Reporting from Palm Beach

After my unfortunate and untimely firing, I was really depressed. To lighten things up, we decided to forge on ahead with our plans to go meet my aunt at THE Palm Beach you've all heard of. She owns a condominium right on the beach on this little island off the mainland, accessible by a road bridge. We had rented a little red Chevy Cobalt(which, by the way, takes approximately half an hour to downshift when you floor the accelerator pedal) and after Googling the directions, we set off, my first excursion on the American Interstate system. It had been about 4 months since I had driven a car, that too on the left(right) side of the road, so I was unsure if I could get us there in one piece. Accordingly, I had picked up the car a couple of days earlier to rouse my dormant driving skills.

Anyway, I drove down an undivided County road, for about 240 kilometres(150 miles) before I realised that we had overshot our turn by about 30-odd miles. The good thing about this part of the USA is the density of the road network. So this blunder did cost me a good 90 minutes extra time, but we eventually hit our target freeway and motored down at an average pace of 120 kph(80 mph)all the way into West Palm Beach.

my aunt's condo, being so close to the beach, enabled some decent beach photography(don't get your hopes up...not a single pretty person was to be seen)

The moonrise at high tide, taken from the balcony at a +2.0 overexposure at 400 ISO; and the three stages of sunrise, all within 4 minutes of blazing colour and light.

Later that day, we drove around West Palm Beach, admiring the Spanish-influenced architecture of the various mansions that are liberally sprinkled all over the place, and walked down Worth Street, known as the shopping destination for the rich and famous. The downtown area was really picturesque, and since we forgot to carry our digital camera, we have nothing to show for it. But don't fret, just imagine a watered-down Barcelona(minus Gaudi) and you'll get the idea...it's really amusing when America tries to put on European airs about itself, as if it's trying too hard to be these places, and not itself. The good thing about Sarasota is that it does not have that forced European look, and has a contemporary flavour mixed in with its default Spanish-inspired architecture, which works just fine.

So after Two nights spent just two kilometres away from Jack Nicholson's villa, the high-life experience was over, and it was time to go back. This time too, we got a little lost, and had to do some frantic searching on the map to determine our location. All in all, we got back safe and sound, refreshed after three months of the monotonous work-sleep-eat routine.