Apologies for breaking the groundrules of this blog as this has nothing to do with places I visited or my photography, but this is been a quite strange and in some way uncharacteristically special time too. Since this is my personal space.. what the heck, I'll just write it.

The 2010-2011 Ashes series was played from 25th Nov 2010 till 7th Jan 2011. The anticaption of this test series had started much long back as it was first time ever England actually looked like beating Aussies down under. If at all that happens, it will be after staggering 24 years in history of English cricket that England win in Australia. Also England hadn't retained Ashes for more than decades now. And worst memory of England getting rocked by Aus 5-0 in previous
Ashes down under was still hovering. But all these looked like to change as England actually had the fire power to run through Oz with likes of Strauss (captain), Cooky, Trott, Bell, KP, Jimmy, Broad, Finny, Swanny & surprise elements Chris Tremlett and Tim Bresnan. To add to the woes, Australia were running through horrid form coming into Ashes. Nonetheless, beating Oz down under was never going to be a straight forward task.


First test of series got underway at Gabba, Brisbane and with both teams had ups and down, test match ended in draw. England came out strong by putting up 500+ total with loss of just 1 wicket and Cooky scoring double ton. England continued their good form in second test at Adelaide and won by an innings and 71 runs. Not to forget magnificent double hundred scored by KP this time. It was after long time, England had beat Aussies by an innings defeat in Australia. But just as things had started to look good for England to win Ashes down under, the monsters of world's fastest pitch Perth came haunting in third test and Aus demolished England by 267 runs and level series 1-1 with 2 more tests to go. However previous test match was quickly forgotten by Poms and reduced Aus to 98 all out on day 1 of Boxing day test match at Melbourne. There was never a comeback from here and England won another test match by an innings and 157 runs. Series 2-1. This was huge moment for England as they had retained Ashes for first time in decades and celebrations had already begun. It was half job done. Fifth and final test at Sydney was marked as Pink test to sport support for Glen McGrath's Breast Cancer Foundation, however Aussie players failed to put any mark playing wise and lost another test match by an innings and giving England their first down under Ashes series win in 24 years. It was an incredible moment in history of English cricket and without any doubt celebrations didn't finish quickly for the day.


But here is the special/strange part. This time around with more technology advanced thanks to twitter and facebook, following Ashes was more than merely watching 5 test matches. Most England (& also the Aus) players are on twitter and are quite active. Their constant updates on twitter gave much more insight view of team and time they were having. England players were binded together as more than a family during the entire series. The lads had much confidence and trust in each other than ever. The Sky sports post match interviews on each day of different players gave same message. The blokes were really having a great time in dressing room, gym and the hotel. Another memorable thing was Swanny Ashes diary during each week through out the Ashes. He provided absolutely hilarious backstage coverage through his video diary. He talked about how the team is engrossed in FIFA 11, how Trott hates losing, how him and Bresnan are worst FIFA players. He also talks about why he doesn't carry his guitar on tours anymore. Swanny and Jimmy (James Anderson) are the best pals on the team and supposedly most funniest guys of all. Jimmy is awalys desperate to help Swanny and he does finally get to feature in later episodes although not in best manner (Jimmy accidentally shoots himself in Swanny's diary video coming out of bathroom in towel :)) And lastly the 'sprinkler' dance. It has been bit famous in England but post Ashes it has been most danced and watched youtube video as well. Swann was the lead who encouraged team to perform sprinkler on the tour. And mind you its hilarious when he does it :) Swann also asked people back home to send in sprinkler videos and Barney (the england videographer on tour) did nice work of putting best of videos together including backstage sprinkler by English players as well. The final edition of Swann's Ashes diary is compilation of all previous 7 videos and really rewinds the entire memories filled over last 2 months or so. Ashes is over now and despite all glory to England and celebrations, I get the feeling of something lost, something taken away or something that was good, stopped. Its been lot emotional and I am caught up in two minds. I can't decide whether it was good time to go through all these in last two months or its bad time because it ended quickly. Its never great to have such feeling. Also, unfortunately I fell ill half way through the 4th test and didn't get much chance to catch the action towards end & complete 5th test but today when I can get up a bit, thanks to internet, I can go back and view highlights, videos and final video of Swann's diary was absolutely the perfect ending to remarkable test series. It couldn't have been better ending. I have watched it over and over and still can't stop watching or laughing should I say :-) I even educated my little sister Prachi few things about English cricket & players and also made her do sprinkler ;-) If you interested in seeing dance moves any bit, do watch this video. Thank you for reading and watching :)

