More Wine

I am feeling all bluh duh after the long flight back home. The weather, I have to accept, is terrific, all snowy and white but beautifully sunny. Almost felt like joining Wanda in her search for frozen poo in the snowy back garden - crunching thru the knee high snow and chasing birds around the bird feeder. What a fun life she has...

Well my life is not too bad either - leaving for Puerto Rico tomorrow - supposedly for a conference but you know how much we will stay in conference rooms when our hotel is bang on the beach. But that's for later, I was supposed to complete the wine story...

So, after slushing thru a rainy redwood we stopped over at Viks' in Berkeley. Tons of Desis - very Nirulas or actually very Saagar style place where the man behind the food counter kept calling for Mohit, Dinesh and Kalpanas of the world - it was quite surreal! We ordered everything we could stuff our faces with- keema paratha (I was the only carnivore so I got to eat all of it!), Chhola Bathura (yah ma, I ate it as well, all naikamis about too much oil forgotten!), pao bhaji, sweet milky chai and gobi parathas! Ok, I can totally picture Ma baba's face at that list - all things I would cringe at back home . All it needed was a poori aloo and a deep fried bread pakora to make it the deadliest meal possible!

Rest of the day just drove around SF trying to find the twin peaks but somehow never got to it, drove on Lombard Street (the most winding street in the world or some such crazy claim to fame) and then got ready to hit the clubs HAHAHHAH! I never thought I would do that but I did.

And it was almost fun. Went to this place called Bubble Lounge - which app'ly is a desi hangout but surprisingly does not play any desi music. We figured that was a deliberate move to establish their undesi-ness- we don't like Bollywood bhangra and yah, we also have white friends (every group there had atleast a symbolic white member). It was very interesting to just watch these people in action - throwing their money around, dressed in almost nothing or in very expensive something, sipping champaign and giving those fake kisses in the air to everyone they met midway to the bar.

The other highlight of the night was the oscar deserving movie called Lajja that we happened to watch. Oh man, whoever this Rajkumar Santoshi is, someone give him a kiss from my side for making the most accidently hilarious movie possible. Poor chap tried very hard to be a "feminist" with his protagonists screaming "Jai Mata devi ki" or something to that effect everytime they did something "revolutionary". Like when Mahima screams out to her to be inlaws (who ofcourse were very evil and were demanding dowry from her hapless parents) "Tu rabies ka kitaroo, yaha se bhaag ja. nahi to tuney jo saare mere baap ke die kaprhe pehne hain, underwear se shirt tak, sab utarwa ke nanga bhaga doongi" ( You rabies germ, get lost otherwise I'll strip you off all the clothes that you are wearing - all of which are given by my dad- and make you run naked.) WOW WHAT A WOMAN :0 and who thought of the brilliant dialogues!



To get back to the travel story, left for the wine county - this place called Healdsberg on Sunday (near the Russian River). I was a bit apprehensive about the place msotly cos wines give me a headache. The place we stayed in did nothing to alleviate my apprehension - it was some Best Western "inn" right next to a gas station. I was expecting "right in the middle of vinyards" from their website, so I was a bit pissed off but my motto to "never regret" kept me going!


Well, how do I describe the place to you. Hmm, so I think vineyards are prettier in some season than others - so don't expect to see all purple grape-y vines looking all pretty(I did), the vinyards actually look more like cemetaries (No I am not trying to be funny - they REALLY do) with the gnarled shrubs lined neatly one after the other. SOme of the wineries were very nicely done up - with gardens and fountains and picnic benches and ofcourse the wines were great. But the place got a bit dull at night once the wineries shut especially since we were the only non white couple under the age of 100 there. All the restuarants were too la-di-da (expensive) so we ended up going to a sketchy Mexican place. So I would recommend the place only if you really love wines or if you want to relax, bike around and generally enjoy being at a quiet low key place.