East coast of the usa - abstract. In most places, tap water is safe to drink. Even in a good restaurant, you can not order drinks, but ask for plain tap water. It's absolutely free, Americans themselves use it all the time. East

The car gives the driver many advantages, the main one of which is complete freedom of action. An unusual trip will give you incredible drive and a lot of new impressions along the way.

An amusing trip

Exploring a new and unfamiliar world in a foreign country is a very exciting activity, and the only thing that will cause some inconvenience is fatigue from driving a car for a long time.

It is best to book a car in advance, because sometimes it happens that the desired option may not be available on site. The East of the United States differs from the West in the most low prices for car rental.

What should you remember before starting your trip?

Before you start traveling along the East Coast of the United States by car, there are a few things to consider: important points so that the trip is not overshadowed by anything:

• Some for rent vehicle It is not enough to present a Russian license; the driver will also be required to have an international one.

• Knowledge of local traffic rules is required to avoid violations and fines in a foreign country. It is best to get acquainted with the traffic rules in advance, that is, at home, before starting an exciting adventure.

• Make sure you also rent a GPS navigator, which will help you navigate in unfamiliar areas in the best possible way. The use of paper cards, which are sold at every gas station, cannot be discounted.

• Plan your route at home and don’t forget about traffic jams in major cities.

• When visiting the East Coast of the United States, be aware of tolls.

• Don't rely on your credit card alone. Some places may not accept it, so cash will definitely be required when traveling.

• Do not put strangers in the car for personal safety reasons.

Popular tourist area

What attracts travelers to the US East Coast? Tourist area continuous urban development is the oldest historical part of the country - in 1776, Philadelphia was signed. The region in which the first colonies of settlers arose, which is the real cradle of American culture, is full of attractions.

The East Coast, which stretches from the borders of Canada to the large peninsula of Florida, contains the most big cities countries. Endless spaces are full of variety climatic conditions and picturesque landscapes that will take your breath away.

Memories that last a lifetime

A memorable road trip along the East Coast of the USA is an exciting acquaintance with large and small cities, extraordinary natural phenomena and architectural monuments that preserve the history of America.

When making a planned trip by car, foreigners understand how diverse the huge country is. The road trip will not leave anyone indifferent, and the memories of it will stay with you all your life.

Yosemite National Park

What to see on the East Coast of the USA for those who are going on a long trip for the first time?

One of the most breathtaking sights will be the ancient one located in the state of California. The magnificent landscapes, which Mother Nature has worked on for centuries, will delight any visitor. Fantastic beautiful waterfalls, forests, mountain complexes will amaze you with their majesty and power.

It is best to come here by car in the spring, when the snow melts everywhere, feeding water flows, and in the fall during prolonged rains. But in winter, travelers will be surprised by the frozen cascades, which will remind them of natural magic.

Philadelphia full of attractions

What else attracts the East Coast of the USA? Committing car trip in America, you can’t help but visit Philadelphia - one of the oldest. Only there you can understand how dear the history of the state is to the Americans, who keep the Liberty Bell, which notified everyone about the signing of a declaration important for the state.

It is best to walk along the quiet and narrow streets with low-rise buildings, leaving your car nearby. Full of attractions, the city is famous for the buildings in which the fate of the country was decided.

Memorable corners

One of them is Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th. To enter a building that is iconic for all Americans, you must go through strict security control. Inside this important UNESCO-listed landmark, daily tours are offered to explore some of the most significant events in American history.

Philadelphia is also a major financial center, and one cannot ignore the Downtown business district, where the most high building city ​​with a height of 247 meters. The Comcast Center skyscraper is a popular tourist spot.

The city has several observation platforms that offer amazing views of modern architectural structures.

Traveling around Philadelphia, you plunge into the traditions of American society, carefully preserving the memory of past events. After the city filled with the spirit of patriotism, you can go on a trip to the entertainment corners of the country.

USA, East Coast: what to visit? Entertainment capital of Orlando

The city of Orlando is rightfully considered the capital of all entertainment events. Here are the most magical places that everyone dreams of being in. The colorful world created by human hands is interesting to both adults and children, so everyone who wants to get to the East Coast of the United States includes the city in their route in advance.

The Disneyland entertainment center, consisting of several theme parks, is located on a vast area of ​​100 square kilometers near Orlando. An incredible number of attractions, river cruises around the park, colorful parades of famous Disney cartoon characters, a laser show and daily fireworks displays attract millions of visitors every year.

Of course, this pleasure is not cheap: you have to pay more than $100 for a ticket, and you will have to fork out the same amount to visit the water park. Therefore, be prepared that returning to childhood costs a lot of money, but despite the high cost, it will become one of the main events of the trip.

Key West - Tropical Paradise

After an entertaining trip around nature reserves, history-filled cities, and entertainment centers, the perfect ending to a driving adventure would be a visit to southern city USA.

Key West (Florida), located on a small island of the same name, is a haven of bliss and relaxation. You can drive around the entire city, where time seems to stand still, and see not only the alluring beaches, but also the noteworthy architecture. Here is E. Hemingway's house, a butterfly observatory, and an aquarium, which you should definitely check out.

No one here will have a question about which ocean washes the East Coast of the United States. The island is located on the border of the Atlantic Ocean and captivates with its incredibly blue water surface. A corner of paradise becomes a real outlet for many, and people come here to enjoy an incredible feeling of freedom and happiness.

