Jojo October 13th, 2008
We really should’ve stayed on Cape Cod for one more day and driven to the airport directly. Instead we opted for staying a little closer to Boston and drove from Dennisport to Plymouth. We didn’t visit Plimouth Plantation but saw Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower II. After Plymouth we took a more scenic and slower route along the coast, stopped for a little while in Scituate. After that we had planned to stay near Boston, to the south or west of it. The hotel prices got really steep and the ones we had picked before were either full or way to expensive. So after a lot of driving and cursing about the stupid toll-system and the way they use street-signs over here (for every 3 turns where you have to decide there is one sign, or so it seems) we ended up in Framingham, where the only thing left available (and affordable) was a smoking-room, but a very nice one for what it’s worth. This morning we (for the first time) maxed out the checkout-time of 12am and had a long breakfast at a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts before we drove into Boston. We drove through Cambridge just for the fun of it and then through Back Bay, which seemed really nice (and we regretted not having visited it by foot before). The weather today is still really warm, and I’m still only wearing a T-Shirt and shorts. Right now we’re sitting at Logan Airport with a lot of time to kill and no internet.
Update: Guess what, Boston stinks, London rocks. At least I’ve got free internet here and am able to pass some of the 4 hours we have to wait. Another way to pass the time is kindly offered by the british authorities who send you through security even though you’re on a connecting flight and therefore have already been searched by the people on the other side. This also means that the 200ml bottle of water you got on the airplane and you’ve been saving up has to be thrown away…
Jojo October 10th, 2008
Today we spent our second day on Cape Cod. We started a little later and first had a look at the nearby Hyannis. Hyannis has a very long Main Street which is full of shops for about a kilometer up and down. It wasn’t that spectacular so after looking at all the shops we drove back north, stopping at our hotel to drop some groceries. We continued on Route 6 towards Provincetown (which, surprisingly to me was about 33 miles away). Provincetown sits on the northernmost part of the cape and is one of the “bigger” cities. It has a lot of really small and chaotic aligned streets and is packed with shops and restaurant, as was, even now, still buzzing with activity. This also means that it was harder to find ones way and to get a parking spot. After strolling up and down Commercial Street we already had enough and left for the north shore, near Race Point. We discovered the most beautiful beach there and immediately sat down to read a little. It was already getting late and we still had some driving ahead of us in order to get back to the motel, so we had to leave this nice spot.
Tomorrow we will leave Cape Cod in the course of the day and will spend our last whole day in the US.
Jojo October 7th, 2008
You know a state is small when you don’t even bother looking at your gas level after crossing the entire state from west to east. Its also a bit strange that in order to get from the second-largest city into it’s capital, you have to cross another state. But small is beautiful, and this is especially true for Rhode Island, the state we did today. We had stayed in Newport for the night so the first thing we did was drive towards Bellevue Avenue and then take a walk around the neighborhoods (if that’s what you can call it) and finally walked a part of the Cliff Walk along the shore. Newport is known for its many famous mansions, built by rich individuals, but in a lot of cases vacant nowadays. The most popular one is definitely “The Breakers”, a mansion (see photo above) built by the Vanderbilts (just one of many homes they owned). Along with this building other mansions of similar dimensions and grandeur are lined along a few roads (Bellevue being one of them) and along the shore, where you can take the aforementioned Cliff Walk to get a look at them. Unfortunately these buildings are hidden from the street by large hedges, trees and fences, and the fact that the driveway is about 100m long. We still managed to see our fair share of those (and also of downtown Newport which was really nice).
We set of at about noon and headed a short distance north, towards Providence. Not surprisingly we crossed into Massachusetts before we got there, and it is also here that we booked a room for tonight before driving into town. Providence, one of the oldest cities in the US, is the capital of Rhode Island and also its largest city (or its only city, depending on your definition of “city”). It has a nice feel to it and we managed to spend a few hours there. It’s also home to Brown University, another Ivy League institution. Brown is located on a hill and was our last stop for today (did I mention it was really warm?), so we were quite exhausted when we got there and only had a quick look around before returning to our car.
Jojo October 5th, 2008
On our second day in the beautiful state of Connecticut, we had a look at New Haven (which is just a really short drive from where we stayed last night). So, since we got up early, didn’t have breakfast and checked out early, we arrived in the city when mass was still on in every church and the streets were empty. Also, the tour we wanted to take to guide us around Yale University was scheduled for 1:30pm. We killed some time by walking around the nice inner city, already saw a lot of university buildings and a map which showed us just how much of the city is occupied by the university. When we realized that we couldn’t spend the whole time wandering around (it was raining too), we sat down in the nearest coffee-shop and read for a while.
