Final day - time to say goodbye... And summarize!

Tonight we get on the plane back to Sweden so this is our very last and final day in the States. We came back to New York City without too much trouble. Queues for about half an hour just as we drove through Bronx, but very smooth otherwise. But... And there's always a but! As we parked the car, for the very last time, just to check into our hotel and drop the bags off, we got a feckin parking ticket. I won't even tell you how much it was because it was just a ridiculous amount of money. We'd even paid the price at the meter, but it turned out the spots were only for commercial vehicles (we kind of had a feeling we were doing something half-wrong, but decided to chance it, and there you go).

On the plus side, the car rental company didn't really complain about the dent in the car, and we didn't have to pay extra for that.

I hope our readers enjoyed the everyday ramblings of the journey. This space has been a nice place to unwind and sort through the day's events. I suppose it's also kind of like a travel diary, and unless Blogger decides to call it a day, we can look back on this and get help remembering all the stuff we've seen and done.

Thank you everyone who has commented - it really helps motivation :) And thank you everyone who's been reading and lurking.

It will take me a long time to sort out the photos, but when they're done I'll post a link to some facebook album here.

Before this blog reverts to Swedish, we'll give you a super fast top-three list-list.

Top 3....

Favourite places in USA:
-Grand Canyon (Arizona)
-Redwood forest (California)
-Big Sur (California)

Worst places in USA:
-El Paso (Texas)
-New Jersey Turnpike (New Jersey)
-Any large city interstate junction

Best hotels (based 95% on size and comfort of bed!):
-Phoenix Park Hotel (Washington DC)
-Treasure Island (Las Vegas)
-Best Western, Eureka (California)

Worst hotels:
-Quality Inn, Battle Montain (Nevada)
-Econolodge, Washington DC (this inn was the first of many we dubbed 'cockroach inn')
-Day's Inn, Pensacola (Florida - after this one, we called every Day's Inn we saw 'Fail Inn' and never stayed at another one)

Totally worth the money:
-Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory (Vermont) - $3 for a day of a lot of queuing, but a lot of fun and ice creamy goodness!
-Universal Studios (L.A.) - $70 and worth every penny
-White Sands National Monument (New Mexico) - $7 and the luckiest of our random finds.

Totally not worth the money:
-Disney World (Florida) - $80... Don't go here unless you have kids.
-Empire State Building - $20 to go up a bloody elevator. They should pay YOU $20 to queue for 45 minutes...
-New York City Map - $8 from a newsstand. We discovered later that every hotel has them for free. Our worst buy in our time here!

Right, check-out time is in half an hour and I still need to brush my teeth and pack a bag. See you back home, friends and family!

Day 35 - Niagara Falls

Vanja's back again!

Today we finally swapped the corn fields for something a bit more spectacular. After spending one night in Erie on the tiny stretch of coast that Pennsylvania has onto the Great Lakes, we returned 'home' to the state of New York. The Empire State (such a modest name, eh?) stretches from New York City in the east to Lakes Erie and Ontario in the west and north. By the industrial city of Buffalo, Lake Erie's outflow gathers force as it narrows into the Niagara River and finally gushes out into Lake Ontario in the form of Niagara Falls. The lakes, river and falls also mark the border between USA and Canada.

Below is American Falls, the US part of the waterfalls.


The Great Lakes make up the worlds largest fresh water (sötvatten) area, and the water here seemed very clean and had a fantastic colour:


I promise, I didn't edit the picture one bit. It reminded me of the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean.

We walked around the park area (the oldest state park in USA) and had a look at the Horseshoe Falls, the majority of which are Canadian. Here, you were able to go right up to where the water rushes over the cliffs before falling 61 meters down into the gorge below:


Here are the American Falls again, but viewed from Goat Island, between the two waterfalls:


It was a spectacular experience, and if you're ever in NYC, take a few hours and travel up to the falls - it's really worth it!

We know we've been going on about how much we've been driving, and here we go again. Today we reached 10 000 miles on the odometer! That's 16 000 kilometers, or nearly 10 times the length of Sweden. Imagine 5 round trips from Skåne to Treriksröset and you'll get an idea of all the travelling we've done :)


We spent the afternoon and evening in the car and reached Albany, the capital of New York (that's gotta hurt, I mean... New York City is the best known US city, and not only is it not the capital of the USA, it's not even capital in it's own state!). We're not here for anything special, only spending the night in a roadside inn again. We just noticed that it's very airport-side as well (a jet may very well clip some roof tiles with the landing gear by the sounds of it). I suppose the name "Best Western Albany Airport hotel" should have tipped us off ^^

Tomorrow we head into the part of USA known as New England. We'll go up to Montpelier in Vermont where we're going to visit the Ben & Jerry's factory. If you know what it is, you're jealous by now. If not, nevermind.

