Ok by me in America
Hi America! I'm in your country, eating your ridiculously calorific food!
On Wednesday we're going WHALE WATCHING :0D So excited! We had dismissed the idea as being too expensive, and the guarantees you'll see something as not good enough (what use is a free trip in the next three years when you live 5000 miles away). But our hotel here in Boston had a load of vouchers for money off the different ones, so we've picked the one which works best (and their guarantee, if you don't see a whale, is that you have a lifetime to come back - which I imagine we'll do in a couple of decades) and we didn't have any plans for Wednesday beyond "pick up car, meander up Maine coast, reach motel in Bangor at sensible hour". Eeeee, whales! And maybe dolphins too!
We're in Boston now, then we've got about a week trundling through New England, then we're getting the train to New York (New York!) This whole trip is new for Guido, he's only been to the states once - in 2006 - and that to the west coast. For me it's a bit of a retread of my very first holiday here way back in 1993, so I don't remember stuff too well anyway. And New York is virtually new to me - I've been there twice, 94 and 99, but the first was a day trip and the second was whilst we had a long stopover in Newark, so I've never really seen the city properly. So much to do, only 4 and a bit days to do it in! (We were hoping to see my cousin, who currently lives in Brooklyn, but he's back in Europe right now! He's been in Paris, and then I think he'll be in London whilst we're in New York. Bloody typical.)
And then we're getting the train to Washington, which will be new for both of us. We've accidentally ended up with 4 days there (it was meant to be three, but then we picked a 2200 flight out so we've defacto got a fourth) but I'm sure we'll manage to fill it. There's a SPY MUSEUM.
I'm also currently enjoying this bizarre sensation called "being up and awake in the morning" thanks to the timezone change. I hope it will last, though I suspect not. I'm sure within a few days my body will revert to its natural desire to sleep 0200-1100, alas. But we've learnt our lessons from the honeymoon - don't overdo it in the early days. We were out until midnight, or nearly, every day for the first week. And I ended up exhausted and difficult to work with for the rest of the holiday. So this time we're not trying to cram quite so much in in the hopes that I can sustain early mornings for the whole three weeks.
It helps that it gets dark so early here, and so quickly (it's dark at 7!!) We worked out last night that the latitude of Boston is the same as about halfway between Florence and Rome (Washington will be even worse, it's about the same as Lisbon). So the difference between Hull and Boston is about the same as Hull and Skellefteå - the northernmost point I've ever been to, where it doesn't get dark around midsummer. So it stands to reason that it would be so dramatically different here to what I'm used to. But it's still weird. (The light nights were why we overdid it in Helsinki and St Petersburg - it never got dark, so the temptation to keep walking and see more was strong. We went over a week without seeing darkness, and even that first darkness was actually caused by poor weather.)
Anyway, that was a very rambley way of saying HI AMERICA! Today we're going to Harvard and MIT to pretend that we could have gone to uni there. (Who am I kidding, Guido probably could have got into MIT.)
On Wednesday we're going WHALE WATCHING :0D So excited! We had dismissed the idea as being too expensive, and the guarantees you'll see something as not good enough (what use is a free trip in the next three years when you live 5000 miles away). But our hotel here in Boston had a load of vouchers for money off the different ones, so we've picked the one which works best (and their guarantee, if you don't see a whale, is that you have a lifetime to come back - which I imagine we'll do in a couple of decades) and we didn't have any plans for Wednesday beyond "pick up car, meander up Maine coast, reach motel in Bangor at sensible hour". Eeeee, whales! And maybe dolphins too!
We're in Boston now, then we've got about a week trundling through New England, then we're getting the train to New York (New York!) This whole trip is new for Guido, he's only been to the states once - in 2006 - and that to the west coast. For me it's a bit of a retread of my very first holiday here way back in 1993, so I don't remember stuff too well anyway. And New York is virtually new to me - I've been there twice, 94 and 99, but the first was a day trip and the second was whilst we had a long stopover in Newark, so I've never really seen the city properly. So much to do, only 4 and a bit days to do it in! (We were hoping to see my cousin, who currently lives in Brooklyn, but he's back in Europe right now! He's been in Paris, and then I think he'll be in London whilst we're in New York. Bloody typical.)
And then we're getting the train to Washington, which will be new for both of us. We've accidentally ended up with 4 days there (it was meant to be three, but then we picked a 2200 flight out so we've defacto got a fourth) but I'm sure we'll manage to fill it. There's a SPY MUSEUM.
I'm also currently enjoying this bizarre sensation called "being up and awake in the morning" thanks to the timezone change. I hope it will last, though I suspect not. I'm sure within a few days my body will revert to its natural desire to sleep 0200-1100, alas. But we've learnt our lessons from the honeymoon - don't overdo it in the early days. We were out until midnight, or nearly, every day for the first week. And I ended up exhausted and difficult to work with for the rest of the holiday. So this time we're not trying to cram quite so much in in the hopes that I can sustain early mornings for the whole three weeks.
It helps that it gets dark so early here, and so quickly (it's dark at 7!!) We worked out last night that the latitude of Boston is the same as about halfway between Florence and Rome (Washington will be even worse, it's about the same as Lisbon). So the difference between Hull and Boston is about the same as Hull and Skellefteå - the northernmost point I've ever been to, where it doesn't get dark around midsummer. So it stands to reason that it would be so dramatically different here to what I'm used to. But it's still weird. (The light nights were why we overdid it in Helsinki and St Petersburg - it never got dark, so the temptation to keep walking and see more was strong. We went over a week without seeing darkness, and even that first darkness was actually caused by poor weather.)
Anyway, that was a very rambley way of saying HI AMERICA! Today we're going to Harvard and MIT to pretend that we could have gone to uni there. (Who am I kidding, Guido probably could have got into MIT.)