East Coast of the US

A month traveling through the East Coast of the USA, our last adventure of our one year world trip :-)
From Toronto, we took the flight to New York. All excited we arrived at the border control to find out that American border controls can be total assholes. We had an ESTA visa, what allows you to be in the States for 3 months. Before Canada we traveled already for a total of 6 weeks in the States, but because we spend a month in Canada you can (on paper) visit the States again for 3 months. But this guy was clearly looking for a reason not to let us in the country and tried all the reasons that he could think to not let us through, like saying that we only came to the States to stay there illegally, or that we wanted to

use the healthcare system for the baby or that we planned to give birth in the States. It didn't matter that we explained that we only would stay for a month, already had our ticket to Amsterdam a month later or that we already finished with all our baby checks in Canada.... and besides that, the prices for healthcare in the States are 2 or 3 times higher than in Canada or the Netherlands, so why the hell would we try to get over the border to the States for the baby healthcare? Anyway, long story short, he was clearly having a shitty day himself and taken it out on us. After even been screamed at for being in HIS country, with HIS rules (ok, ok, you are working at the border control, but you are physically still standing in Canada) we got denied to cross the border. Absolute stress as we already booked our hotel in New York, a month of car rental and besides that, our plane was about to take off and we had our flight to Amsterdam next month from New York. At the border control, they told us that our only chance would be to go to the embassy in Toronto and to ask for a different visa, so while taking our luggage out of the plane, and taking the train back into the city, Yohan cancelled all our reservations. (Thank g'd we managed to cancel everything without losing any money). At the embassy, they didn't let us even in and while sitting in a coffee place we decided that after the unpleasant way they treated us we didn't really felt any more like going to the States. So, you know what, let's change the plan to travel for the last month through Europe

instead. While already imaging ourselves eating ice cream in Italy, we crossed the border again and guess what..... the next border controller gave us a visa for 3 months! Poor Yohan! Now he needed to contact the airline, car rental and hotel again in order to cancel the cancellations :-S Pff... what a day. It really took a day or 2 to get back into the excitement of being in the States. Not sure if before Trump it was any better, but let's say that it doesn't feel like Trump is helping the situation in any kind :-( What we felt at the border was real hate towards people that they think want to live in the States, but what he didn't understood is that life in Europe is really good, so why do you directly assume, we want to become illegal citizens in the States? If they treat us like that, with both European passports, can you imagine how you are being treated if you have a Mexican or African passport??

Anyway, enough about this! Our first stop after arriving in New York

was the little city of Hartford. We needed a place halfway to Cape Cod and this place was perfect, because it has the Mark Twain museum and house. So cool to walk around and to hear all the stories told by the tour guide! I know him as one of the greatest American writers, but what I didn't know was that he was also really funny, one of my most favorite quotes where: "All good things arrive unto them that wait and don’t die in the meantime", "I was born modest‚ but it didn’t last" & "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
After that, we continued driving to a little motel in Cape Cod. It's this beautiful little area on a peninsula between New York and Boston. Nice beaches, little picturesque shopping streets and breathtaking beach houses. Wow, we saw streets and streets full of houses we can only dream about! Absolutely not affordable, but a really nice area to drive and look around. It felt a bit like a mini vacation in our trip ;-)

Our next stop was the big city of Boston. We were really lucky with the weather and had beautiful sunshine. We really enjoyed the walking tour we took and the tour guide took us through the Beacon Hill neighborhood, showed the State House with its golden dome and showed us how Boston is a real combination of old historical and brand new office buildings. After that, we visited the Quincy Market with great food options located in a nicely renovated historical building. One of the other days we visited the Museum of Fine Arts that had an amazing collection of art and great tour guides that told very interesting stories about the art. After we visited the museum, we went to the Boston Common Park and the park was packed with people and squirrels. Crazy how many squirrels where there and they aren't afraid of humans at all! When you have food, they will come and steal it really only a few centimeters away from you :-) In the evening we wanted to try out Trip Advisers recommended number 1 restaurant called "Regina", a small pizzeria with a crazy line for

