New Continent, new country, New York.
Wow, I can not explain the buzz of New York. After being speedily processed through the US customs, I ventured on to the subway system to find my home for the next 7 days. To say that the Subway is confusing is a massive understatement! There is little to no info about the lines etc and no info what so ever about the schedule of trains. Apparently you just wait until the train comes, if it comes at all. Sometimes they can take a while too.
In New York, I visited most of the main sites; times square, the metropolitan museum of art, wall street, statue of Liberty, central park, rockafeller plaza, empire state building, Madison square gardens, the museum
of modern art etc. It was incredible! There is so much to see and do that I don't think a month would be long enough to get everything in. My favourite place would be central park, just because it is such a peaceful haven in a very chaotic city.
I meet some people at my hostel and we ventured out to Staten Island and the traipsed around Downtown Manhatten for about 7hours on my last day. Staten Island is not an interesting place but the WTC site which we visited afterwards promises to be really interesting. It is closed off for construction at the moment so there wasn't much to see but the building complex they are constructing looks amazing!
I had promised myself that I would have a bagel and lox and NYC pizza while here and I'm so glad I did. Both were delicious although the pizza can't beat Annocinque in Rome.
After NY I headed (very hungover) to Washington DC. I was staying with a girl from couch surfing and had an awesome time! We went clubbing the first night and then went to a baseball game the next day. At the game I had a very DC dish, the half smoke, basically a smoked sausage on a bun covered in chilly, ketchup and mustard. Sounds messy? It was! But delicious too. Recommend them, if you are ever in DC. I went around the Capitol and monument park the next day. It was seriously hot and I made the mistake of walking to Arlington cemetery. I had to stop for a shade break about 6/7 times and that was just on the way there! At the cemetery I gave up and sat in the shade for about 45 mins, gulping down copious amounts of water!
The cemetery is huge! It has over 330000 graves of various servicemen and women, dating back to the civil war. It is also home to JFK and various members of his family, there is a lovely memorial to him there which has his inaugral speech carved into it. The view of DC made the hot trek well worth the visit.
I've got to say that DC is quite a chilled city. I was expecting it to be full of politicians and lawyers, all absorbed in their own thing but the people I met were really lovely, friendly and chatty. I loved it!
As for now? I am in Ohio experiencing the real America.