Road trip to the Golden State! – Day 3 (The sweet memories of cricket!)

Waking up to the smell of Indian food. Everyone else was awake, had their morning coffee, showered, done morning prayers, cooked food, and swami had left for work. The fragrances and everyone’s morning chatter made Vikas finally get outta bed, realizing that he didn’t want to miss out on delicious food and any conspiracies against him.

Mansi on the other hand woke up to the barks of two little cute dogs (Prashanth’s sister is a dog-lover :D) who she was terrified off. After a few laughs from Prashanth and Vikas about her fears of dogs, she finally pretended to smile for the camera as they made her hold one of the dogs in her arms.

After a morning of lazing around (and picking Mansi and Prashanth up), it was brunch time! With so many of the things on the table, we didn’t know where to start. Vikas went for sweets first – homemade modak and badam burfi! Aunty and Vaishnavi have a magical hand in the kitchen. They first built our appetite up by different aromas and then taste of the food – yum, darn I started salivating just thinking about it.

Post lunch, Vikas gathered Swami and his mom around the computer to show them the pictures that Dana had put together. To give them a flavor of what he had been doing since they last met – thank you again Dana (Picture). Next, Swami had an evening of cricket planned for us. Swami and Vikas used to be great cricket buddies, so it was reliving those days from 2005 for them – playing cricket matches under the lights at Lake Alice.

An hour in the Sun, and some taunts flying back and forth on the pitch. Tired, we returned to his apartment. Next stop was going to be Swami’s new house that he is building, due to be ready in late May. If we thought that Huge Ass Beer (at Bourbon Street) was big, we had are jaws drop again when we saw his new living room and a walk-in closet in the master bathroom. To celebrate his soon-to-be ready new house we made our way to Bamboo Gardens (indo-chinese cuisine) for dinner, where once again Vikas proved his belly was no less than Buddha’s!!

After two giant meals for the day, we decided to part ways: Mansi and Prashanth drove off to his sister’s place in Arlington while Vikas and Swami’s family made their way back to their home. Another great day with family and friends and fun (and for Vikas – FOOD and FOOD and FOOD). We look forward to tomorrow being just as great and with those dreams in mind – Good night folks!