) by 3.30 PM. The immigration queue was much much longer than I expected. But there were so many queues and the process was really quicker. I should mention that there were quite few people talking in Malayalam in the queue as well. I feel proud to be a Keralite, everywhere I go, I can talk in my own language, there will be at least one person to listen to it. It took almost half and hour to reach our turn, but less than 5 minutes to finish all checks etc.

Trip to US- Part 4: Up in the air, over Me, Eu and US

It was around 9 am in Doha, our flight was already in the air. This flight was really vast and suited for a long journey. But I did not like the 'service' though.

Looking through the window, I could only see vast, terrific, dry terrain- so called desert. The scene was the same for many hours.  I was scanning through the route map in the screen and was imagining life in each country upon which we were flying through. Few hours later, I could see only ocean. For some time, I recalled few flight crash stories, with a slight fear in my mind. What otherwise I could do in such a long air journey.

Trip to US- Part 3: At Doha

It took almost 5 hours to reach Doha. We were served with Indian style breakfast from the flight. It was morning 6.30 in Doha. The airport was really crowded. There were huge number of people travelling to US itself. Like any mom in the world, my first concern was finding the baby changing room and getting Liya ready with new diapers and dress. Whomever I asked, did not either understand English or I did not understand the 'Arabic' version of english.

Flying to US: Part 2- At Hyderabad airport

We reached Hyderabad airport at 12.00 o'clock in the night. Liya was already in her deep sleep mode, and she was peacefully sleeping on my shoulder. Things moved much faster and everything was normal until we reach immigration counter. There was a long queue, and I was waiting a bit away from queue, taking care of 2 cabin bags, 2 laptop bags and my little girl. Jazeel was standing in the queue, waiting for our turn. Little Liya might have been under an impression that she is sleeping in her bed, in our home and never knew that she is at the door steps of a long journey.

Flying to US: Part 1

At last the most awaited day-29th Oct 2010 - the long journey to US - reached and I must say that I was very much anxious about hundred things around Liya and could not actually enjoy the excitement. I could not anticipate how my little girl would handle the 18 hours long flight journey, the waiting in the airports, immigration lines etc. But, thank god, it turned out to be a wonderful trip, she enjoyed sleeping in the basinet, and I could kill my time looking at her innocent face..:)