USA trip: part I.

 With a sore throat, unexpectedly came an inspiration. Suddenly, I have a lot of ideas for upcoming posts. However, an idea for this post was not born out of inspiration, but out of pure jealousy. “All my friends are now relaxing and having fun together in the mountains? Fine … I had fun too, you know? In USA *proudly opens a file with photos from a trip to US*”. I thought that will make me feel a bit better, but the truth is, I have just shot myself in the foot. Now I’m even more depressed…

 For those who don’t know, I took part in an exchange programme for students which is called “Work and Travel”. I worked for 12 weeks in one of the amusement parks, that are pretty common facilities in US. The park I chose to work in is called “Cedar Point” and it’s located on the south coast of Lake Erie. I was pretty lucky and had a chance to become a server. If you’re not sure why I said “lucky”, I am going to quickly explain it in one word: tips.

 With all those photos, a bunch of truly fantastic memories have come. United States of America may not be the best country to live in, at least for me. However, that trip was a valuable experience and to put it even simplier : fun. I met a lot of interesting people from all over the globe, had an opportunity to get to know how they see the world, what they’re like. We had so much fun playing pool at 3AM after work (that was the only possible time to do that), talking about our cultures and difference between us (or just simply about how terrible the American food was). And then, came the part I was waiting for the most – travelling.

  I spent my 3-weeks-long journey along the East Coast with my best friend. We visited seven cities: New Orleans, Miami, Orlando, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and New York. We stayed in those cities during the actual “travelling part” but before that, when we were still working in Cedar Point, on our days off we also visited Chicago, Cleveland and Niagara Falls. Travelling in pair had couple of advantages. Not only was it easier to reach an agreement about where to go or what to visit, but also there was no problem with finding a host on Couchsurfing. Hosts are more likely to invite you to their homes if you’re not a noisy group of dozen foreigners. In our case, two was a perfect number. The only city in which we really had to book a room in a hotel was Miami.

 I could talk for hours about amazing people that hosted us, but that’s not the main purpose of this post ( and I don’t want to make it too long). Now, I’m going to show you couple of photos I made during my trip and describe my feelings about couple of the cities I listed before. The rest on them will appear in next post.

Bourbon Street. Source:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/358176976600416411/

First place that we stepped our foot in was New Orleans. Since the very first day in US, I was waiting impatiently to finally go there. The capital of music, city of vampires, voo-doo and Po’boy. Have you ever seen “Interview with the Vampire” or at least “The Princess and the Frog”? If not, you have to take my word for it: New Orleans is a magical place on Earth. It has the spirit that most of American cities are lacking. Rich of history and curiosities, New Orleans has captured my heart and soul. While visiting the French Quarter and the most famous Bourbon Street, you can hear the music coming from every other pub or club. I think it goes without saying that the music is being performed live. And it’s not like jazz is the only possibility. There is wide range of clubs and restaurants when you can listen to every kind of music. I’m gonna lie, I even took part in Drag Queen show there. Except live music, you can admire an original architecture of French Quarter, discover swamps and alligators living there or take part in one of the most popular attraction there – cementery tours. It is not a joke, you can find it in every brochure for tourists. Along with vampire shops, voo-doo museum and other spooky attractions.

Unfortunately, my camera went crazy there (maybe because of all those ghosts and spirits) and I don’t have that many decent photos, so I will use a few I found on Internet, just to show you how beautiful the city is. The video and one of the photos, however, are made by me. 

Source: https://www.enigma-mag.com/escape-to-the-movies-2/

Miami was next on our list. And now is the moment to demolish dreams of many people waiting impatiently to go there. Listen carefully: Miami is one of the most boring places I’ve ever been to. If you’re not going to spend whole night just getting wasted in one of the clubs on a beach, there is no point of going there. It has a quite nice beach, right. But so do other places in the world, nothing really that special. The good point of me staying there was an opportunity to talk in Spanish. Miami is full of people from South America and America Latina, especially from Cuba. I took off with it like a duck to water. But I can’t say that there was completely nothing worth seeing, right? Every city has its own strong points. For me, Miami has two of them : calle Ocho and Vizcaya Garden. Calle Ocho is a home to Cuban immigrants and has so full of energy and music. Vizcaya Garden, on the other hand, is really peaceful though iconic and villa with gardens in a heart of Miami. The view of ocean and the city from there is breathtaking.

Staying in Florida for a little more, we visited Orlando. And there was only one reason for going there: Universal Studio. It’s a Universal movies themed amusement park. IT… WAS… AMAZING. Do you know that feeling when you suddenly become a 5-yeard-old again? That was me. Especially when I entered Harry Potter World. I’ve always been a huge fan of J.K. Rowling saga and the moment I found myself on Diagon Alley and then in Hogsmeade… It was a pure magic. I’m 22 years old and probably the society expects me to behave like an adult but there it was not possible. I was running from one spot to another shouting “Look, wands! And here Weasleys’ shop! Oh god, I can see Hogwarts from here!”. It was a hard day for my friend who acted like an embarrassed father following his child. Well, what can I say? Apparently dreams sometimes come true.

And a last for today’s post : Philadelphia. The city of Founding Father of United States is indeed beautiful and full of history, although it seems really sad or dying I would say. A lot of people, Americans, said that there is no point of going to Philly but I can’t agree with them. It was a great opportunity to learn more about the history of United States and see one of the first American cities. Like I said, I personally consider Philadelphia a really beautiful city but one day is certainly enough to do visiting. There is not that much you can see there. One of the biggest surprise for me was a China Town. We discovered it by accident We’ve been to China Towns in almost every city that we visited and this one was probably the best one. We also had an opportunity to see a Chinese school festival and a parade that kids prepared. I will for sure remember that day for a long time.