I’ve always dreamt of going to the United States of America ever since I was a child.  I imagined how it would be, how the people would be, how clean and organized it would be and how great it would be to study, work or live there.  I would talk about it in ‘larger than life’  terms and my friends would say that when I actually go there it would not be like that and I would be disappointed but boy were they wrong!  America was all that I imagined it would be and more!

After dreaming about it and imagining it for so long, I finally visited USA  with my husband for 2 months from 15th Sptember to 15th November 2008. It was like our second honeymoon.  I can honestly say that I  had the best time of my life in the U.S.  We visited 10 different places during the 2 months we were there and got to see the North, South, East and West of the U.S.!  It was an amazing and unforgettable trip. We visited Minneapolis, Fargo & Grand Forks in North Dakota (North), Vancouver (Canada), San Fransico, Los Angeles, Napa Vallery, Yosemite National Park in California (West Coast),  Las Vegas in Nevada, New Orleans in Louisianna (South), Disneland in Orlando, Florida, Washinton, Buffalo & New York (East Coast).

The country is so beautiful and clean, people so friendly and warm, systems so organized and reliable, food so yummy and sumptuous and I could go on and on …..

Here are some pictures of some of the places we visited :

Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco, California

Niagara Falls - Ontario, Canada

Trump Towers - Las Vegas, Nevada

Yosemite National Park, California

Universal Studios - Los Angeles, California

Ziplining in Grouse Mountain - The Peak of Vancouver

Whale Watching - Victoria, Canada

White House, Washington D.C.

Grand Canyon, Arizona

A useful tip for Net entrepreneurs for better time management and increased productivity is to close your mail box. I know I have the tendency to keep my email open all the time and my fingers automatically go the the send and receive button. It’s almost like an email addiction. Truthfully, email eats up a lot of your time if you are not careful. Set aside some time in the day for answering emails and leave the rest of the time to do other things for improving your online business. You could just keep it as one hour in the morning and one hour before you finish work. The rest of the time shut it down and don’t let it distract your attention from other business goals. I guarantee you will see an increase in your productivity and use of time.

After watching The Apprentice Season 4 which was a great season, I looked up Randal Pinkett (the winner) on the Internet and found this short video clip which I found interesting as he shares his 5 rules for success.

1. Obtain Broad Exposure - expose yourself to many ideas, cultures, backgrounds etc.
2. Forge Diverse Ties
3. Think Entrepreneurially - Have a vision, act resourcefully, use all resources 
4. Synergise and reach scale
5. Give back generously

The Apprentice is a television reality show hosted by Donald Trump, a famous real estate and business magnate. Its a great show for entrepreneurs and business people to watch as a lot of business lessons can be learnt from the show.

Learn to work as a team.

This was clearly shown by Randall in season 4.  He got along with everyone and was able to be a good team player as well as a leader which finally won him the Apprentice job.  He was liked by both teams and both teams picked him when they were asked for a team member from the opposite team. 

The opposite of this was Andrea from season 4 who seemed to be a really good leader but wasn’t able to work well with a team.  This was interesting to me as she had many victories as project manager but was not able to follow someone else’s vision and work with others on the team and hence she was fired.

Be a politician.

Don’t rub anyone the wrong way.  Be diplomatic when working with people. The classic example of this was Lee in season 5 where he seemed to really be like a cat with 9 lives as he was called into the boardroom so many times but always seemed to survive because of his diplomatic ways.

Think outside the box.

Come up with different ideas. I thought Kendra in season 3 came up with some brilliant ideas to market and increase sales which ultimately made a big difference to the team as they won with a big difference.

Inspire Your Team

As a leader, inspire your team and get the best from everyone. I liked the way Kendra really inspired her team on the final show of Apprentice Season 3. She really deserved to win the Apprenticeship.

Put in the hard work to Succeed and don’t give up

Even when things seem to be falling apart and your team is not supportive of you, do your best and don’t give up

Gilmore Girls is the best TV show I have ever seen.  I have all the seven seasons and have watched it twice and I absolutely love it.  If you are looking for a good family oriented television show to watch, I highly recommend Gilmore Girls.  It’s funny, light-hearted, quirky and very entertaining.  My husband and I bought the DVD’s during our honeymoon in Thailand and we both loved watching it and were really addicted to it.  It was sad when the seventh season got over.  We were  hoping that there would be a season 8 and were very disappointed when we found out that the seventh season was the last season. Hope they come up with a movie soon!

The show is based on the story of a single mother and her daughter (Lorelai & Rory Gilmore) and their relationship is just amazing! Gilmore Girls is a great television show for anyone to watch, if you haven’t seen it you really should Here are some video clips of the Gilmore Girls. 

I enjoyed watching the movie Austrailia.  Amazing videography & beautiful  landscapes.  The actors were fantastic.  After seeing some pretty terrible movies, this was a refreshing change.  I would give this movie rating 4 out of 5 stars. It was a good romatic movie to watch.