The tour, like at the MIT, was provided by volunteer students. After a short film about Yale (like an advertisement video), we headed into the “campus”. And I can tell you that even after seeing the MIT, Harvard, McGill and the U-of-T, Yale was in no way boring or same-old. The architecture here was quite different from the rest of the buildings, aiming for old Oxford and Cambridge-like style. Nevermind that most of the buildings were erected in the early 1900s, and that in order to make them look that old the architect burried the stones and shingles in a river, and poured acid down his big clock-tower. The Sterling Memorial Library is what impressed me the most. It looks exactly like a cathedral, everything that is except the tiny details, like not having christian motives on the windows but little people reading and doing science. The inside is simply overwhelming, and so is the library further downstairs and the reading rooms. Katrin and I were more than just jealous.
The only downside is that Yale offers a liberal-arts education only, which did not sound like I was gonna like it ;)
Today it’s gonna be Mystic Seaport, and tonight we’ll probably be already in the state of Rhode Island.
Jojo October 4th, 2008
So we left NY state this morning and headed south-west, using the I-87 south and then switched onto the Massachusetts Turnpike until we hit Springfield, MA. A few exits later we were in Windsor Locks, where the first thing we did was to visit the New England Air Museum near the Bradley Intl. Airport. Although I have seen my fair share of aviation and military museums, this one is definitely worth a visit. The number and variety of different aircraft (civil and military) is overwhelming, as are the sizes of some of their planes. They have everything from small one-man-helicopters, over Hueys, an F-14 to a B-29 Superfortress. Also the have small photo-and-text exhibitions and miscellaneous stuff like Jeep’s, a 1-megaton nuclear bomb and and a large amount of motors and aircraft-guns. All the planes look very well in shape, and not like they haven’t been looked after since they were put of out service. The F-14 was just 3 years “old” (decommissioned 3 years ago), and the oil was still dripping from it. A lot of the planes were in horrible shape (or in pieces) when they were donated, but thanks to a lot of volunteers and donations they were renovated and parts reconstructed in a lovely manner.
After the museum we first got ourselves a room near the airport (right in the flightpath of landing planes). Since it was still early we took the interstate south again and paid a visit to Hartford, CT, where we walked around town and had a look at the really nice downtown and the simply amazing State Capitol building (which was, unfortunately, closed).
Jojo September 30th, 2008
After a nice breakfast we left our room in Toronto and took the 401 West (again), and switched to Route 8 at Kitchener. We took the 86 north and the exit at St. Jacobs. Although dubbed the german capital of Canada, from the road it wasn’t really visible. We didn’t visit St. Jacbos directly but intended to came back later. First we wanted to secure ourselves a room for the night, which we did, and now we’re in the “Olde Heidelberg Motel” in Heidelberg, Ontario ;) (they even have a town called “Breslau”, and seeing as there once was a “Berlin” here it’s kinda funny ;). After we got the room, we got back in the car and returned to St. Jacobs. On the main street we looked at all the stores (which weren’t that many) and took the tour of a small, but very well done (and free) Mennonite museum, which (in film and writing) explains the heritage of the Mennonite faith (and the status quo of Mennonites and Amish). The other part of St. Jacobs (with the market and the factory outlet “mall”) is 3km away, so we drove there. It was a little bit disappointing since the mall didn’t really have that many stores and bad ones at that. Anyway, , we bought some groceries and then went back to our hotel. Not quite hungry yet we decided to take a walk around town (chances are always good to see Mennonites on their horse-drawn black carriages, and we did a few times). After that we had schnitzel with sauerkraut, fries and the local brew (brewed at the Olde Heidelberg, you can see the machinery in the entrance).
Tomorrow it’s Niagara Falls, so expect nice photos again ;)
Jojo September 29th, 2008
Toronto was what filled the whole day, obviously. We drove the 10 miles into town and parked right in the centre, which for two people is still cheaper than using public transportation (and I’d guess much less stressful). We emerged from the subterrain parking deck and saw the city at light we had only briefly looked at yesterday night. First we took the University Ave north, until we hit the (guess what) University of Toronto (“The U of T”). At least that’s what we thought when we tried to get into the big old building that looked like it was the universities administrative or main building. Only when we saw the armed guards in front of it when began to question our initial guess. It turned out that the building we saw was in fact the Legaslative Assembly of Ontario, where, lucky for us, the house was in session. We were told to take the side-entrance, where we had to surrender basically everything we carried, then took the elevator up, were security-screened and then led into the gallery where we sat down to observe the House. The bill they were discussing was, coincidentally, about the Ontario health system, specifically about the very urgent need for more doctors, which led to proposals (from the opposition) about relaxing immigration policies concerning the fact that qualified immigrants cannot easily work in their field of expertise when they arrive, but have to drive taxis instead, as one member of the House put it. After some time we left, but still it was very interesting and not at all boring (but I guess it can be if you had to sit there day in day out ;).