Until tomorrow (or until the next internet connection)!

Day 3 - New York

Because we completely and utterly overdid our first real day in New York, our feet were not inclined to walk very far on the second. Fortunately we had managed to see almost everything we needed to see, so we just bought a couple of one-day subway passes and took a leisurely trip around the city to see the last bits.

As most wannabe photographers, I'm a huge fan of train stations, so we went to the famous Grand Central station. I realised quickly that to get any sort of successful wide shots of the place, you needed a wide lens, but I did what I could with the space I had through the lens. One example is below.


The architecture and style of both the station and the surrounding building are really amazing! Next, we headed down to the UN headquarters. There we were once again met by rigorous security measures with the now-familiar metal detector and bag scanners. On the upside, there were no queues and it was free! We didn't see much of the UN - there were guided tours at certain hours, but we didn't particularly care for one.

There was a sweet gift shop there though, with examples of gifts from all the countries of the UN. Unfortunately, Sweden obviously thinks that plastic dolls with blonde braids and traditional dresses are typically Swedish. Oh, and we had one of those horrendous pieces of glass from Orrefors with some kind of animal print on the back. Yuck. I nearly bought a lovely little lacquer box from Egypt until I turned it over and saw the $150 price tag.

The real reason for going into the UN HQ was actually because we thought they'd have decent toilets there, which they did :) Below is a shot of the building anyway. One of the very few skyscrapers you actually get a clear shot at with the camera. Most of them are hidden by other skyscrapers when you get a block or two away.


We ate at a real diner (you know, those special sofas, signed photographs of the owner with minor celebrities etc) and then moved on to explore the north end of Central Park. The park is definitely one of my favourite spots in the city, shutting out the sounds of traffic, lush and green. The air is actually noticeably cleaner! Matters were made even better by this little fella who just loved the camera:


I got lots of nice pictures of him (or her... but I think it's a he!) - it was a superb end to a quiet day!

Today, we're getting our car and moving onto Washington DC. We'll see if we can squeeze a post in from the capital tonight. Until then!

Day 2 - New York

Oh how we bragged before getting on the plane... Jetlag? Pfft... That's some kind of myth. That happens to other people. Like old people. Or sick people. Or people who crave attention for having a job that lets them travel all around the world. OK, OK we take it all back. We managed to stay up until 11pm the first night before crashing into bed and sleeping fitfully until... 6am. So, Swedish time that's 11am and definitely time to wake up. We spent about an hour trying to go back to sleep and another hour showering and getting ready. At 8 we couldn't take it anymore and went to find some breakfast.

I'd just like to take this time to announce to our parents: Yes, you heard us. 8am. 8am!

We had a supremely American breakfast consisting of a lovely, big bagel and a big cup of weak coffee, then headed into Central Park. It was much, much bigger than we'd expected and an amazing oasis in the bustle of the city. Below is a shot of a pond at the south end of the park with the midtown Manhattan skyline in the background.


Determined to see as much as possible of the city on this first day, we set out and discoverered two things:

1. New York is really, really big. This hurts feet.

2. Americans love to shuffle tourists around in queues while shouting at them through a megaphone from a 2 ft distance.

One of the first stops was the Empire State Building. What you need to understand about the Empire State is that you actually queue for nearly half an hour to get to the ticket counter. There, you can make a choice of buying either a standard $20 ride to the 86th floor, including another 45 minutes of queueing absolutely free of charge, or a $39 ticket to skip that queue. Of course, being Swedish, we were disgusted with the standard price in the first place and have practically been queueing since birth anyway.

ESB was one of those things you just have to do, but I must say it was absolutely not worth the money. I wouldn't go up again, but I'm happy to have done it and have no regrets. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and definitely one of the most - if not the most - visited attractions in NY. Part of that experience was the hour spent getting up there. It really showed a hysterical side of America :)

Moving on, we saw Times Square and downtown Manhattan incluing Wall Street and Ground Zero. Below is a shot of a cool van at 42nd st / Times Square.