getting in, so we ended up ordering take away and the plan to take it to the motel went straight out of the window when the pizza arrived. The smell was too good, so we ended up eating the pizza in the car somewhere double parked next to the restaurant ;-P With only 2 last places left we we almost finished our time in Boston. First, it was my dream to visit the University of Harvard oncs in my life. Haha... studying there will never happen anymore, but it was great to walk around the old buildings and to buy a Harvard hat (maybe it will upgrade my IQ with a few points?? You never know ;-D ) Last and definitely not least was the visit to the Red Socks Fenway Park stadium. We both aren't very into baseball, but the tour was great. So many stories and places they showed, absolutely recommended to visit to anyone that is planning to visit Boston!

After so much city it was time for us to see some nature again, so off

we went to the White Mountains, close to the Canadian border. The road to the White Mountains is beautiful, because you are driving more and more into the mountains and the road itself is getting more and more narrow and deeper into the woods. We ended up driving the last kilometers in the pitch dark and driving very slow, because as the signs next to road already warned, there are really a lot of dears next to the road and you never know when they start running suddenly. The black and brown bears that Yohan was so much hoping for to see, we didn't encounter unfortunately. Even next to the motel, where the owners told us that they have almost daily a bear passing by, we didn't see any :-( Even a last attempt from Yohan on the last day to hang our garbage bag outside the door didn't help (to relief of me, as I wasn't sure how I felt of a hungry bear on the other side of our thin door ;-)
Except for lots of nature there aren't too many activities to do, so it was nice to rest a lot without feeling guilty of missing out :-) On one

of the days we were there, it was Yohan's birthday, so I bought all ingredients for Yohan's favorite breakfast: fresh bread, smoked salmon and all kinds of cheeses. After we drove around in the recommended nature parks that were indeed really beautiful and where already on our way to the famous Mount Washington Cog Railway, when it started pouring rain, so instead we went early to the steak restaurant and only went the next day to the Railway station. It's a nice place with a little museum that gives a lot of information of this special cog train, but to be honest the prices they charged to go up the mountain were so ridiculous high that we decide to skip that activity. I was much more impressed by the next building we went to after. As I already wrote before in other blogs, as sport Yohan is walking every other day an hour of stairs and while we were in the White Mountains, it was a challenge to find a building high enough, but when we found, my g'd, it was like a castle! It wasn't really a real castle, but only a super fancy golf resort, but wow, it was wonderful to sit next to the fireplace in the lobby waiting for an hour :-D Hahaha... best location and best hotel I waited in the entire trip by far!

The next day we started driving all day to our next location: Lancaster. The city itself isn't very interesting, but this is one of the famous areas with a high population of Amish people. It was funny, the man in the tourist information said it very nicely when we asked where was the best place to see Amish people. He told us that everywhere outside the city center half of the population is Amish, so for him it's normal to be surrounded by Amish and that it's part of normal life, so your neighbors are Amish or the people next to you in line in the supermarket. It's kind of driving into Bney Brak next to Tel Aviv (the ultra-orthodox Jewish area), everywhere you walk around you, you have Amish people. For us it's so strange to see horses and buggies parked in front of the supermarket, but in Lancaster it's normal. Very interesting was the visit to the Historic Amish farm

house where they also showed an Amish pre-school and you could ask question to an old teacher. They also gave a tour that explained a lot about the daily life and they showed us what kind of clothes for example are being made etc. As good tourist, we of course wanted also some pictures, so we ended up driving around and Yohan taking pictures of people and me totally embarrassed hiding in the car, pretending I wasn't part of it ;-P

Next on the list was our visit to Washington. Yohan had already been there, but for me it was a dream come true to stand one day in front of the White House :-) Unfortunately you aren't able anymore to visit inside the White House, but the park area around was much nicer than I expected. Of course, we saw the Lincoln Memorial, Korean & Vietnam Veterans Memorial, National World War II Memorial and the Washington Monument. Very impressive was also the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the walking tour that took

us to Capitol Hill, Supreme Court and the Library of Congress. Breath taking building with such a big history and stories behind it. I am really happy that we saw all of them and would love to see them again one day. We were very lucky, because besides perfect weather during our visit it was also 4th of July and as good Americans we went that evening to the capitol concert and saw the fireworks while sitting in the grass next to hundreds of thousand other people. A perfect ending of our Washington visit!