After missing it at the first try, we walked around the campus of the U-of-T and continued on Bloor St until it intersected with Yonge. There we took a right, heading straight for the harbor, and getting a better look at the stores and skyscrapers (and Dundas Square). We paid a visit to Eaton Centre before we arrived at Front St. Our guide pointed out the Flatiron building (shaped like a wedge, much like the Chrysler-building) but we didn’t find it a first until we discovered that it was completely covered into construction rigs (so no photos for you guys). Frustrated we went straight to the CN Tower, but didn’t go up, partly because of our fear of heights, partly because of the hefty price-tag (an elevator-ride is seldom worth $16 in my oppinion). We looked at the Quay and the musical garden (dreamt up by noone else than Yo-Yo Ma himself ;) before we started noticing our feet again and decided to head home.
Tomorrow we’ll probably pay a visit to the german capital of Ontario, Kitchener/Waterloo, and St. Jacobs.
Jojo September 25th, 2008
Having seen enough of downtown Montreal yesterday, we visited the Olympic Park today. As we had planned, we didn’t spend any money on public transportation or parking and instead walked there. Now, this took us about 1 1/2 hours (the way back was 2 hours), so you can see how we managed to spend most of our day ;).
Anyway, upon arriving we bought tickets to the Biodome, an indoor-zoo simulating 4 different climatic habitats (tropical jungle, laurentian forest, St. Lawrence Marine and the arctic). The cool thing is that you walk from one ecosystem into the next one and are right in the middle of the jungle and the animals for example. Check out the photos below to see a lot of cute animals (the puffins, which are Katrin’s new favorite animals, seemed to be having a lot of fun swimming against the artificial current).
After the Biodome we did not go up the Olympic tower (again, since we thought of it as being much to expensive for one elevator ride). We also didn’t pay the hefty entrance fee to see the botanical gardens (we knew we would get enough walking anyway). So we headed south until we hit the river and then made our way back to the old port (7km). Arriving at about 3:30 we picked one of the first restaurants we saw where we had a pretty expensive salad (good thing we saved on the means of getting there). At least we had one huge motherload of ice afterwards. Our feet even more exhausted we returned to the hotel, where I just measured today’s walking distance at about 15km.
Tomorrow we’ll be leaving for Ottawa, where I hope distances aren’t quite as big ;)
Jojo September 24th, 2008
Well, Katrin was right. After the bad impression I got yesterday, waking up today was much nicer. We had very good breakfast with toast, waffles, mini-croissants, bananas, juice, eggs and actual coffee (not the brown-coffee-flavored water you get in the US). Strengthened by this we went to the old port, the Vieux Port, of town. It is really nice and is in no way lagging behind what Quebec has to offer. We strolled around somewhat (the city was just waking up with some stores not yet open) and went back and forth quite a lot (at least we saw everything). Chinatown was on our route to Mont Royal so we had a look at that as well. As indicated we didn’t miss the view from Mont Royal (see the photos) which is a must-see, but also something you should be in shape for (we already had done most of this day’s walking before we went up which was pretty hard). After the really impressing view (and a lot of photo-taking, re-hydrating and watching squirrels) we returned to our hotel. While this article is short, our day was not and we walked for about 8 hours straight (my feet can tell you a story). Seeing how we managed to do as much distance as this we just decided that we would not take the car to the Olympic Park tomorrow (6km) as parking there costs too, but instead walk there (and back). Now, enjoy the photos ;)
Jojo September 23rd, 2008
We left our nice motel in Quebec today to head for Montreal. After a relatively short and especially boring drive there we arrived in the city, where the tourist information center is conveniently (not!) located right in the middle of this big city. This means driving through the whole of this loud and chaotic city only to arrive right in the middle, with one-way-streets in every direction, heaps of pedestrians and parking rates at about $6/hour…
So, we booked a hotel at the tourist information center which is located quite central (so at least we save the public-transportation). We have to pay $10/day just to have our car parked nearby on the hotel’s own parking lot and right across the street is a very fine selection of strip joints… We went down Sainte Catherine (the street our hotel is on), the main shopping street, and it was just awful. Not only are there only clothing-stores which repeat every 4 blocks, but the sidewalks are filthy, the streets are loud and lined with homeless people. To say the least, it was quite disappointing and I can only hope that the old part of town (and for our second full day here the Olympic Park) are better than what we saw today. Oh, I didn’t take any photos, partly because I was afraid my camera would get stolen, but also because there simply is nothing to photograph.
