Norfolk, Outer Banks and Wilmington

28th of March - Washington DC



After having breakfast we cleaned up Gunjans living
room which was our home for 3 nights.
We travelled on to Norfolk, right next to Virginia Beach in Virginia (quite obvious, isn't it?)

We just wanted to stay in Norfolk for a night so we can move on to the outer banks the next day.

We surfed Kevin and Britts couch, thanks for the hosting ;)
It was a funny time, even it was just for one night.
We had thai dinner which was really delicious... thai became one of my favorites during this trip.
We also bought a tent in Norfolk so we can go camping in the southern states.







On the 29th of March we continued our trip to the outer banks, heading towards ocracoke island, an island with only about 600 people living on it.








 

After driving a few miles we had no cellphone signal anymore and the gas prices increased to 4.20 dollar a gallon. (well... thats about 90 Euro Cents a liter, in Germany you pay almost 1,70 € a liter which makes it about 8 to 8.50 dollar a gallon). We reached North Carolina and took the ferry to Ocracoke Island











The Ocracoke Island beach is crazy... you can go there and walk for 10 miles and there is nothing but beach... no beach bar, no street, no car, almost no humans at this time in the year













Let me make you jealous of us a little bit... Ocracoke Island is a paradise and our hotel, the captains landing was great too. We had a suite and a great view.
Our hotel was located directly at the waterside, we had a big terrace, 2 bathrooms and a kitchen.

This is the captains landing as it lookes from the waterside
















We went to the Ocracoke lighthouse which looks really nice.


  

 

We looked for 2 geocaches and found a secret beach.
Ocracoke Island must be very crowded in summertime as it is a paradise for vacation.


On 30th of March we took the 2 1/2 hour ferry from Ocracoke Island to Cedar Island, heading towards Wilmington.

We went to a steak house for dinner... american steak is simply... wow, i loved it.












We arrived in Wilmington at our couchsurfing hosters place and nobody was there. The door was open, we waited about 2 hours, started writing that blog.

We took a cab to go to a beach bar, had some beer, were back home about 2am.

The 31st of March started as a rainy day... so what to do on a rainy day in a beach town... what about... a shooting range?

It was the first time shooting a real gun for Daniel and me. A great experience, have to do that again.
In the picture you can see me loading our Springfield XDM 9mm.






 



In the left picture you can see Daniel shooting at the targets.

Shooting is a great experience, the power you can feel in that weapon, crazy.
In that picture you can see me shooting at the targets.






 



After the shooting lane we went to a state park. Pretty forrest, amazing amount of different flowers and that little green lizard you can see in this picture.







Next part: Savannah (Georgia) and Orlando (Florida)

Atlantic City, Philly, Washington DC

23rd of March .. they said it will rain, well it didn't rain when we got up at 10, but it started in the afternoon.

We took our car from the parking lot and started with destination Atlantic City. At 7 pm we arrived at our hotel, we stayed in the crystal inn... 29 bucks for 2 persons, 1 night, including breakfast, nice price.

For dinner we went to the Wonderbar, which was directly located at the waterfront, nice view in the evening, although it was a little foggy.













We visited the beach after dinner, but is was really foggy and it was dark... no beach time.










At the 24th of March we went to Atlantic City again, visited the beach... it rained...
We climbed at the Absecon lighthouse, nice view from above all the little houses, and inbetween the tall casino building.

 We continued our trip, heading towards Philadelphia, where we arrived at about 4 pm

Philly is a really beautiful city. It seem kind of small, even there are more than 1 million people living there.
This was the first time we saw cherry blossoms on our trip, but it was definitaly not the last time.

We walked around a little, all the way around the museum of art with its van gogh exhibition.
We are both not really into art, so we skipped that.

We went to the street we saw a few minutes earlier when we were in our car. flags from all over the world were hoised all over the area.

We had no idea what to do here because Philly is really an art city, and we don't like art museums... so we looked for a geocache, really easy one.
All the american geocaches we found were really easy.



In the evening we went out for dinner with our host Anthony. We visited 2 bars (or 3? ... don't remember).

Anthony asked some questions about geocaching, so I showed him how that works at the next day.

So we looked for 2 caches on the 25th of March,
introducing newbees to geocaching is quite funny ^^

After that short geocaching experience we visited the Philly zoo, really big and nice zoo, the first one in the United States.

But we had to go on, so we left Anthony's place.
Thanks for hosting us Anthony ! I hope we can come back to Philly someday, maybe in the summertime.





So we moved on... we took the way over the bay bridge, which is not 4 free but it is totally worth it. The view is great from that giant bridge, and we were there just before sunset, the best time to be at the ocean.

