Christmas Long Weekend

I spent my Christmas long weekend with my aunt and family in LA (Los Angeles, CA) and it was fun. This is how it all started. I booked a 6:30 AM flight on Dec 25 as I will get to spend an entire day in LA. Other than the reason I mentioned, her, the ticked would cost me only $40. Believe me, its true. How did I get that price? Simple, the ticket itself was worth $130 and I bought a $100 coupon on Craigslist for $10. Thanks United.

Luckily, I mean l.u.c.k.i.l.y I was able to get one of my friends to drop me in the SJC airport at 5:00 AM. Thanks Pradeep. After reaching the LAX airport, I took a metro Green Line train to reach Norwalk station and my Aunt picked me up there. In my metro journey, I've met Sri, Amudha and Pallavi who were on a trip to visit LA and Vegas. Surprisingly they were my friend Mansoor's colleagues in TCS. In case Mansoor decided to travel with them, which he cancelled because of his own mistake, we would have had a surprise, meeting each other in a metro.

As soon I reached my Aunt's place in Cerritos, CA, I've got my Christmas gift. A really nice Banana Republic T-shirt. I wore it on my existing T-shirt to keep myself warm as it was cold in LA. My Aunt had a potluck at her place that afternoon and I got to enjoy all the good food (Idli, Upma, Pulihora, Pav Bhaji, Sandwiches, Sambhar, etc.,). After having lunch, we watched Spurs defeat Miami and Lakers beat Celtics two very exciting matches. In the evening we had a chat with Anil Annam and family, he was talking and we were listening most of the time :). After having dinner I gave my Xmas gifts. A Nivea shaving accessories set for my uncle (babbai), of the 4 items in the kit, I have donated two to the airport officials :(, a 'Preferred Stock' perfume set for Kartik, my older cousin and Rubik's cube for Deepak.

Next morning, we went to check out after Xmas sale to Cerritos mall. Even though it took some time to find parking, it was not at all crowded compared to San Jose malls. This is the best part, the trip will be remembered forever. Deepak found a coat jacket worth $175 being placed on $20 hangers. None of us (me, pinni and Kartik) believed it and we've decided to get the price checked on the machine and it indeed said it was $20. Pinni still didn't believe and got Kartik to check the price again and then all of us were amazed. We took 4 out of the 5 available jackets and that made our day. It's still unbelievable that we got amazing Material London coat jackets for $20 each. In the evening we played some tennis and had dinner at Sweeti Thai.

Next day, we went to checkout UCLA campus (Kartik studies there) on my request and we spent the morning over there. From there, they dropped me at airport and I reached San Jose by 5:30PM. I took Cal train to my home and to my surprise, the ticket costed me $4 (freaking expensive), the ticket for the metro in LAX was just $1.25.

On Sunday, I went to office, worked for sometime and in the evening I met Kasi. Kasi was my friend in Auburn. Me, Kasi and Kalyan had dinner at a Thai place in Sunnyvale downtown and thats the end of long weekend. It was a good long weekend, spent time with family, got some work done, met a friend and now I am writing this post :)