Palau Islands?? ...what is that?

Do you know what Palau Island is? Chances are, you don't or you didn't, before you heard that Obama administration was sending 17 of its guantanamo bay detainees to Palau Island. I am not much into world politics, but Palau Island? surely doesn’t ring a bell so I decided to search it a bit on the net. I first heard of it on google hot trends where it was the sixth most searched item today. Googled it and read some stuff on wikipedia and other places. Turns out, somewhere in the middle of Pacific the Palau islands is an archipelago of hundreds of islands, some of which have been inhabited by humans much before the Europeans started settling in US and Australia. It has a 4000 year old history. One of youngest nations of the world, it is a tourist place and has been the location of one season of the TV series Survivors. While I was looking up the map, I found quite a few such archipelago nations; Marshall Islands, Micronesia etc , quite an addition to my geography knowledge. Pacific is one place on the map I didn't pay attention to in my geography classes and its interesting when you come to know, that there are countries existing, you never knew.

Pittsburgh ...yippie

Here I am in Pittsburgh CMU and I must say its a nice city . Looks more so, if you are coming from Rolla :D. The downtown is beautiful, and if you believe people here the view is second to none in US. Travelling from Rolla to Pittsburgh was quite interesting I decided to catch a greyhound to St. Louis (big mistake), woke up a little too early on Sunday morning, and reached the bus stop on time only to find that the bus was late. Finally the bus arrived and just as I picked my bag up, the driver opens the door and speaks in a Mexican accent, sorry sir, the bus is full. It took me a while to comprehend what he said, because not even in my most pathetic dream, I could have imagined that. Sorry, sir the bus is full, please take the next bus, at 7.10in the evening. In the next few seconds, my brain processed all my options and the result of what could happen if I missed the bus. "But I have a flight to catch in the afternoon; I can't possibly wait till evening." "Well, then sir, if you don't mind standing, I can take you to St. Louis." I had no other option, so I covered the 2 hour greyhound ride from Rolla to St. Louis standing, and the DTC experience back in Delhi came in handy. Since I wanted the receipt of the ticket, the driver drove me to downtown from where I had to take a Metro, back to the airport. While I was waiting at the station for the metro to arrive, a "shady" character came up (you know what I mean here) and started asking for money. Not knowing what to do, I searched my pockets and found a quarter and a dime, I gave that to him saying thats all I had. Thankfully, apart from a little confusion at the airport nothing else happened, rest of the day. I arrived at Pittsburgh in the evening and thanks to Shreyas, didn't have to wander around much. Found the dorm room pretty easily and so far so good. :) . Will come back with more updates later.

btw ... do leave your comments ;)