Right before we left DC we got an invitation from a couchsurfing host in Washington DC, that was perfect because all the Hotels in DC were like 20 miles from the city centre. Our couch was just 3 miles away from the white house, perfect place to stay.
The building was located at the highest point of DC and the rooftop view was amazing.




26th of March, sightseeing day, walking day, I think all in all it were about 13 miles, 20 kilometers.
It was a sunny day, temperatures were in the upper 60s (~20°C).
But first of all we had to see the rooftop view in daytime:

We took a 4 mile walk through Massachusetts avenue, the street where all the embassies are located.
The white house... one of the main spots to visit in DC.

The Washington Monument... wow, very tall, and pretty amazing, even from a distance. The reflective pool was under construction but I still like the left picture: Washington Monument in the back, reflective pool. Picture taken from Abe Lincoln Memorial.

Talking about Abraham.. there he is
There were a few other memorials we visited but I think these two are the two ones everybody knows.
We were back at the appartment at about 6:30... and then we saw it... our face was all over red, sunburn... well, 7 hours in the sun without sunshield and hat, no good idea.

In the evening we were cooking, swiss / indian food. Rice with all kinds of vegetables, mushrooms. Along with that lentils and fried fish filet. It was delicious.

Red wine from south Africa and all summed up to a great meal.

On the 27th of March we started WITH a hat.
But we also wanted to stay inside, so we visited the Smithsonian museum of natural history.
The exhibitions are great, its not so huge like the one in NYC, so I liked that better.

The museum is really nice, you can touch some things...
dead things...

and living things :)

In the evening we had ethiopian dinner, interesting experience, it was very good, I had never tried that before. We went to a bar after dinner... had some fun, some beer., and took this picture:
Thank you for hosting us Gunjan!
We really had a great time in DC, we liked the city, Gunjan's place was great and Gunjan himself even better. Thank you ;)

In the next post we will go on to Norfolk, Virginia and to Ocracoke Island and Wilmington afterwards.

New York City

19th of March - evening

The last 15 miles of getting into NYC were the hardest, 2 hours for 15 miles.
We arrived in Queens in the evening, the next 4 nights we stayed with Luiggi, our first couchsurfing host.
We wanted to surf in Syracuse but our host never replied so we moved on. In NYC everything was great.
Luiggi is a very friendly guy, maybe a little bit crazy, but in a good way of crazy. He always wants the best for his surfers and knows the city very well. At the first evening we went out with 3 students from Knoxville who also surfed Luiggis couch. We stayed out till 3:30... Luiggi had to get up at 6 in the morning.

20th of March

We slept till... 10 or 11 ? I don't know, but it was good. I think we left the appartment at noon, heading towards central park, no problem with our 7 days unlimited metro card, Luiggi told us it would be good to have one, it was!

The central park is huge... you can even find an ice stadion in it which was opened, although it was about 60°F (15°C). We went all through the park, saw a lot of squirrels, we like squirrels, especially the american ones, funny animals. Have I mentioned that this park is huge? There is so much to see in it, the turtle pond, squirrels, all the rocks, the huge fields of lawn, squirrels, trees, oh, I almost forgot: squirrels.

In the evening we had greek dinner, in Queens. Luiggi went out with the students from Knoxville, we went to bed at about midnight because I cached a cold and Daniel was also a little bit tired.

On the 21st of March we visited the 9/11 memorial which is very imposant. If you imagine this two tall buildings which were even taller than the Empire State which is awesome, and all this crashed into a cloud of dust... awesome. There is a special spirit in the air when you visit the place where almost 3000 people died.

After that we visited times square with all its advertisements. You can not imagine how huge these screens are until you stay right in front of them.










After the Twin Towers were hit in 2001 the Empire State Building is the talles building in the city now.
We payed 54 $ per person for the skyride and the observation deck.
note: NEVER pay that much money for the skyride, it is worth about 5 $ in my oppinion. Just to go to the observation deck is 22$ per person, do that, it is very impressive.

We also visited the Wall Street and the Statue of Liberty at this day, well actually not the Statue of Liberty by ferry, but we saw it from a distance and took this picture.

Getting to the statue by ferry is really expensive.
And to go on top you have to pay an extra fee...




I think we had thai for dinner, which was really good




On the 22nd of March we got up at 11.... hey, its vacation ;)

We visited the museum of natural history, a very very very big museum, it is difficult to see everything in one day.

we were to the museum for about 4 hours I think.
After that we visited chinatown and little Italy.

In chinatown you can get all kinds of fresh food, really amazing.
Little italy is in fact very little.

We stopped at Roosevelt Island, took a few pictures, before went back to Luiggis Apartment.
This was our last evening in NYC, so we went out for italian dinner with Luiggi and to some bars after that.

We were back at the appartment at somewhat like 1:30 am I think.

Thanks for hosting us Luiggi, was a great time in Queens, NYC ;)