North America 2009

Per overly expensive taxi I got myself to New Jersey, where it was time to board the Trek America van, along with three couples (from Germany, Norway and UK) and six solo travellers (from UK, Malawi, Ireland, Switzerland and Germany/Poland). Upstate New York, first stop was Taughannska Falls near Itacha. But the real falls were waiting just round the 100 mile corner: Niagara.

762 metres wide, 51 metres high, sending water down with a flow 2,5 million litres per second, it divides the friend nations of USA and Canada. And it is impressive.

Late at night we reached the biggest of apples, got our gear in order and headed out for the NYC club scene. The morning after, our little group more or less disbanded. Some went home, some went elsewhere, most switched hotels, but eventually I found myself with the dutch and the english on a hop on-hop off bus around downtown. And in just one night and one day I got the frosting on the New York cake: Times Square, Empire State Building (not up it, just into the lobby), Wall Street, Rockefeller Center, Statue of Liberty (from far, far away), Brooklyn Bridge and even more. I didn’t go into any depth, I will have a week to do that when I return from Canada and New England in two weeks time.

Liberty Bell, Independence Museum, Freedom fries, and the best cheese steak in the known universe. It’s all in America’s first capitol: Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love.

The stairs to the art museum is probably more famous than the museum itself, and most of us, including myself, ran up the stairs, waving our arms triumphantly upon reaching the top. Rocky style!

The capitol of the world’s most powerful nation is totally void of skyscrapers. What it lacks in tall buildings, it takes back in monuments and memorials. Washington DC is jam-packed with structures honouring dead presidents (and sometimes their wives); Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam veteran memorial and so forth. The Smithsonian institute is huge here, and a visit to the American History Museum and Museum of Natural History was a must. And of course the Capitol Building and a certain white house.