Final Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBpVu0Eje94



Thought worth mentioning some of the user comments as well from youtube for above video

Thank you Swanny and England for the most memorable Ashes series i will ever have. It been a joy to follow and support you!
-candistarem

I have got all Swanny's Ashes Diaries saved on a playlist to watch over and over again as they are so brilliant! Please do more
-mattpikesoton

4:10 trotts dance and KP on the other side dancing with him and idk who is sitting in the middle not paying attention to any of it...lol
-tahreem116

Brilliant! I thought video 3 and 7 were bang on! I wish you can make more, make a follow on into the World Cup!!! Well played England! Been awesome 7 weeks!
-KitManScoop

Long live the sprinkler
-jamiecanter

The 2 most enduring images of this Ashes series...
- Andrew Strauss with the Urn, and
- James Anderson with a towel on and a bottle of Vaseline Aloe Fresh in his hand
ha ha ha
-ashgough

THIS IS EPIC! Swanny you're a legend my man. BUT, jamie is def funnier lol "excuse me, theres nothing wrong in between both informative and interesting Graeme." hahaha
-ghelsappa

this made me cry.
-23bhopkinsmc

keep the diary's coming and also the sprinkler... 
-novita2803

more of swanny diaries please!! we want more
-novita2803

Swanny you hero! do one for the world cup as well pleeeeeease!
-weardo0


Song used in the video - When I Think Of You (I Smile Neon Light) by The Sunbeat Revival
http://soundcloud.com/the-sunbeat-revival/when-i-think-of-you-i-smile-neon-light

Penn's Caves in state of Pennslyvania is America's only all water cavern. Its a natural limestone cavern having many formations of stalactites and stalagmites.


It was saturday 28th July 2007 when three of us set out for visiting this caves. Myself, Raviraj and Nitin Patil. As usual we had rented a car from AVIS to do this long drive. We had craze for Pontiac in those days and mind you it is one of the best cars especially if you're driving Grand Prix version. This time it was regular Pontiac G6 though. Journey was 150 miles away from our home in Baltimore (MD) so roughly 3 hours drive.


We didn't had actual Garmin GPS in those days so we were using Microsoft GPS which hooks on to your laptop through USB and you can stick the GPS antenna onto the windshield of car. Map obviously is seen on laptop. It still very much does what GPS would do but the whole setup and co-driver needing to sit with laptop on his lap is irksome. Nevertheless objective accomplished. While driver and co-driver and kept themselves busy I din't mind comfortable back seat with option for legs stretched ;o)

As we crossed York in Pennslyvannia we came across quite unsual rest area and arrangements were quite vintage types. This gave us a hint we were nearing Lancaster. Didn't waste time to pose here.

Weather changed drasctically as we drove and at one point we were driving through dry/gloomy conditions and next moment it was pouring down. As we moved further away from Harribsurg, we did stop for a while with a nice sun light through sunroof.

As we kept driving up north, we did come across few signs of Amish culture. I have always been fascintated knowing about these people and watching few things closely was even more exciting. You can make out different types of houses they keep, work areas, horse buggey they use to transport in their own proximity. You could also see animals they graze and Milking farmhouse. Although it is also true that they don't like cameras pointed at them. So it might be difficult to picture actual Amish people. These particular drive to Penn's Caves remained in memory for this very reason, coming across Amish culture.