The Value of Travel

A leisurely car ride will allow you to admire the magnificent views of America, known for its contrasts. Exploring a previously unfamiliar world is a very exciting activity, and only on such trips do you understand the value of travel, which brings an incredible amount of impressions.

The resorts and islands of Thailand's East Coast, within easy reach of Bangkok, attract a diverse crowd of weekenders, adventure seekers and pampered tourists. There are good transport links, prices are usually more reasonable than in southern resorts, and if you are going to Cambodia by land, eastern beaches will provide an excellent opportunity to pamper yourself on the way there, before plunging into the more difficult conditions of the border territory.

Most White sand you will find on those islands that are located at some distance from the mainland; its 500-kilometer strip looks sadly gray. The hotels here cater more to groups of Thai tourists than to single foreigners admiring the skyline. In addition, the discovery of oil and natural gas deposits in coastal waters has turned the first 100 kilometers of coastline into an unsightly industrial area with landscape features such as oil refineries and warehouses, sometimes called the "Eastern Coast".

However, things are different away from the coast, and the islands' beaches are just as stunning as the famous ones. southern resorts. The first place to stop is a city 100 kilometers from Bangkok called Si Racha, from where you can get to small island Koh Si Chang. Its picturesque rugged shores and tranquil atmosphere make the island great place for relax. The complete opposite is (Pattaya), located just half an hour south.

A prime destination for package tours, visitors here are predominantly middle-aged Chinese and Western men lured by the resort's unconventional industry. They are not embarrassed by unattractive beaches. The situation improves when the coast turns east and reveals the island of Koh Samet. This is one of the most beautiful resorts in Thailand, which can be easily reached from Bangkok.

East of Ban Phe the landscape becomes more mountainous and the vegetation thicker as you approach Chanthaburi, the center of the gem trade and one of the two regional centers worth visiting. Another good island is Trat, located 68 kilometers along the highway. From here you can get to Koh Chang - a large, tourist-oriented island with excellent long beaches and wonderful hotels.

A cluster of smaller islands with less developed infrastructure forms (Koh Chang), where there are the beautiful islands of Koh Whai, Koh Mak and Koh Kood. Located east of Koh Chang, the Cambodian border post at Hat Lek is one of two main points in the area (the other being Aranyaprathet, slightly further north) where you can officially cross the Cambodian land border.

Highway 3 runs along almost the entire East Coast of Thailand, starting in Bangkok on Thanon Sukhumvit Street and known by the same name in the cities it cuts through. Hundreds of buses ply along the road, connecting all major settlements on the mainland. You can travel between the East Coast and the Northeast without having to return to the capital. Most direct flights to Isan depart from Pattaya, Rayong and .

There are two airports on the East Coast. On naval base U-Tapao, halfway between Pattaya and Rayong, has flights from Bangkok Airways to and Phuket. From an airport near Trat, Bangkok Airways flies to and from Koh Samui. Although Bangkok is connected by train to Si Racha and Pattaya, the line only carries a very slow train once a day. The train runs twice a day to Aranyaprathet near the Cambodian border.

Top attractions on the East Coast

1). (Koh Si Chang) – A small, exclusively tourist-inhabited island with rocky shores, stunning scenery and an attractive, relaxing atmosphere;

2). (Koh Samet) – Famous beautiful island fringed with dazzling white beaches;

3). Island/ (Trat) – Hospitable guesthouses and a characteristic old-world atmosphere make this island worth a visit;

4). (Koh Chang) – Go to “ Secluded beach”, if you are in the mood for entertainment, or for a more relaxed Hat Khlong Phrao;

5). Koh Mak(Koh Mak) – Beautiful Island with palm trees and a serene atmosphere on quiet white sand beaches;

6). Ko Kood(Koh Kood) - The largest island in the Koh Chang archipelago, the Island is famous for its pristine nature, unique flora and fauna.

In contact with

Well, we finally got to another continent. Thoughts of visiting America had been wandering in the minds of the family for a long time, but somehow there was no time. And the flight is long and getting visas is a whole story. In fact, this is probably why few of our compatriots visit the USA for tourism purposes. But in vain. Now I can say this with absolute confidence. As always in my stories, I will describe the places we visited, tell what impression they made on us and what conclusions we drew from what we saw.

I repeat, in my story I am expressing the purely subjective opinion of three people, I am not imposing anything on anyone and I am not going to argue. I am writing what we saw, what we had time for, and what we experienced along the way. So, the introduction is over, let's begin the story. Go.

Why USA?

And really, why? There are probably a number of reasons that can be pointed out here. Firstly on the last one New Year We successfully closed Europe. They closed it all completely, even if in some countries they didn’t see everything, of course, there isn’t enough human life to see everything and everywhere, but I want to see as much as possible. We have closed the main attractions of Europe.

Except for the UK for now. Not once on our trips did Foggy Albion come across our path; I think London is a matter of the near future, but for now we have no time for it. Secondly, America has always attracted our family with its structure.

We think this is how our homeland should have looked if there had not been so many sad events in it from the first half of the last century to this day. A country of absolute democracy, complete freedom, what is it like? We all read about it, watched it, heard about it, but few really imagined it. I wanted to understand why thousands of our compatriots try to leave every year, forgetting their homeland like a bad dream. What is the reason, what attracts this distant land? How does it differ from the same madly beloved Europe, after all? These are the questions we set out to find answers to.

