Dialog - USA 2013

Our big vacation this year lead us to the United States' East coast. Starting out in New York City, we headed up north to Providence, where I'd been an exchange student '95/'96, and where parts of my family live. After touring the area for a couple of days, we drove up to the White Mountains national park for some hiking, and finished our trip with a two-day stay in Boston.

Starting from our home base in Brooklyn, we walked all the way down Fulton street towards downtown and through Brooklyn heights, a wealthy neighborhood looking over East river to Manhattan. After a short break and enjoying the view of the skyline, we continued our walk across Brooklyn bridge into Manhattan's financial district.

On our second day in New York, we started out on 96th street and walked through Central park all the way down to its south end. It's amazing how peaceful and quiet this place is in the middle of this always-busy city! From there, we walked down Broadway towards Times Square, and over to Grand Central, both of which are quite impressive. We then took the subway towards Little Italy, where we had something to eat. On our way back home through Chinatown and over the Manhattan Bridge, we got into a heavy rainshower, which felt good after the hot day.

On our last full day in the "Big Apple", we started our day with a tour to Liberty Island and the Statue of Liberty. After we'd already started out with more typically "tourist" things, we decided also to go on top of the Empire State building. Both entrance fees are worthwhile. After having had enough downtown experience, we took the subway all the way out to Coney Island. It was hot outside, and the beach was full of people. In the evening, we decided to go back to Brooklyn heights to get a night view of the Manhattan skyline.

After taking the Acela express train from New York to Providence, we picked up the rental car there, we checked in to our Motel in Newport. The following day we started out a "déja vu" trip to Seekonk and East Providence, where I'd lived during my U.S. highschool year. Later in the afternoon, we walked around Providence.

On this sunny summer day, we headed out to Cape Cod and spent the day at the beach.

The day after that, it cooled off quite a bit, clouded up and started drizzling. It wasn't going to keep us from going to Block Island, about 20 km off the Rhode Island coast. We did have to stop and buy sweaters first, though!

On Friday, another cloudy day, we walked around the little town of Newport and it's Cliff Walk. Too bad with the weather, this colorful vacation place is best seen in bright sunshine...

After checking out at our motel, we headed up north for the White Mountains. On our way, we stopped over for an afternoon in a small town called Salisbury for a swim in the ocean waves.

Our first day took us westbound along Kancamagus Highway, where we stopped for a short hike up onto a ledge overlooking Swift River valley. We continued over the pass and on to Franconia Notch, where we walked through the Flume Gorge.

Our second day took us up to Crawford Notch, from where a hiking path starts to a scenic outlook on Mount Willey. In the afternoon, we drove to Mount Washington's base cog railway station, when the weather changed rapidly and quite a bit of rain came up. We called it a day and went back to the hotel early.

En route to Boston, we stopped over in Portland, Maine. According to our travel guide, this place is called the "San Francisco of the East", and since we'd been to SF back in 2009, we also wanted to see this place. After a late lunch, we continued south to Boston.

In Boston we visited Megan, my cousin who lives in Boston with her boyfriend Tom. She gave us a tour of the downtown area. Where the Boston marathon takes place, where the rich (and famous) live: Beacon Hill, the Boston commons, the new harbor area south of Quincy market (I only remember I-95 being there and not much else), and North End, Boston's "Little Italy". We took the "T" back home, passing Fenway park. After a short break, Isabelle and me took off to the Harvard campus and walked around there for a bit.