USA trip, part II.

 Welcome back, my friends, to my short story about travelling through United States of America. The last stop I was talking about was Philadelphia. Now we’re moving to Washington. 

National Mall and Washington Monument

 In the last post I mentioned that US is not a country I would like to live in. BUT (there is always a but) if I had to move to America, I would choose to live in Washington. It’s probably the prettiest of the cities I’ve seen I US. Well maintained, clean, relatively calm considering the number of citizens. I don’t know if you have some kind of concept for “American city straight out of movies” but for me, it was Washington. When I arrived there, in a flash I felt like in one of that too perfect American romantic comedies. Again, just like New Orleans, it has a specific atmosphere. Totally different from the capital of music, but, no doubt, it has a spirit. 

  We didn’t have enough time to thoroughly explore Washington. We spent only one full day there and I regret that we didn’t take more time especially for that city. During that one, busy day we saw The White House, The United States Congress, The Library of Congress, The Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, National Mall and The National Museum of American Indian which is a part of Smithsonian Institute. Thanks to that, we could see it for free (every facility which belongs to Smithsonian Institute is free for visitors). And a visit in that museum was one of the most meaningful moments during my whole trip. The history of American Indians is never even partially showed in Poland. Their struggle to save their identity, culture, language… All that was incredibly moving and I will remember it for a long time, for sure. We also took a walk to a famous Georgetown, which is one of the city districts. Locals call it “a snob district” and ineed, it is quite snobby. Full of expensive shops and restaurants in which we couldn’t afford a dinner. But I must say that streets and houses there are probably the most charming part of Washington.

Georgetown. Source: https://www.tematicalarevista.com/?p=3028

Lincoln Memorial

The United State Congress and our unfortunate faces

Straight from Washington we went to Boston. The city is full of history and monuments but all in all, it didn’t made an extraordinary impression on me. We decided to take a Boston Freedom Trail and sightsee while walking. The weather was great so we could wander around the city without worrying about unfavorable weather conditions. The best part of our stay in Boston was the evening with a host from Couchsurfing. He was Russian but Boston was his home for almost half of his life. Me and Jędrek weren’t the only guests of Alexander, there were also three girls from Germany, more or less our age. We spent a great evening, drinking wine – not Boston Tea, talking about everything and nothing, joking that we, Polish people, finally decided to party with our invaders (there was a lot of dark humor there). It was just a really nice and refreshing evening.

  

 Our second day in Boston was dedicated to Cambridge, which is a part of Boston metropolitan area. We visited the campus of Harvard and Harvard Art Museum since we had only couple of hours before going to new York. The campus of Harvard was impressive. Like almost everything in US, the buildings were just huge. Yeah, that’s pretty cliché, but true – everything in America has to be huge. Americans and their superiority complex… Anyway, just few hours there, looking at all those law and engineering students made me feel really tiny and meaningless. I could understand why everyone wants to study there… After a quick dinner in Subway, we caught a bus to New York, the last stop in our trip.

Harvard University

 New York. The city that never sleeps. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere – says Sinatra in the most famous song about New York. Before I got to know anything about New Orleans, my biggest dream was to visit New York. The dream never changed, though. I wanted to go there so bad that we decided to spend 6 days out of 21 there. But New York is to big and too interesting to write only a short note about it, that’s why I’m going to make a new post, only about New York, soon.