I am writing this story during the trip, so perhaps I will add some things to the trip and change something. So don’t judge strictly, I write sincerely to the best of my ability.

Visas, tickets, car and route.

Since August 1, 2011, the rules for applying for an American visa have undergone a number of changes.

It’s difficult for me to judge whether it has become easier or more difficult; I haven’t submitted documents until now, but overall the current process did not seem very difficult. We go to the embassy’s website, look for the necessary link, and end up filling out form DS-160. The form is large, very tedious, with a lot of questions. Knowledge of the language in this case is not necessary, the pop-up menus are translated into Russian, filling everything out is not difficult, the main thing is to be patient. Your electronic photograph is also attached there and as a result we receive confirmation that our form has been sent to the embassy. You need to print this piece of paper and keep it with you. Next, we pay via VTB24 payment slip (in our case, 4,200 rubles per person), it can also be found through the embassy’s website. After that, on the same site we look for how to sign up for an interview. I’ll say right away that it didn’t work out for me through the website, I called the embassy (it took two days to get through) and in the end a nice girl signed us up for a certain date, inviting me to choose a convenient one for us. By the way, when filling out the DS-160 form, questions constantly appear, the purpose of which is to find out whether you have friends in the USA or not.

Since we actually don’t know anyone in the states well, I honestly wrote everywhere that no, I don’t know, and so on. It seemed to me that the presence of acquaintances does not guarantee the issuance of a visa, but rather, on the contrary, gives the consular officer an understanding that you have someone to stay in the USA, and they are unlikely to want to see an extra illegal immigrant there. In any case, at the interview the task is to show (one can say and prove) that you are under no circumstances going to violate US immigration laws and stay there to live. We took everything with us. Certificates for real estate, cars, the presence of a dependent grandmother who is a disabled person of the first group, certificates of business, etc. Looking ahead, I’ll say that nothing was useful. Considering that we do not live in Moscow, we went to the interview, scheduled for nine in the morning, with a reserve, spending the night in a hotel not far from the embassy. The consular section the next morning greeted us with a line of about a hundred people, which, however, quickly moved through the police cordon to the door of the embassy. Why is our policeman standing at the entrance... Oh, sorry, the policeman scans everyone’s passports, I still don’t understand. Yes, I completely forgot, you MUST take a 5x5 color photo with you for your visa.

The embassy's website writes about this in great detail, I thought the photos in the DS-160 were enough, and as a result we ran to the metro station to take photos. The Embassy does not provide such services. There are three security cordons at the entrance - lighters and phones are required to be confiscated. The search is like before boarding an airplane. I will not describe the procedure further; it is quite tedious and, in principle, beyond our control. I will only say that it is mandatory to take fingerprints of all fingers. We were with the consular officer for about three minutes. He greeted everyone, got to know each other, found out what we were doing and what we would do in the USA, didn’t ask for any papers, rummaged through the computer and approved the visas. By the way, what’s convenient is that you can get a visa for two years by paying an additional hundred dollars. That's what we did, we want to use them to the maximum.

Yes, and you don’t need to book hotels and plane tickets before receiving a visa. Availability of tickets is not a basis for issuing a visa, and in case of refusal there will be financial losses (in addition to those 4,200 rubles which are also not refundable regardless of the outcome of the interview). In general, when he said “Your visas have been approved,” it was very pleasant. Somehow I immediately felt that it was not in vain that we were going to Moscow and I spent two days filling out this stupid form of theirs and calling them.

Are there many refusals? It's hard to say. While we were waiting, some left with passports and sad faces, others more cheerful. I couldn't draw a conclusion. It seemed that they were refusing, and still to many. Of course, I could be wrong; in any case, I don’t consider myself exclusive with an American visa. Passports with visas arrived four days later by express mail. By the way, I didn’t have to pay any extra money for it.

From that moment on, we started booking and ordering everything, starting, of course, with air tickets. I won’t describe the selection process at length, I’ll just say that the direct flight seemed long and tedious, plus Aeroflot was a little expensive. As a result, a German Lufthansa flight was purchased via Frankfurt on the Main. Three hours to Frankfurt, one and a half hours at the airport and less than eight to NY but they flew by quickly and quite pleasantly. The food was good, the planes were new, the flight attendants were friendly. The only hotel I booked was in New York - the Crowne Plaza Hotel Times Square Manhattan - a solid four with a good view of Times Square from the fortieth floor in our case. I book the rest of the hotels as I go, since we did not strictly tie the route to cities and dates, we estimated it roughly. I also ordered a car from Avis as always. They gave me a Kia Sorento. The car is new and not bad. I took the navigator with me. Regular cheap Lexand with iGo, Navitel and Garmin maps. We use iGo cards - very convenient and understandable. An approximate route looks like this: New York - Niagara Falls - Atlanta - Miami - Orlando - Washington - Atlantic City - New York. I’ll write what comes out in the end. The flight took place on September 17th, return tickets on October 10th.

Yes, just in case, before departure I made myself an international license. So far, it’s true that no one has needed them, not even in the rental office, but let them be.

New York and everything connected with it.

I want to tell you a funny thing: jet lag at eight o'clock. We didn’t really sleep for more than a day, we arrived at JFK late in the evening, but we still didn’t want to sleep properly. Although I vaguely remember the road from the airport, perhaps simply because it was already dark.

