First Time Camping @Lake George, NY!

This is the first time in my life I went camping, we were a group of 16 people! I was nervous at the beginning, thought of leaving my comfort zone and being with a group in some jungle site, what food I may have and whether I would be able to sleep nice…or damn the restrooms 😛

But, I was wrong. It was a wonderful trip. Very organized camp site at Lake George.
On Friday when we reached the camp around 6ish, some of our very active and hardworking friend set up 5 tents for the group. When we reached we just made sure the bed is ready inside the tent when we want to sleep 🙂 The food were marinated and kept in the cooler, and in the evening, we grilled, actually two/three friends did. I was mostly busy taking pictures, listening to the silence of the nature, chiliing out an eating. At night, two of our friends started singing! It was so nice….in the middle of jungle….listening to some old song..so nostalgic…so far away form the busy city life…..so much fun at the same time so much calm!

The next morning we woke up…had breakfast and went to Jet-Ski! My first time ever! I was so nervous but when it started, oh God! I realized, what have I missed so far! It was unbelievable! How could I never do that. I didn’t drive, since I don’t’ know how to swim and a bit scared, my hubby did, and we went in the middle of the lake and it was like heaven….we finished the jet-ski with an extreme excitement and feeling so content.

When we came back to camp site after our jet-ski adventure, another adventure was waiting for me. There was a lake and me, and my friends started learning how to swim, we both scared to death at water, yet something happened that day, we were free……lost in the nature, a bit wild may be…..gave my best shots to give it a try and for the first time I was able to swim…..it was for less than a min, but for me it was a lot!!!!!

Night started with more grilling and eating and dancing with music….I also did another small adventure of walking alobe in the jungle to go to the restroom 😀 we generally go as a group after 11, since its about 10/12 min away in the dark….but I went without turning on my torch light 🙂 I felt I was walking in my village in Bangladesh, no sound….pin drop silence…little bit scared….but more adventurous 🙂 it was a different kind of fun!

Everything has to end and so did those amazing two days. I brought so much memories with me. It was not only jet ski or swimming, it was also the people. We had a very interesting diverse group, I can’t think of doing it without any one of them! Each of them contributed to the fun in their own way……I feel very lucky to experience this. It was one my bucket list thing 🙂

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Heaven On Earth – Grand Bahamas!

After quitting my job I went for a vacation, it was not planned that I would leave my job and go for vacation, in fact this was scheduled last year, but its a coincidence it was happening at the perfect time! This was my first time in a cruise and in Bahamas. I was not sure what to expect, I heard its going to be a great experience but wasn’t sure how much. And, as you can guess, there is no surprise that, I had one of the most amazing time of life. Those 3 days went like a snap of a finger! I was mesmerized by the beauty! Sometimes, looking at the ocean and the sky in front of me while sipping the coconut drink, I almost felt it can’t be true, this amazing moment can’t happening in real, specially not in this messy earth 😛

So, here is how everything went in short summary, we started our cruise from West Palm Beach, Florida at 6PM, the cabin we had was a ocean view cabin (not too fancy), but you could see the sea while sleeping 🙂 There were unlimited food in the cruise with all different kind of snacks! They even had a midnight buffet! To my surprise, food was great!!! I wasn’t expecting that much from the cruise, specially didn’t expect simple appetizer could be so tasty and yummy!!! The cruise had different shows, like playing Bingo, magic shows, comedy shows, aerobatic shows etc. They had a casino which off course was my place after 11pm, and Roulette is the only thing I can play 😉 As a whole, the cruise was like another world where you have food, movies, shows, drinks, clubbing and a room to sleep 🙂

After the fun night at the cruise, next morning around 9AM, we reached The Bahamas (Freeport), a bus took us to Grand Lucaya Resort and when we reached there I couldn’t speak for a while, what I was experiencing was heavenly beautiful nature!!! The ocean in front of the resort, so peaceful, so blue….so serene..I really can’t express this beauty in words, and unfortunately I also didn’t have a good camera to capture even a small part of what it seems!

Well, the checking in took a while and then in the evening we went to enjoy Bonfire. The first Bonfire of my life, under the sky, just in front of the ocean, and guess what? Full Moon!! What else you can expect to have if you were in heaven, it was heavenly for me…..then the organizers of Bonfire had some shows, like fire shows, couple competitions, music, dance etc.

Next day we went to attend the Dolphin Show! They are one wonderful creature! So cute! Had so much watching them playing different tricks and moves, touching them and kissed by the dolphins 🙂

Then we came back to enjoy the beach finally, unfortunately I don’t know how to swim but I was able to go to the water till my shoulder and loved it. I was jumping and lying in the water as long as I could, the temperature was so perfect!

