Summer 1997 East Coast (USA) Holiday

Details of our summer trip (written Monday 15 September 97):

Well we got back yesterday at about midday and classes started early this morning - that is after I made a very early start to stand in line to buy football tickets when they went on sale.

In any case - here follows a synopsis of our holiday this last month which will be expanded on in the end of year newsletter (if one ever appears).

We left from Athens with the first stop Washington, here we stayed in the home of a friend who was out of town. We had a great time visiting the various museums (all free), the Capitol, Supreme court, Library of Congress, the Washington and Veterans Monuments, Arlington Cemetry and the White House. White House tickets are free and are given out at 7:30 am - the problem is that people start lining up at 5:00 am - we got there at 5:30 and were 39 and 40 in line, by 7:30 there were 3000 people! We also watched a production of the Andrew Lloyd Weber show: By Jeeves.

WhiteHouse

Next stop: New York - we loved this place - it is everything like the movies and more. Highlights included three shows (half price tickets on the day): Les Miserables, Miss Saigon and Cats, roller blading in Central Park, the Empire State building, the World Trade Center, Grand Central station and the whole underground system and of course the Statue of Liberty, we enjoyed a great tour of the UN. We also celebrated Linda's 30's birthday here.

LadyLiberty

NewYorkBackground

From New York along the coast through small fishing villages to Cape Cod where we hired bicycles and explored Provincetown and surroundings. Since this is lobster country we ate our share and even cooked two (wrapped in tin foil) on the open fire - we had loaned a tent and did a lot of camping here.

Lobster

Over the Labour Day weekend (30 August till 1 Sept) two of our friends flew from Athens to meet us in Boston - our next stop - and together we camped and explored Boston. We visited the USS Constitution (a very old sailing boat of the US Navy), watched baseball at Fenway Park, did a sunset harbour cruise, had drinks in the bar from the TV series Cheers, visited the Kennedy Memorial and Library (really great) and various museums - arts, science and technology etc.

After Boston we travelled to Maine and could have stayed here a lot longer - this is beautiful country. I am sure that in winter it must be pretty darned cold there but for us is was idylic. Again we hired bicycles and toured, ate lobster (and also prepared another couple of lobster on the fire) and basically had a great time - in short this was honeymoon country.

The Niagara Falls followed and what a beautiful sight!! We did the Maid of the Mists tour - a boat ride that takes you as far into the bottom of the falls as possible and then some further, the Cave of the Winds tour - a walk to the base of one of the three sets of falls which guarantees that you will get sopping wet and toured the islands. This was another highlight though slightly marred by the ugly towns that exists on both the American and Canadian sides of the falls! Camping on the edges of the various great lakes (Ontario and Eire) in the area though was a great treat - while we learnt the names in geography, you have to see these lakes to understand the meaning of GREAT lakes - wonderful!!

Finally we spent a week in Chicago - another city we just fell in love with. Apart from visiting Chicago we also went there so that I could visit schools and gather data for my research. So I spent each day in the schools while Linda explored the town and in the evenings we did sight seeing together. My experience in the schools was eye opening and I learnt a LOT which I will have to reflect on for a long time to come.... We stayed with some friends ex South Africa who live here and slept on their lounge floor - a discomfort adequately compensated for by the 23rd floor view of the Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan. Some of the highlights of our sight seeing included the Architectural Boat tour, the University of Chicago, the musical Chicago and our sunset rollerblade along the edge of the lake on a path especially built for people to run, walk, cycle and rollerblade.

So that in a nutshell was our holiday - many details remain to be filled in BUT as you can easily gather a GREAT time!



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