Our hotel was located in the very center - it couldn’t be more central, exactly in the middle of Manhattan. Times Square certainly makes an impression, especially at night, especially when you see it for the first time. The number of glowing monitors and people around is so huge that in the first second you get lost and basically don’t understand where you are and what to do here. But it’s beautifully crazy, I personally have never seen anything like it in Europe. Perhaps in Tokyo or Singapore you can experience similar sensations, I don’t know, we haven’t been there yet.

So the first impression of New York was shocking. The hotel room is small, as I said, on the 40th floor it's quite high tower. There is no minibar. There is no free water. The prices are exorbitant. However, I still liked the hotel. First of all, of course, the location and the view from the windows. I think if you approach the search for a hotel with the care inherent in many, you can choose better and cheaper, probably, but to be honest, I completely dug into these hotels back in Lipetsk, so I pointed to the one that was a little cheaper than the others. Overall, I think it turned out okay. If we manage to stay in New York for a couple more days at the end of the trip, we’ll stay there.

Manhattan itself is designed incredibly simply, it has avenues - wide avenues along the island and streets - respectively, streets perpendicular to the avenues and there is Broadway, piercing the entire island from north to south. Avenues and streets are numbered. The streets are divided into western and eastern, depending on their location, respectively. Looking for an address is a pleasure. For example, 1605 Broadway - the number of the house on Broadway is immediately clear; to make it easier, they write - at the intersection with West 42nd. Now finding the right house is not a problem at all. By the way, this is how I described the address of our hotel.

The most convenient way to get around Manhattan is by taxi; many people use the subway, but we didn’t. Taxis are inexpensive and there are a lot of them. Does everyone remember films about New York? That's right, there are only yellow sedans on the streets, in principle it is very similar to the truth. Hail the car, sit down and give the address. It’s better to catch something fresh; the classic Ford Crown Victoria is clearly reaching its end and if you drive far enough in such a taxi it won’t be very comfortable. It’s really not possible to catch a Ford Escape optimally even once. There are a lot of police on the streets, they are everywhere, at almost every step, at most intersections, on all avenues and squares. The police really behave modestly, so to speak. They exist and they seem to be not there. If you behave decently, you don't violate public order- there aren’t any, I personally didn’t want to attract the attention of these guys with pistols. Apparently, no one wants to, so you can feel safe in the city center.

By the way, one more fact: in America it is forbidden to smoke indoors in principle. In hotels, bars, restaurants. It’s not even allowed on street areas. In New York specifically, there are very few smoking areas and you rarely see people smoking on the streets. Nevertheless, people smoke, the police do not pay much attention to it, formally there is a ban, but it has not been taken to the point of absurdity. I think in a couple more generations, Americans will all quit smoking, there will be a minimum number of young people who smoke, and they will look at smokers with outright pity, as if they were suicides. Driving in the city is terrible, the algorithm of traffic lights is very unique, as a result, pedestrians are not allowed to pass even when the pedestrian traffic light is on. The funny thing is that sometimes even the police don’t let you through.

Everyone, everywhere, honks at the slightest reason or without, no one gives way to anyone, everyone rushes ahead, and at the same time, traffic jams are only during rush hour in the evening after work, and even then they are not as deaf as in Moscow. By the way, during rush hour it is almost impossible to catch a taxi; the office plankon goes home and snatches the car from under your nose so skillfully that you don’t even want to swear at him. A taxi stops, drops off a passenger, three seconds later, and a clerk in a suit is already sitting in it, dictating where to go. You can stand to vote for quite a long time; at this moment the locals somehow migrate between the streets and catch cars in the gateways. At this moment, the local bombers - nimble kids in big Lincolns - start working. This is not difficult to catch, but it is expensive. They take you within Manhattan for 30 bucks - three times more expensive than a metered taxi.

Food is sold at every turn for every taste, mostly in mobile trailers with the local equivalent of shawarma. We took the risk of buying only water, kebabs or something that smells unappetizing and smokes wildly, but nevertheless it is very popular among the aborigines. In general, it’s not difficult to find where to eat in America, there are a huge number of establishments, and I’m now ready to argue with the all-Russian myth about tasteless American food. Yankee steaks can be cooked in a way that few people in Europe, except perhaps the Italians, can cook, and scrambled eggs and potatoes for breakfast, although simple, are nutritious.

Breakfast in hotels, by the way, is for an additional fee. We only had breakfast there on the day we left New York - a regular buffet for a lot of money. Once we had breakfast at Planet Hollywood in Times Square - the food is ordinary, but you can even go just for the interior, completely dedicated to the theme of Hollywood films. Among the restaurants, I would also mention Red Lobster at the intersection of Broadway and West 39th - in the evening you have to wait about half an hour to get a table, but the excellent menu of seafood delicacies is worth it, as well as Ben's between Sixth Avenue and West 32nd - good quality steaks and pickles, good local beer. Carefully monitor whether service is included in your bill (usually 15 - 20% of the bill amount); if not, the waiter himself will ask you for a tip; if you don’t give it, you will leave the guy (girl) without a salary. By the way, the service everywhere is friendly and very fast, the food is also prepared almost instantly, which, oddly enough, generally does not affect the quality.

