Our days here in New York has moved past us in a flash. There is so incredibly much to see here, and we only had four days. I still think, that from what we have managed to do with our time here we have managed to get a sense of what New York have to offer. We have used our time on Manhattan, and have been to the Empire State Building, several museums, a fair amount of restaurants and of course a lot of miles just walking around. Personally I liked Soho, Greenwich Village and Time Square, witch is all very interesting parts of town. From the gigantic buildings with huge advertisements lighting the streets, to the small narrow streets of the Village with small interesting stores and small wonderful restaurants.
Today is the last day of our "voyage", and we are setting our sails for Norway. (As Martin pointed out just now, "our last check-out") By tomorrow around noon, we will be back in Oslo.
Finally we would like to thank everyone who has followed us on our blog here, and especially those of you that given us feedback. A special thanks to Eva-Lotte, Arild and Arne, that has been very active on that part, we appreciated that very much.
And we also hope that there actually has been some english speaking people that have been reading this after we started writing in english.
Anyways; this blog will be used for later reference(like a diary) for the three of us in the future(and maybe when we get old and start to forget...)
America is a easy place to travel , especially by car, because everyone has this "laidback" attitude combined with being outgoing.
We all think that Grand Canyon, the desert in general(with Death Valley as the peak) and New York are highlights but everything has been a cool experience.
Peace!
// Lars, Erik & Martin
fredag 24. juli 2009
onsdag 22. juli 2009
Day 28 - New York city, Manhattan and yellow cab's
We slept away half the day, but it was worth it. The day had been used to get orientated about what we want to see the next days. Because it was raining today, Martin went to the Museum of Natural History. Since me and Erik had just been to the one in Washington, we decided take a cab down to Time Square. We wandered around the streets just looking at buildings and people, checking out different stores and landmarks. We passed through Grand Central Terminal and visited Data Vision, a huge electronics store. I even found myself a turntable (platespiller), with perfect quality and price. I am still not sure how I will get it with me to Norway. We met up with Martin in the evening for dinner in a Mediterranean restaurant, where he could tell us that the museum was crowded and noisy. Martin went out to a stand-up place tonight, Erik went to the closest gym, and I had a beer in the tub and let my feet rest for tomorrow. Going to bed early tonight for a full day of fun tomorrow.
// Lars
tirsdag 21. juli 2009
Day 27 - Atlantic City - New York and traffic
We did not feel bad leaving Atlantic City just after one night. On a early monday morning, Atlantic City looked worn down by a invasion of gamblers in the weekend. The only people left where the gamblers that never left, the casino employees and homeless people. One of the homeless guys there got our three camping chairs that we used while waiting for the space shuttle that never launched.
We burned directly out without breakfast and did not stop until we were miles north of Atlantic City. After a stop at Fridays for a huge brunch, Starbucks (again) and "Target" (a gigantic convenience store) we were finally on our way to the roadtrip's final destination.
With only two hours of driving, the roads through Newark and into New York were rapidly increasing in size. At the most, we experienced 8 lanes in each direction. Thats 16 lane roads! witch is pretty insane compared to norwegian roads. As the junctions and intersections came closer and closer to each other even our GPS had trouble following the phase of the New York rush traffic. Even though we missed a couple of exits, we finally saw the New York skyline. I don't really know about the other guys, but that really brushed up some feelings inside me as it was our final destination. It was the end of over 6000 miles of road we have put behind us. All the incredible scenic routes and all the different landscapes we have experienced on our trip trough America.
Hotel Newton is located on Broadway, downtown Manhattan. A small, but classy hotel with an amazing location. After
check in we went for a walk in the neighborhood to get some dinner. The evening was spent in a movie theater showin
"Brüno", a crazy followup on the legendary "Borat" movie. Tomorrow, and the following day's, we will try to soak up as much of NY as possible
We all look forward to spend some days here before our return to Norway, as a kind of finale.
A load of brand new photo´s is now available at the following adress:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66819215@N00/sets/72157620496507557/
(Also, all photos have now been organized by the date taken, so according to the blog, you should be able to figure out where the pictures where taken)
//Lars
mandag 20. juli 2009
Day 26 - Washington DC to Atlantic City
Up early ,as usual, and we had breakfast at the hotel. We really don´t mind but i think we were the only white people staying in that hotel. Just an observation.
We started our day at the museum of Crime and Punishment which actually was kinda fun. A summary; history of crime, statistics, artifacts from (among others) Al Capone ++. A little bit strange but fun. Next stop was the American Gallery of Art which is a huuuuge gallery which contains art from every corner of the world from the early 1800s until late 1900s. The building itself was a work of art and an experience to be in. We also went to the Museum of Science which is now heavily focused on climate change causes and effects. A few interesting videos and interactive things to play with. Cool. (trivia: the Science museum is run by a guy names Johan Johansen which is norwegian).
Dinner.
After food we went separate ways; Lars and Erik went to the Museum of Natural History and i went to check out a district called Dupont Cirlce which was a cool little community with people playing chess in the park and combined coffee shops and bookstores. You get the picture.
We later meet up at the Natural History Museum. Which Lars can say more about since i just "ran" thru it in 5 minutes and watched a video about sea currents(which were very interesting). I´m now giving Lars the MacBook. Thank you and good night.
//Martin
01:30...Yep, Martini has filled out the day pretty good. The Museum of Natural History was incredible. Amazing exhibitions of everything from fossils to African history to minerals and insects. We could easily have used two days in there. By the way; at The National Museum of Art we only found time to investigate the west building. The east building was just as big and holds art from modern times. It is obvious that we did not have enough time in DC, but we had to get going to be in New York by monday. So we head out towards NY to find a place to sleep a few hours outside "the big apple". Our choice fell upon Atlantic City. The weekend traffic out of Atlantic City was extreme. We already knew it was a gambling town, but downtown was not good. Homeless people and garbage were very present in the streets. We decided to stay at Crown Inn, a classic American style hotel. If you were part of a Hollywood movie, this is the place you would hide out from the cops. On our way into the motel we even had the pleasure of meeting a drugged up, drunk rapper (he was actually pretty cool). Atlantic City rocks! BRING IT ON!!
//Lars
Day 25 - Franklin to Washington DC
Nice drive to Washington after breakfast at the local cafè ,which was a little twin peaks´ish.
A somewhat scenic drive thru the Shenandoah valley and the park by the same name and went thru yet another small town called Strasburg. A lot of german sounding names on the american countryside in general.
Our arrival in D.C ended up at the Channel Inn down at the marina and walking distance to all the "must-see" places in D.C.
In about 45 minutes we had seen it all. D.C was packed with people(aka. tourists) who also wanted to see the same places as we did.
The security was extremely tight with cops literally on every corner. We asked someone if there is something special going on and they said that it´s like this all the time in D.C. At least after 9/11. No wonder when you pack FBI, IMF, The White House, Congress, Pentagon, a lot of different memorials from many different wars, The National Treasury (norwegian: Sentralbanken) in not so many square miles. This place got a lot of symbolic vaue.
Later we ended up in a nice italian restaurant in a district called Foggy Bottom (kinda strange name). Good food.
//Martin
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