Next day we continued driving up to Philadelphia, a city I personally didn't know so much about, but was worth the visit. Philadelphia is probably most famous for the Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. So, we stood like good tourist in the line for taking a picture with this world-famous bell. What was to my personal opinion much more interesting to visit was the Eastern State Penitentiary. They had an

amazing audio tour that takes you through the complete history and little hallways of the prison. Did you know that Al Capone was imprisoned here? So cool, to see and also for example they kept the cell and hole one of the prisoners duck all the way out of the prison. Haha... like the TV series Prison break, but then for real! :-) Last stop was the visit to the Reading Terminal Market. Voted by Yohan as the best market in the States! Amazing atmosphere and the best donuts and pretzels we had in the entire world trip! Wow, I would really fly back for just these donuts and pretzels!!!

Last stop in the States was our visit to New York. Such a crazy city to drive through by car (as for some reason every time we took a street there was construction), but how can you not love New York?! To walk around on Time Square with hundreds of other people, visiting Alice Island, standing a few meters away from the Statue of Liberty or

meeting friends at Central Park. Ma'ayan, it was so much fun to see you and Amit and to spend time together! Can't wait to come back and go together again for that amazing small Italy area, eating an amazing cheese cake and also the Japanese unicorn ice cream! :-D Pff... it was a good food day ;-D (ps: the 2 of you have the cutest squirrel hunting dog ever! ;-P )
Just before we met up with Ma'ayan we "squeezed" in a short visit to the Natural History Museum and we managed to see all the recommended highlights, but wow, it's really a beautiful museum that is worth a much longer visit then the only 2 hours we managed. Next time in New York we would definitely go back there to see more! Two other museums we visited were the 9/11 memorial museums. The first one was a tiny museum of one room where you could see all the images & artifacts from Ground Zero collected by the only photographer that was allowed to take pictures on ground zero "Gary Marlon Suson". The second one is the big museum next to Ground Zero area where you walk with hundreds of other people through the whole story of 9/11, from the moment the first plane flew into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, till the months after this huge disaster. It leaves you with tears in your eyes, but we were both happy that we visited the museum and memorial side. It's one of these places that you have to visit at least ones in your life.
On our last day, Yohan surprised me with tickets for the Broadway show "The phantom of the opera". It was amazing! I don't think we could have finished our world trip in a better way than that :-D

Something totally not related to the beautiful and interesting things we visited in New York was our last hotel in the States. It's funny, we started our adventure in the States in the West Coast in a motel in the middle of an LA ghetto, between that we found great cheap motels everywhere, but we ended in our last hotel again in a questionable neighborhood. OK, we felt like everyone was staring at us as being

the only 'white' people on the street, OK, at night you only saw junkies and dealers at the street, but OMG we had the most amazing Jamaican food from some tiny little store that when we entered we didn't even see food, but ended up finding out that behind the counter the owner had pans full of the most amazing home food. And because we never ate Jamaican food and had no idea what to order, the owner just made a plate for us and I can promise you, next time we go to New York, I definitely will book again a hotel in that neighborhood to be able to go back to that Jamaican food store :-D
As a last note, I have to say that Yohan did an amazing job in finding the best prices for all the baby things we needed to buy in the States, so we ended up with receiving lots and lots of packages to the hotels we stayed. And Ma'ayan: thank again for receiving packages for us as well!! Up till now, while we are already back in Israel, I have no idea how Yohan managed to fit all of these items in our luggage's and even more impressive, to fly with it first to Holland and after to Israel without having to pay for extra luggage's. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture to prove, but I don't think anyone else would have been able to get all of that in our 2 suitcases!!

(Travel plan: New York, Hartford, Cape Cod, Boston, White Mountains, Lancaster, Washington, Philadelphia and New York)