Of course, to be honest, in three or four days it is impossible to see even ten percent of the sights of a city like New York. And I won’t tell you that it’s enough to go to the Statue of Liberty and climb to the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building and consider that you’ve seen New York. In such cities, everyone chooses for themselves what to see first and, of course, world-famous attractions immediately fall under the tourists’ sights. We were no exception and immediately went to the southern part of Manhattan, where, following the signs, we quite accidentally came across the Empire State Building. I can warn you right away - you shouldn’t buy tickets from sellers on the street, they offer a bunch of all sorts of unnecessary services, such as letting you skip the line, some kind of express tours, and so on. None of this is required. We stood in line at the official ticket office for a maximum of 15 minutes, and it took the same amount of time to go through the security system (everything is standard, phones, belts, bags, metal detector frame). Then follow the signs to the elevator, again there is a short queue to the 80th floor, a souvenir shop, an elevator to the 86th floor and you find yourself on a stunning platform for magnificent photographs of the New York skyline.

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Any self-respecting tourist should have a photo from this site, just like a photo from Eiffel Tower For example. For an additional fee, you can buy a ticket for another elevator, which will take you to the top, 102nd floor of the tower, but we didn’t go there; I read in reviews of other tourists that it is impossible to take pictures through the dirty glass of the 102nd floor. If anyone still wants to check, you are welcome, perhaps 15 dollars and not the amount worth saving in this case. On the 86th floor site it is windy and there are a lot of people. Those who love the film “Sleepless in Seattle” will also be interested in the site because the final events of this wonderful, kind and very romantic film develop on it.

There is a Madame Tussauds museum in Times Square, we went to it to compare it with the Amsterdam one we visited a few years ago. There are clearly more exhibits, they are placed more intelligently and with the typical American scale. In my opinion, it’s worth a visit; in any case, you’ll hardly be able to take a photo with Bill Clinton or Justin Timberlake, who doesn’t look much like you. Again there is a nice gift shop and a small photo workshop offering photoshopped photos of you and various characters like King Kong. We bought it for ourselves; there are obviously no other ones like it anywhere else. By the way, they take photographs everywhere, both in the Empire State Building and in Niagara, but more on that later.

I can say that just walking around the city gets boring pretty quickly; this is still not Rome with the Trevi fountains and the Coliseum, where every street is of historical value. You quickly get tired of looking at the skyscrapers, and it’s basically impossible to get around the island on foot, it’s too big. It is optimal to take a taxi, from point A to point B and so on, even if the distance is relatively short. Spend five bucks, save an hour of time and, most importantly, your own legs. I know what I’m talking about, the walk from Times Square to the boats going to the Statue of Liberty took a good three hours and cost everyone a lot of effort and nerves.

During the entire journey, perhaps the most interesting thing was, again, a randomly found place where the World Trade Center Towers used to stand. IN memorial Complex We didn’t get in - tickets must be ordered online a month in advance. The excitement around this place in America is crazy right now. On the site of the 5th and 7th buildings, new complexes are being erected and are almost completed. The speed of construction is impressive, the scale is also amazing. But this is typical for Americans, as we have already noticed - to amaze the imagination. It's no joke, the Empire State Building was built in, scary to think, one year and 45 days! It’s quite difficult for me, as a builder, to imagine this, however, it is so and it deserves respect for the project’s implementers.

We reached the boats to Liberty Island by two o'clock in the afternoon; the ticket office warned that from that time on we would not have time to visit Ellis Island, where the boats also go after the Statue of Liberty. To be honest, I didn’t even look at what was there on this island; the statue was important to us. Frankly speaking, it doesn’t give the impression of something incredible, but visiting New York without it is the same as visiting Paris without the Eiffel or Rome without the Coliseum. We didn’t buy tickets inside the pedestal; anyway, they’re not allowed into the crown now, maybe on other days, but on Sunday, when we were there, they weren’t allowed into the crown.

It’s worth visiting the island, if not for the statue, then for the magnificent view of Manhattan and Jersey that opens from it, and, of course, for the regular photographs. Although the panorama of New York is actually very, very beautiful from there. In general, the symbol itself American freedom in the person of this French statue is certainly important, because millions of people sailed, persecuted for some sins in their native countries, unfortunate, sailing for weeks in difficult conditions across the ocean, and the first thing they saw was her - with a torch, as a guarantee that that all their troubles will end here, on this earth, and even if sometimes this was not the case, it is still worth recognizing the importance of the Statue of Liberty in the establishment of America as a country of immigrants.

I am writing all these pretentious speeches only because I really can’t think of anything else about the statue; from the point of view of common sense, the Empire State Building personally impressed me both as an engineering and as an architectural structure.

I also noticed that there are a lot of squirrels in parks all over America and in New York in particular. They are everywhere where there is even the slightest patch of grass or tree. Squirrels are fat, arrogant, completely unafraid of people and ignore them. At the same time, squirrels are the only living creature we found on the streets of American cities. No yard dogs or cats were found.

Yes, I forgot to say, the queue for the statue can seem very long, it can stretch for a good five hundred to seven hundred meters. This is connected with the same notorious American security system, metal detectors and so on, but the line moves quickly and even though you still have to stand for about forty minutes, I think this fact should not confuse anyone much, Russian people are not accustomed to such lines, it seems to me. From what we wanted, but did not visit, I would note Central Park and the Museum of Modern Art (I really wanted to see “Campbell Soup Cans” by Andy Warhol. There is a chance that we will visit them at the end of our trip, since we planned to visit New York again three days before departure.

