9/10 at NYC

“Make sure you stay out of NYC on 9/11”
“Sure, thanks buddy, see you tomorrow”

At 6:00a.m, it was a traffic free journey to Stamford. I set the cruise control at 75mph for the first 100 miles of the trip. After missing couple of turns in downtown Stamford, I parked the car at Santhosh’s house and took the MTA train to the Grand Central Station, NYC.

Wanted to pack three veggie delights at the nearest Subway shop and searched for a Subway all around Grand Central and Time square. I did find many Subways, but they all dealt with trains only.

The semi final match between Andre Agassi and Robby Genepri was scheduled to start at 11:00a.m at Arthur Ashe Stadium, yeah, the center court. I was back again outside the Amsterdam Theater where we watched Lion King one week ago. The theater looked more affable with cargo pants and T-shirt. We took the subway train # 7 from Time square to the Shea Stadium / Willets Point Station. After a 30-minute delay in our schedule, we reached the stadium around 11:25a.m. The stadium looked huge. It was an amazing sight. We threw our backpacks at the locker near the entrance. Though we were carrying it in our hands, it is still a ‘back’pack and not allowed.

Transferring the Rotis and Alu mutter, which Prashant got from his uncle's place, to a plastic bag, we found our section, row and seats. It was a good view. We got the 10 o'clock / 4 o'clock view, if we consider the court, a face of a clock. The match began only around 12:15p.m. It was a wonderful feeling to watch Agassi in action.

There was an urgency in Agassi's game. He badly wanted to win the match. He ran the corners, dug out the drop shots and did all that he possible can to level the set score at 2-2.

During our lunch:
"Where did you guys get those rolls"
"We got them from home"
"Oh! that's not fair" the two ladies sighed and continued towards the cafeteria counter.

The dream came true, Agassi won the five setter. All the top pitched "Lets go Andre", "Come on Agassi", "Go Agassi" did not go waste. Federer vs Hewitt was a good treat to watch too.

After collecting the free US open wrist band, we found our way to the seven week old Saravana Bhavan at NYC and had Kaima Idly, Sambhar Vadai, Mysore Bonda, Channa Batura, Aapam, Badam Halwa, Coffee. We asked the American waiter, if he had tasted these items and he goes "Kaima Idly is my favourite", "but nothing can beat the Badam Halwa, not just among the desserts, Badam Halwa is the best of all" and he asked "have you been to the Saravana Bhavan at Chennai?". I totally lost track of time and it was past 10.00p.m when we came out of the restaurant.

As we were walking past the 'now' tallest building of NYC, I got reminded of what my friend told me first thing in the morning. Took the next available train from Grand Central and reached Stamford 50 minutes before 9/11/2005.