The iPod Touch is an amazing gadget to have.  It’s sleek and beautiful and is very useful.  I bought this for my husband and we both fell in love with it.  You can access your mail directly from the iPod touch, you can watch youTube videos, listen to music, view your pictures, access the Internet and much more!  There are many applications that you can add on from the apple site - like facebook, recipes, games etc.  It has built in Wi-Fi and you can buy music on the go. It’s an awesome gadget created by Apple and all credit goes to them to create something so gorgeous, user-friendly and useful that anyone would be proud to own an iPod touch.

Here’s what I did for my husband for our first anniversary.  I wanted it to be special as it was our first anniversary so at midnight I woke him up and took him to the living room where I had lit candles to form the words “I Love You” and I had a strawberry cheesecake ordered for my husband (as he loves cakes and sweets).  I had bought some gifts for him which I hid throughout the house and had him find it with clues like a treasure hunt and all the clues had P.S. I love you.  The final gift was an iPod Touch! As he loves challenges and he loves gadgets, the treasure hunt with the final treasure of the iPod was a hit! 

Cake, Gifts, CD's & iPod

So some ideas for celebrating your anniversary are :

1. Cook your favorite food and have a nice romantic candlelight meal at home

2. If you are a young married couple you could have a treasure hunt for finding surprise gifts

3.  You could post love notes in places you know your husband or wife go everyday - like the mirror, wardrobe, fridge

4. Spend the day reminiscing about the year’s best moments and plan some new exciting things you would like to do in the new year.

5. Go for a short trip somewhere close by.

I was interviewed by a very inspiring young entrepreneur who runs a site called retireat21.com.  I say inspiring because he is just 21 and is running a very successful site called retireat21.com - a unique site targeted for young entrepreneurs.  In his about us page he describes himself like this : “Young, Dyslexic, College Drop Out Conquers the Internet” I used to think that I started my own Internet business quite young (at 21) but here he is with a site that’s called Retireat21.  Isn’t that just awesome to know that the Internet has given opportunities to so many - young or old, from anywhere in the world.  It’s inspiring to visit his site and read his interviews with so many young entrepreneurs that are making it big doing different things.  It’s wonderful to see that enthusiasm and zest for doing what you love. 

It was a real pleasure being interviewed by such a professional young entrepreneur.  He was so prompt in his email correspondence and published the interview within a few minutes of submitting it.  Also very courteous and friendly so for me the interview was a real joy to do. Since then I have subscribed to his newsletter and really enjoy reading it unlike many other newsletters I subscribe to.

If you are a young entrepreneur, I highly recommend visiting his site at www.retireat21.com.  My interview with him can be seen at http://www.retireat21.com/interview/interview-with-rachna-kingston-founder-of-entheos.

Be inspired!

I got this by email and thought I would share it as it was quite unique and interesting

Billboard Signs From God

From Minneapolis, we went to Fargo & then to Grand Forks where we stayed with my uncle.  The fresh and crisp air, manicured lawns, clean & broad roads is what really struck me here.  It was a pleasure to go for long walks in this beautiful and quiet neighbourhood.

Manicured Lawns, Fresh Clean Air and Quiet Neighbourhoods

The University of North Dakota

The high point here was the University of North Dakota.  As my uncle is a professor there and my aunt also works in the administration department we got the full tour of the university and it was out of this world!  The university campus is so big and beautiful and sprawls over hundreds of acres.  It’s like a little town of itself.  I would have loved to study in a university like this.  We spent a day at the business school and I enjoyed the tour thoroughly.  They had a live trading center for the finance students & a Center of Innovation for students who wanted to start their own business which I found quite interesting as we don’t facilities & opportunities like that here in India. We also spent a day at the Law College and sat in for a class (as my husband is a lawyer, my aunt had arranged for a tour of the law college). We also saw their Wellness Center which has state of the art fitness equipment and got the tour of their ice hockey stadium which was just amazing.

School of Law

Wellness Center

State of the Art Fitness Equipment

Lovely Chapel at the Center of the Campus

At the Sprawling Campus

The university was just awesome, I loved my time there and treasure those moments.

Itasca Park

We also went to Itasca Park where we got to see where the mighty Mississpi river originates.  We had a lovely little picnic there and crossed the Mississippi river.

The mighty Mississippi river begins to flow from this point

Crossing the beginning of the Mississippi river

Grand Forks

We had a lovely time in Grand Forks and carry back fond memories of UND, Itasca Park & Grand Forks, North Dakota.

We started our trip to the U.S. in Minneapolis where we met family and visited Mall of America. This is one of the biggest malls in America and has a theme park right with different kinds of rides and a huge Lego playground in the middle of the mall which is interesting to see and for children loads of fun!  We had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe which actually had a rainforest theme with rain falling every half an hour and animated gorillas & huge aquariams.

Rainforest Cafe Restaurant

At the Mall of America

Lego Playground at the Center of the Mall