Among the stores I would like to mention SAKS on Fifth Avenue, but September is not best time for shopping. So we're leaving New York.

Niagara Falls. Waterfalls.

Avis in New York has a huge number of garages and my task was to find the closest one. He was found in the area of ​​West 54th Street. A nice woman of about sixty, without much emotion, registered a car that had been driven out of the parking lot by a young... excuse me, an African-American man. The Lexand navigator works and that’s all I can say about it for now. It really works so-so, looking ahead, I’ll say that the iGo maps turned off on the third day of the journey, while I was driving using Garmin maps.

The rather large Kia Sorento SUV turned out to be front-wheel drive, which in luxurious conditions American roads It’s not a problem, but it’s kind of a shame, I ordered all-wheel drive, it’s good to have an automatic transmission. We got out of New York easily and quickly; We headed to the north of the state - the city of Niagara Falls on the border with Canada.

By the way, we missed the point, if you get an American visa and have time, get a Canadian one, I think there will be fewer problems with it, but in Niagara you can see the waterfalls from the Canadian side, they say the view of them from there is more interesting. Unfortunately, we were unable to verify this.

Wide highways (Interstate) cross the length and breadth of America; highways are tolled, although as we understand, not in all states. The quality of the surface is approximately the same as in Europe, and just like the Europeans, the Americans are constantly expanding and modernizing their roads. It’s really sad to look at this, you understand that a lifetime will not be enough to see such roads in Russia.

The 600 kilometers to Niagara flew quickly and unnoticed. The speed limit on almost all interstates is 65 - 70 miles per hour, the entire traffic usually exceeds this speed by an average of 10 - 12 miles per hour, both cars and trucks. The police are not visible, but they are there; several times police were seen fining drivers along the road. You understand that America is a country on wheels as soon as you leave the city walls. Each convention is a festival for the stomach and three or four gas stations. Diesel gas stations, by the way, are rare, as are diesel passenger cars.

There are clearly more hotels along the road than there are people willing to spend the night in them. Along the highway, it’s true that typical American fast food such as McDonald’s, SubWay or Burger King predominates, and of course KFC, nicknamed Rostiks in Russia. If you want to eat normally, look for a cafe like Friday's - quite large network pleasant eateries, mainly found in New York State.

Niagara Falls is a small village, as it would be called in Russia. Moreover, the village is seasonal and the season at the waterfalls is clearly coming to an end. Restaurants and hotels are almost all closed, even in the huge shopping center there is not a soul. But at the waterfalls themselves, life is in full swing and guests who want to see it natural miracle very, very much. The hotel was ordered from New York - Sheraton at the Falls. Please note that there are two hotels with this name and one of them is in Canada. If you do not have a visa, you will not get into your room under any circumstances. The hotel on the American side is old, but the rooms are clean, large enough and much cheaper than in New York. The most important thing is walking distance to the park with waterfalls, and you’re unlikely to need anything else in this town.

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The waterfalls make an impression; there are no words for how beautiful the Niagara River is, bending around an island with a park on both sides, falling from a height of fifty meters. The stream rages and dances over the rocks, creating the impression of an incredible force of nature, capable of absorbing everything in its path.

It’s a very beautiful sight, but it’s even more interesting to watch how the Americans, with their inherent scale, stage a show from everything that is on their land. For money they will take you on a boat to the very heart big waterfall“Horseshoe”, where a flat-bottomed boat, filled to capacity with curious tourists in beautiful blue raincoats, will stand for about five minutes, allowing you to fully taste the charm of this beautiful wonder of the world; and they will let you run along the wooden flooring to the very beginning of the “Veil”, where you will get wet from a huge amount of splashes and at the same time wildly rejoice that you climbed to the very top platform, kindly called “Hurricane” for your vanity, where you definitely need to take a photo in yellow raincoat, raising his arms up in the pose of the conqueror of Niagara.

After that, in a souvenir shop you need to buy a diploma with the inscription “I survived at the most dangerous point of Niagara Falls”, write your name on it and hang it in your office at work, showing it to all your colleagues. Finally, you can have a burger and fries at a local eatery, where very nice provincial American women will be happy to offer their simple assortment of dishes. Use a hamburger bun to feed the impudent sparrows, who will beg all the time while you eat on the open veranda of the cafe.

The park on the American side is very large, you can even get tired of walking, but if you buy a special pass at the entrance, which includes access to all the attractions, it will include free travel on a bus that runs around the park, decorated in the style of vintage trams. By the way, there will almost certainly be a table at the hotel where you can purchase special tours of Niagara, which include a bunch of different excursions and so on. It's actually a scam. Everything that is indicated in the brochure can be visited either by purchasing a ticket locally (several times cheaper than the cost of the tour), or for free, simply by purchasing a tour, they will take you there on a large bus and let you explore.

The bus tram running around the park will take you almost everywhere you are offered to go on this tour, but it is much cheaper and without a strict time limit. So I definitely don’t recommend buying it. Judging by the helicopters plying back and forth, there are also helicopter excursions, but we, as not very extreme people, did not go for it. What's bad about Niagara at this time of year is the lack of open restaurants. At the time of our arrival, almost everything was closed; at least Friday’s was operating in the hotel.