There was a small market across the street from resort, so I bought some show pieces with Bahamas icon in it 🙂 The food there was good as well.

At night we watched movie lying down around the pool, the roaring ocean on the left and the full moon on right….I wish that moment never ended!! But it did, we came back next day. I wanted it to last forever, I was sad thinking why I never went to such place ever before, but I was also very happy to find out at least I did this time…it has been a great experience! Even though the moments did not last forever, I brought back those memories, everytime, now, when I think of the ocean, I smile, I cherish every second I had there!

I wish and hope, from now on I plan most of my vacation somewhere like this – where I can experience heaven on this earth 🙂

How am I doing?

I have been quite busy lately. Moved to west coast to hubby’s place, was busy renting new apartment, buying furniture, cooking (or trying to cook :P) different food to surprise hubby, visiting beautiful and serene place. Its been a sweet life.  It was so terrible living alone. Now I wonder how I did that :-/I am loving this conjugal life 😀

This north west part of the country is very scenic…..the natural beauty amazes me here. So many places to explore and so many activities. Summer is leaving so fats and I have so many things planned but couldn’t make it! So far I have visited: Kerry park, Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, Alki Beach, Orcas Island and so many parks and lakes. I become member of gym to learn how to swim and then, after one lesson I felt its not my cup of tea 😦

Before I even realized I already passed 2.5 months here….I feel like I just moved here few days back and I have tons of new recipes to cook (try), tons of people to invite, tons of new places to go… 😛 Looks like I have to stall the plans for now as I am going to visit my home sweet home country (BANGLADESH) and am so excited about it….yeaayyyy… On our way to Bangladesh, we have a small honeymoon plan 😛 I should rather say small relative visit plan to Europe. We will be visiting my uncle and aunt family in London, then one of my best friends in Zurich and finally my sister-in-laws in Italy. I am really excited about all these 🙂

I don’t know when I can update my blog next, but when I do, I hope I have lotta interesting and exciting things to write about!

“Woods are lovely dark and deep….
And I have promises to keep….
And miles to go before I sleep…..”

Me and Hubby going crazy in Mount Baker 🙂

Fun for FREE – Staten Island Ferry !

My last post about ‘Doing something for fun at no/less money’ did not contain this wonderful entertainment ‘Staten Island Ferry’ which is completely free 😉

From wiki:

The Staten Island Ferry is a passenger ferry operated by the New York City Department of TransportationManhattan and Staten Island. The ferry departs Manhattan from South Ferry, the five mile journey takes about 25 minutes each way. that runs between

This small journey was wonderful, it was (like) floating in the sea and enjoying the wonderful Manhattan sky line view, and Statue of Liberty on the other side (also my high rise Office building on NJ side). When we (me and my friend Rumana) reached Staten Island we took a local bus tour to see most part of the staten island, it was very nice. While coming back it was 10 PM at night. And we stand on the front side of the deck (just like Titanic movie 😉 , only except the fact, for both of us the other half is missing 😦 )

It was so amazing, I could not believe we could enjoy such beauty and wonderful journey just for free. The waves were hitting the ferry, and the night sparkling lightning of Manhattan looked incredibly beautiful. It was great fun and great entertainment for me!!

Visiting National Air and Space Museum!

This weekend I visited The Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. I have always wanted to go there since I read the description of moon rock in Humayun Ahmed and Zafar Iqbal’s  books. It was a great fun and good experience. the museum is full of amazing things about air and space. However, the moon rock was really dissapoingting 😦 It was so small I could barely figure out what it is and I was not at all excited)

The things that attracted me most were:
1. Simulation of an aircraft flight… starting from the take off to landing..there was simulation, very exciting…you can see which buttong are pushed, how the gear is changed… the navigation and the positiong of the aircraft and so on…its really cool and worthy of learning.

2. I was amzaed to see how the Wright brothers came up with the idea of FLYING!! how could someone even imagine that in 1903?? The aeroplanes..mobile technology, GPS….nothign would have been possible without that impossible dream!!! Oh Gosh, I wish I could be somewhat creative and intelligent like these people 😛

3. Amazing amazing other cool stuff like contruction of planet, the begining of universe….all the scientific wonder of light …and so on..

There were so many kids around and I just missed all the Bangladeshi kids who grow up without all these exciting events and places where they could see all these scietific and educational stuff with fun. In Bangladesh even if kids read about these they mostly go through the books which most of the time is boring, if they could visit meusiums like this it would have been much better for their knowledge and their educational growth.

The Moon Rock and Wright Brother Plane: