USA Diary--- Day 20---- Washington/Princeton( 30 Jun 2010)

We woke up at the Renaissance Hotel to a beautiful day.The temperature was in the 70s and there was a good breeze blowing.

Sudha prepared Maggi Cup O' Noodles and we made the coffee in the room with the coffee maker.

We had an appointment at 8.30 AM to see the Library of Congress so Sachin took out the car.However, we had a major problem finding a good parking space.In the end, we drove back to the hotel and parked the car. We then walked down the street to Ford's theatre.This is the place where Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth on 14th apr 1865.The theatre is preserved as it was in 1865 including the Presidential Box.A person appeared on stage and narrated the sequences leading to the assassination. We were then taken across the street to Peterson House, a lodging house where Lincoln breathed his last.I had read the story of Lincoln's assassination in a Reader's Digest article in 1961 and was fascinated to see it all come alive.

We then took the subway from Chinatown to the Capitol.We were there by 11.45 AM.An intern called Amit had been deputed by the Congressman from North Carolina to meet us and take us around.His name was Amit and his parents were from Bangalore and Mumbai respectively.He was delighted to hear us speak Kannada and spoke a few words himself.He took us around on a nice tour and finally got us passes to the Visitors Gallery in the House of Representatives.

It was now 2 PM and we went down to the cafetaria in the Capitol for lunch.The lunch was paid for by weight ( 75 cents/lb) and we had our fill of salads, garlic bread and also food from the Indian section.

We went back to the hotel, checked out and then left Washington for Princeton at around 4.30 PM.

Sudha and Madhura had changed to Indian dresses for the Mehendi and Sangeet ceremonies of Anand's wedding and drew admiring glances. Traffic was bad up to Baltimore and it was 8.30 PM by the time we reached Somesh's house in Princeton.Somesh is Omprakash's wife Sudha's brother.The house is very large with a nice backyard and we could hear the music as we neared the house.It was lovely to catch up with Omprakash, Sudha, Anand and Aamod, Rajani and Murali, Anil, Manju, Arup and Anusha, Gopi, Josi, Chambi, Abhinav and Samir, Suresh, Uma and Abhilash, Seeni, Anupa and Vikku.Madhura was meeting most of them for the first time and Sachin was also meeting them after a long time.

Samir and Abhinav performed an incredible Bhangra dance complete with costumes, sticks et al.

A very good buffet had been arranged and after finishing our dinner, we drove for around 40 minutes and arrived at Varsha and Narasimha's house in Edison at around 11 PM.They were waiting up for us and had made excellent arrangements to make our stay comfortable.We were very tired and hit the bed soon though I did catch up with my mails and went to bed around 2 AM.

That was the end of Day 20.