But in general, one full day in Niagara is quite enough, as it seemed to us. We swam and went everywhere, again some of the park’s pavilions were not open that day, perhaps it was just a coincidence, or maybe they had already closed in preparation for winter. Nevertheless, I definitely recommend visiting the waterfalls, you will get a lot of positive emotions and from an aesthetic point of view it is worth enjoying the magnificent nature of this place.

Atlanta, Kentucky and Tennessee passing through.

The journey to Atlanta was a long one - one and a half thousand kilometers, so there was really no rush, booking a hotel in the capital of the state of Georgia, taking into account an overnight stay in the middle of the journey.

As a result, daily runs of about four hundred miles were not so tiring and allowed me to enjoy the surroundings to the fullest. The fact is that interstates have one bad feature - driving along them for a long time is boring. There is practically nothing along the highways, all rest areas are located at exits at a short distance from the noisy flow of cars and there is practically nothing to see. The same problem exists on the German Autobahns – it’s boring. On the road, we entertained ourselves with periodic stops for smoke breaks at various places along the road, with light snacks and occasional gas stations. We must give the car its due, fuel consumption is low and it quite confidently consumes the cheapest Regular gasoline with an octane rating of 87. By the way, the most expensive fuel at gas stations has an octane rating of 93, but I have never seen anyone refuel with it.

The principle of refueling is not the same as in Europe, but more similar to ours - first you go pay, then you refuel, although you only need to tell the cashier the pump number, you choose the type of fuel yourself when refueling, there is usually one gun, and three buttons. I have never seen diesel fuel at gas stations. It’s rare to come across gas stations with boys who pump the gas themselves and take your money. As I already said, it is wiser to move at the speed of the flow, not lagging behind or ahead of it.

Sometimes there are traffic jams on the highway, usually due to accidents or road workers (familiar, isn't it). The whole way to Atlanta we spent two hours stuck in traffic jams, although in principle it’s not very annoying, and you wouldn’t scare Muscovites with something like that at all. On the first day of the journey there were no special adventures, we drove all the way, the stop appeared in the Cincinnati area - it became dark, and it was quite late. There are no problems with hotels - this is what a real automobile power means, the only question is the level of the hotel and the amount of money you are willing to spend on it, in fact, its level depends on this.

We drove around the outskirts of the capital of Ohio for quite a long time, somehow we didn’t really want to stay in a primitive motel, and we accidentally came across a large and glowing Holiday INN in a town with a great name - Florence. Of course, I cannot call myself a perfect connoisseur of English, after all, despite many years of study, the lack of practice takes its toll, nevertheless, at the everyday level, I always communicated with everyone normally with mutual understanding and without asking again. In the state of Kentucky they speak anything but English. The girl at the reception and I patiently tried to understand each other for ten minutes, after which we spat and she silently handed over the keys to the room. To be honest, I still don’t understand what she wanted from me that evening, to sign or write something with a credit card, and what is unclear, the poor thing tried, but she couldn’t speak slowly and articulately at all. A similar problem arose with a waitress in a hotel restaurant; if we were able to choose dishes on the menu by reading their names, then side dishes, drinks, etc. were specified three times, and I got the impression that the girl was talking about food more for herself than for us, because This muttering under my breath could hardly be called communication, I shouldn’t have turned away at that moment. Although, in principle, everyone is really friendly and sincerely wants to be useful, but somehow in their own way, in a Kentucky way. A funny event took place in this restaurant that raised my self-esteem - when ordering beer, they asked me for an ID to check if I was 21 years old. Apparently at twenty-nine I look good, that’s what a healthy lifestyle means, Gym and proper nutrition.

The hotel is clean, quite new, there are smoking rooms, which in itself is a rarity in the USA lately, parking is free, although it does not seem to be guarded. We didn’t have breakfast in the morning, for some reason we don’t eat in hotels at all on this trip, or rather we eat extremely rarely, we’re probably tired of the buffet with bacon and orange juice. Long live scrambled eggs and fried potatoes and ham! In any roadside cafe to suit your taste, except McDonald's and Burger King.

That day we decided not to rush anywhere at all, so we drove along looking at the signs in search of something interesting. The sign with the inscription “The lost sea adventure” seemed curious, promising at least some kind of adventure. We boldly turn off the highway following the sign, drive ten miles and find ourselves in a parking lot near a fairly decent park with a picnic area and big amount Aboriginal people with children inside. The park itself wasn’t very interesting to us; that’s not why we went to the states to eat sandwiches on the grass. But in the depths there turned out to be the largest North America an underground lake; for a few dollars a guided tour is offered, which we successfully attended. A nice, strong girl in a Girl Scout costume led a group of two dozen assorted tourists, which included, in addition to holders of stars and stripes passports, our family and a family of never-failing and ever-smiling Japanese, just like us, who got into this adventure clearly by accident , deep into the large cave, in which walking paths were equipped, it was a little dark, but still interesting.