The highlight of the day was our trip to Liberty Island and the Statue of Liberty. After walking all day in a humid 30 degree city, the boat ride was heaven. The queueing was not as long, but just as mental as with the ESB. Getting on and off the ferry included getting shouted at by several security workers, ferry workers and (I suspect) ranom bystanders taking the opportunity to do some shouting in their spare time. By this time we were immune to that kind of treatment and decided to just enjoy the trip. Below, a shot of the Statue of Liberty against downtown Manhattan.

In the evening we once again left the hotel to explore downtown, Chinatown and Little Italy. It's amazing how quickly fashionable blocks turn into dark back alleys in New York. I had stupidly expected NYs Chinatown to be like Kobe's Chinatown - alive and sparkling in the evening, food stalls and souvenirs, exciting colours and smells... Instead, we walked through a run-down, dark part of town with only the odd bar open. Not many people were about, but somehow it didn't feel like the sort of place you wanted to start looking at your map in public. We read later on in the guide book that you should avoid it after dark :)

Little Italy was exactly what we'd expected. Cozy little restaurants, colourful street lights and guys standing on the corners, talking like Tony Soprano, smoking hand rolled cigarettes.

The word of the day has got to be contrasts.

Day 1 - proper post

Above: amazing action at Keflavik airport.

Our flight from Stockholm to New York was as smooth and uneventful as you might expect from a long trip. That means the planes didn't crash, the luggage arrived in one piece despite a stopover and noone is (yet) suffering from food poisoning. But you know how it is - always a few bumps along the way. We had the pleasure of flying business class. On Icelandair this is called "economy comfort". The difference between economy comfort and first class (called Saga class!) was a small sign on one of the seat rows saying "Saga class from this row forward" and what appeared to be an insane amount of free alcohol. Anyway, our comfort was top class.

As we were taking our seats, we noticed with great alarm that a mother with a 3 month year old baby was sitting right across the aisle from us. However, our alarm was nothing compared to that of the unfortunate young man sitting next to her. We could hear her explaning that her husband had not reserved a ticket and was sitting further back in the plane. As their conversation went on, it was more than obvious she was just waiting for him to offer to swap his seat with the husband. Things along the lines of "will it be OK if I push past you every so often to get out to go see my husband?" and "yes, he's only three months old and this is his first flight... I have no idea how he will react" could be heard. Finally, when only met with sighs and nods from the young man, she downright asked him to swap, with the final punchline "well it's up to you if you want to sit next to a screaming baby".

In the end, the young man was moved forward to another free seat in economy comfort. The mother, however, stayed alone with the seat next to her free. I suppose the husband didn't want to pay for the upgrade ;) I'm actually not sure how well the unfortunate young man fared in the end, because he was put next to some minor Swedish celebrity who talked endlessly about his upcoming tour in Canada. As it turned out, the baby was very quiet and we thoroughly enjoyed the flight.

The flight from Keflavik to JFK in New York was pretty much the same. Same plane type, same seats, same kind of mumbling Icelandic pilot. The only difference was that the guy in the seat in front of me had a seat-adjusting obsession of some sort. I had to stop watching the in-flight entertainment because I was getting sea sick from the screen bobbing back and forth.

Even the security check at the airport was smoother than expected. It feels good to know that the CIA or the FBI or whoever have my fingerprints and eye scans if they ever want to get in touch.

Getting to the hotel took about as long as the first lap of the flight did, but at least we had even better entertainment than on the plane with a local guy trying to impress two german hotties with his street smartness. He gave them his number and pleaded them to call him, any time, for any reason. They called him loser as soon as he stepped off - I think that's as close as he got.

Today (July 1) has been absolutely packed with stuff. Pics and reports coming tomorrow.

New York - arrival

We're here! After 14 hours on 5 different trains and 2 planes we're finally at our hotel. Small but comfortable and CHEAP. So far, the locals seem super friendly. It was pouring it down with rain when we landed, but the night sees the city humid and moonlit. The area is really quiet but seeing as our body clocks tell us it's 4am we'll save the downtown action for tomorrow. For now, all we want to do is grab something to eat and then sleep in our ridiculously short bed :D It's lucky Mattias likes to curl up because otherwise his toes would stick out.

Boring and no pics, I know. Much more to come tomorrow.