World of Coca Cola

6th Day : Kunal, Nirali , Yuvaraj , Navish, Krimy and Myself went for grocery shopping at Publix as we all are going to stay together at Navish's Friend's place for the next 7 days.....Prepared dinner and chatted till around 3 am about our lives in US.....Everyone had something different experiences to share ....Experiences with their room mates, at job , etc....

7th Day : Finally we left our place to visit two tourist attracations in Atlanta (World of Coca-Cola and Olympic Park).

World of Coca-Cola Musuem :
This is the entrance to the musuem....

The musuem is about the history of coca-cola, how it was founded, who founded it, etc....

It also contained the legacy bottling and vending machines....They also showed how coke is made by perfect mixture of soda and coke syrup....

They also had a theater in which they played all the major advertisements of last 50 years....

Below is the bottling plant at the musuem....

This plant was one of the major attraction of the musuem..

The refreshing beverage was first created in Atlanta in 1886 by a chemical company.....

Initially it was sold without soda, but later, it was discovered that it tasted pretty good with the soda....
Coca Cola was first sold at a small pharmacy soda fountain in undergorund Atlanta.
Here is the link to the world of coca cola.

On the right is the old fountain which was used to serve Coca-Cola.


















Below you can see flags of all the countries where coke is available....Spot the Indian flag .....




While going through the musuem, I also found the reason why the coca-cola is called classic Coke....
The company had stopped the most famous drink and replaced it with a new formula which didn't go quite well with the masses. So the company was forced to switch to the old formula and then named it the classic Coke....

After going through the history of coca-cola, we entered the area where we could drink coca-cola of all the countires....


Later that eveing we went to Centennial Olypic Park where we did ice skating...
Sounds exciting ...!!!




















It was my first time and I enjoyed it ....The small kids in the ice rink were doing it better tham me, but I was happy in falling frequently....
Here's an example... :)

















Once I gained some confidence, I started attacking Yuvaraj, navish and krimy and was successful in bringing them down.....

Can you see me ??


After ice skating, we went to the CNN center , but it was close...so had to be content by clicking snaps just outside the center....

That was the end of the day ...We went back to our place, cooked food and went off to sleep ...

First Vacation in USA....(dec' 06)--Atlanta

Looking at the skyline of Atlanta , finally I feel like I have come to USA....because Raleigh is like a village and it does not have any skyline or the city like feeling.....

(This pic has been taken by kunal, so doesnt really give the true picture of the skyline)

Kunal, Nirali and myself have come to Atlanta for a few days and plan to celebrate christmas and new year in Atlanta itself......

First Day: We met Yuvaraj (after about 5 months and were very pleased to meet him..) and was good to see that he hasnt changed a bit......
Saw Atlantic Station, a new tourist spot in Atlanta which host a number of malls and coffee shops and other hang out places....The place was very well decorated for the christmas eve,...(They have a huge 3 storied christmas tree in the courtyard between the tall buildings....)

One thing I noticed that these people celebrate christmas on a really huge scale which none of the Indian festivals can beat.....

They light up every nook and corner and that too with different kinds of lightings.....

As you can see in the picture the height of the christmas tree ...












The lighting on the streets is really amazing.....

Also travelled in the train after a long time (and I truly missed the local trains back in mumbai....)Was trying to draw analogies between the stations and was successful in figuring out the "Dadar" of Atlanta(Marta trains)..... :)

Second Day:
Had lunch at a great Indian Restaurant (Menu : Ragda Patties, Dahi Vada, Paani Puri, Pav Bhaji, Dosa, Uttapa, Noodles, Biryani, Kheer.........) awesome menu and I had everything.... :)

You can imagine a desi going to a desi restaurant in USA .....
After lunch we headed off to the Stone Mountains ( an awesome place ...worth watching.....)


(Kunal,myself and nirali at the Stone Mountain.. The sculpture on the mountain is amazingly huge....)


We walked the trail to the top of the mountain and it was a great experience....It reminded me of the days when I used to climb the Mulund Tekri with my friends.....Missed Maulik and Rushabh ....

We came down by ropeway (called the skyride...) and then later watched the laser show which was truly entertaining for the kids which had come to celebrate the christmas weekend......

To view the entire album of this day click here.

Looking back at 1st Sem (Fall '06)

Well, 2 of my xams were good but the last one was really bad....I dont think I might get a GPA 4.0 ....

The time went by so fast that entire sem is over...we will have a kind of reunion in US..... will definitely miss all those back in India .......

The overall experience of a semester was really good...Got to learn many new things....Also learnt that I will have work harder in the remaining semesters... ....Now I have the confidence of coding , which was what I didnt have back in India (mainly coz of jayini who would complete the program by the time i figured out the logic... )

I also got experience of a phone followed by an on-site interview... .Really enjoyed those two days in Lynchburg (Virginia).. ...Well, one thing was that in those two days , when I was with completely new people , spending entire day with them ...I really got a taste of how would it be when I will join a company anywhere in US ....I really felt lonely and also missed every1 ......

Also, these days , I am really felling like going to India , so am jealous of every1 who is going to India......

First project in my Masters @ NCSU

Well, as i mentioned previously in my post that it is going to get hectic later....I was wrong...This is my first week and I am already working day / night for an individual project " HTTP Server".....

This project was like a warm up for the big things to come, and also gave a hint about how things are going to be later......It was a good experience, coding after as long as 4-5 months.....

I successfully completed the project in 3-4 days...and hopefully will be able to do the good job in the projects to come.....

On Campus Job

Phew.....

After a long hard search for an on-campus job, I finally got one....in the Transportation Dept....
Guess what do I have to do on the job .... Go around the parking lots on the campus and give parking tickets .....Its like "paavti given by an RTO" in Mumbai......

But Unlike mumbai, you cannot bribe to get away with the ticket (paavti)...... :)

Well, I am enjoying the job...mainly coz this is my first job and I am earning as much as an engineer would earn back in India....and I am earning while I am studying...

Well, I will leave now...have to go for the job ....