Greetings from the USA

We have travelled to many places but it has taken us way too long to make it to the U.S. of A. After two weeks we are feeling right at home, singing our way ‘from Stockbridge to Boston’, via ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ several Woodstocks [but not the real one], spotting the turn-off to Sagamore – this place is inside us already. It was lovely to see a friendly face at JFK & to be whisked up to New Haven, home of Yale with its Oxbridge look-alike buildings & squirrels hopping though the fallen leaves on the square. We had a good rest & became seriously addicted to the US version of ‘The Office’ before picking up a car, more confident thanks to our shiny new satnav but anxious all the same about driving on the wrong side of the road.

Connecticut & Massachusetts put on a brilliant show of fall colours for us. We stayed outside Boston in the woods at the Friendly Crossways Hostel & while Owen ran around after his choirs, I walked the Freedom Trail. We met cousins from Australia in picture-perfect Lexington, ate lobster by the sea in Rockport & spent a fascinating day at the Canterbury Shaker Village. We crossed from the lakes district in New Hampshire to Vermont but the season for ‘leaf peepers’ was over so we shifted our focus to finding covered bridges in the country lanes & then headed back south to meet more cousins on Martha’s Vineyard. That was another treat. After driving south in driving rain, Martha’s Vineyard was glorious & we walked from the ‘gingerbread houses’ of Oak Bluffs along the causeway with the shimmering sea on both sides of the road the whole six miles to the perfect white painted quintessentially New England Edgartown.

And then New York! Our arrival was a damp one, dragging our silly suitcases though the rain & the puddles of Harlem to find that no-one knew of our online booking, & our room, not yet made up, had got more expensive. A compromise was reached & we whiled away the wet afternoon very happily in the Museum of Modern Art. By closing time, the rain had eased to a drizzle & we sloshed through the wet leaves on 5th Avenue, across Central Park to Broadway & all the way to the Apollo Theatre on 125th Street, the heart of Harlem. The Apollo was where James Brown & others were discovered & we came hoping to discover an up-and-coming new one but the sign on the door said ‘Amateur Night Cancel’.

The waitress at our local coffee shop promised, the rain stopped overnight & we burst out to do the sights along with all the other stir-crazy tourists. We queued for the boat to the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island. We enjoyed some fabulous street theatre & walked past Wall Street & Ground Zero & over the lovely Brooklyn Bridge in the afternoon sun. Then we made a big mistake. We joined the queue outside the Empire State Building. We queued outside & inside, for a full airport-style security inspection, for the tickets, for the elevator to the 80th floor where the windows were frosted & we could not see the view, then for the lift to the 86th floor where the crowds on the observation deck were so thick it was a struggle to get anywhere near the edge & then we had to queue again to take the two lifts down to escape back into the street. Now the night view was pretty but I’d have to say that the Hong Kong Peak tram experience wins hands down any day. Feeling like two suckers among many we downed some pizza & went in search of the real bright lights of New York & found them around Times Square.

Since then, we have enjoyed the real down-home American experience of Halloween down south in North Carolina in the home of old friends. We carved pumpkins with the kids, made peanut butter & jelly ghost sandwiches, set up the Clifford the Big Red Dog bouncy castle, donned costumes & partied with the friends & neighbours. It was some party! Then we sat on the front porch on the rockers enjoying a drink or two, watching the trick or treaters come & go late into the night.