Finally we reached the destination and entry to caves was through a Cave house where you first need to register for cave tour. The cave house was unsurprisingly Amish themed and it gave nice feeling of being totally isolated from modern world. Being summer it was nice green lushy all around as well. Next to this cave house, there was also a Gemstone Panning. You can buy a bag of sand for 5$ and then work as a miner to find gemstones, gold, emrald etc.

The cave is actually situated on the small river and it has opening on two ends of it. So to view the cave you actually have to take a hour boat ride. Boat goes quite deep inside caves and then comes out through small opening on the side of caves. Cave is rich in geology and mainly made of limestone. It consisted of gigantic columns and pillars inside alongwith glittering stalactites and stalagmites. These formed various natural shape formations.

Overall it was nice experience and good one day trip. We got opportunity to see and learn quite a few new things.

327 refers to building number where I started living after my initial 7 days of hotel stay. This was famous apartment as this had hosted more than 10 people from our organization who lived here and left over period of time. I was part of 327 for 6 odd months after which I shifted to next building (325).


Our apartment T2 was in basement of this building on the back side and it opened a nice view from patio looking over green lawns of school ground and public tennis courts. I joined this apartment with Raviraj (another dombivlikar, coincidentally we were total 3 out of 10), Nitin Dandekar & Sorabh Arora. Questions like where will I live, how to find grocery etc always hang on your mind when you are about to move to different country in new place but for me setup was perfectly done, thanks to these guys. As they already lived here for more than a year, I barely had to do anything apart from joining them. I lived here for about 6 months and it was fantastic experience. It always helps when you have somebody from your own kin to support you initially.



Fortunately our apartment was surrounded by plenty of grocery and general shops in minute walking distance. Most famous of them was India Palace. This was authentic Indian grocery shop just like any other shop in India and also was a Indian restaurant. These stuff will be much expensive than local grocery but you have to deal with it, especially if you're veggie like me ;) India Palace was truly Indian store which did not accept credit card for transaction below 10$ to save 2% tax, forcing people to buy stuff which they didn't wanted in first place and at times rats running around. Yikes!


One thing you will quickly realize that labor cost in Europe and US is very high. So you will seldom come across situations like, having maid to do household stuff, cooking, calling guy for fixing electrical issues or doing laundry from shop. Due to very high labor cost, people tend to rely on themselves for most possible things you can imagine. You wont believe but people paint their house themselves. So you can imagine how rare situation it is to call somebody to fix something. I think it kind of works if practiced, as there are several advantages to it. First you get trained automatically about almost everything as you grow up from kid to teen. Secondly, you remain more and more active for most of the time. Having said this, it is also important to find time to do all these stuff. For country like US, they have ample time after work hours, as working hours are strictly followed and travel from home-office-home is significantly less for most of them. In fact, there is a law in Germany where you cannot work more than certain amount of hours in a week and you have to take mandatory certain number of holidays. During my stay, I wanted a basic table for my laptop which you easily get ready made in India delivered at your doorstep. But for me, it was more like you buy spare parts which are ready to fit and you just need to put damn parts together with screws. It was fun in itself and we had made a nice computer table and shoe stand after buying spare parts from Target.


Never in my life before, I had even managed to pay attention in kitchen, forget cooking. When I reached in US, I wasn't even aware naming of spices and condiments. But since living with room-mates and practice of cooking turn by turn, makes you some sort of cook someday eventually ;) I was never interested but my friend Raviraj forced/helped/guided me through cooking and lot happened over cooking after that. I can almost write separate blog on cooking, but to tell story in short, Raviraj eventually left cooking.. lolz :D We used to treat ourselves on weekends by cooking multiple items along with few ready made items. This freedom of living and doing household things independently and responsibly can turn out to be advantageous in anybody's self development. Thankfully I went through all these stages.


So in short, life was nicely settled in US thanks to everyone who were around me and support I received from them.