We wandered through the caves for about an hour - a tedious task, I must say. As a reward we received a couple of minutes of absolute darkness (the girl deliberately turned off the light in the cave), I want to note that the sensations were rather scary and not very pleasant, and a walk along the underground lake on a punt with an electric motor, in fact the lake is large and beautiful, there are a lot of fish in it, which are true there launched artificially, as our companion said. To be honest, knowing a little bit of Americans now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they manually refill this lake with pumps so that it doesn’t dry up, otherwise the state of Tennessee would lose one of their sources of income, but groups of tourists come regularly and I wouldn’t be surprised if these caves They bring it on purpose, and not just because we did it by accident. A visit to this hole in the mountain is not necessary, but if you take a route similar to ours, still take a look, I think many people will like this place, but it’s hardly worth going to it specifically, there are many more interesting places in America.

Such as the Georgia State Aquarium in Atlanta. The biggest trouble that happened on the way to Atlanta was that the navigator was very glitchy. The iGo maps stopped loading (it’s a pity, it was a pleasure to drive on them) there was no time to figure out the reason, so I turned on the Garmin ones that were uploaded there and off we went. Garmin maps are primitive, apparently they turned out to be some old ones, but thank God there are at least some of them. There is nothing to do in the states by car without a navigator, although in principle there is nothing to do in any country you don’t know without a navigator.

The location of the hotel in Atlanta is optimal for visiting the three main attractions, and I’ll tell you about them. Spending one day in the city didn’t allow me to see everything, but by the way, we liked the city, it’s much calmer than New York and at the same time it’s not even a remote province , everything is very cultural and civilized. We started with Georgia Aquarium - according to the description - the largest aquarium in the world. A stunning place, as always, everything is done monumentally, on a grand scale and with the goal of impressing. By far the most interesting pavilion is marine life - huge, it’s hard to even call it an aquarium, a huge glass pool or something, in which sea creatures of all sizes and types swim. The spectacle is mesmerizing, you can look at this beauty for a very long time, it is almost impossible to describe on paper everything that happens there, and it is almost impossible to convey the feelings that you experience when you see such animals.

Perhaps the photographs will give at least the slightest description close to the truth, but in general this, of course, must be seen. Of course, this aquarium is more interesting to visit with children, but adults will also find it incredibly interesting. There you can also watch a dolphin show for a fee, but we didn’t go to it because we were afraid there wouldn’t be enough time for everything. There are small open aquariums with stingrays and similar animals - you can touch them, but this is not for everyone. There are many animators on the territory, constant children's competitions, the kids have a lot of fun, alas, only those who know the language, and therefore only locals. There is a large and inexpensive canteen based on the self-service principle. Of course you can eat, but to be honest, the student canteen at MGSU, where I get my second higher education, the variety of dishes exceeds this establishment several times. So it’s better to look at the fish in the aquarium, entertain the kids if they are of the right age, and feel free to head to the World of Coca-Cola, located on the territory of the same park as the aquarium.

Orlando. Parks. Ocean. Sunny Florida.

Our path to Orlando lay primarily due to the presence around this settlement a huge number of different theme parks. Including the ones that most interested us were Universal Studios and Disney World (not to be confused with Californian Disneyland - I confused it, but these are completely different things).

Plus, I wanted to take a short break, for five days, to take a break from constant riding; after all, traveling every two days will tire anyone, and the only impressions left will be from the road and roadside eateries. Therefore, we approached the issue radically, on the advice of friends (about them separately at the end of the story) and with their help, on the website www.vacationrentals.com we rented a condominium (apartment or apartments, in other words) from a wonderful and very responsive Russian girl Irina (more like an accident , we weren’t specifically looking for a compatriot), whom we had never seen, but we communicated well on the phone and the Internet. I will describe the reservation and check-in process separately; the process is interesting and unusual for us. On the website described above, send a request for the property you like, indicating the length of stay and check-in/check-out dates. They answer you and tell you if there are any availability for these dates and how much it costs. If everything suits you, send the data credit card, in response you receive a contract, there are options for electronic signature, or you just print it, sign it and fax it back. After that, you receive a letter with instructions for check-in, which contains the code for the gate to the complex (if the area is closed), the lock code where the key is located (usually this is a small box near the door to the apartment) and that’s it. We arrived, walked in, found the apartment we needed, entered the code into the box, the key fell out, opened it, and you were on your way. To leave - the key was back in the drawer, the door slammed. The money was debited from the card, everyone is happy, everything is fine.

In my opinion, an excellent system that allows Irina not to travel from Miami to meet us 160 miles away, and for us not to depend on anyone and to arrive at a time that is convenient for us. By the way, the rental system on the coast is very well developed and I would not recommend checking into a hotel either in Orlando or Miami or anywhere on the coast. A small house or condo will be both cheaper and more comfortable than even the most luxurious hotel.

We settled in Orlando for five days, the goal was at least three parks: Universal Studios, Sea World and Disney World. Plus relax and decide on moving forward. It's a long drive to Miami and the worst thing is that it's in the opposite direction from Washington. And we should already be heading home, after all most of Your vacation will be behind you by the time you leave Orlando. Well, we’ll decide along the way, of course, as we always do. The apartment in the Vista Cay complex turned out to be truly luxurious, and Americans know how to create ambience. The territory is guarded, swimming pool, entrances with air conditioning.

The apartment itself - three bedrooms, a living room with a kitchen, a hall, two bathrooms for about 150 square meters - is an oligarch's dream. Furnished with taste and light luxury, everything is smart, everything is comfortable and in its place. Large kitchen, a lot of household appliances, TVs in all bedrooms and in the living room. Super easy. Upon closer inspection and after a couple of days of living, of course, you begin to find shortcomings, where would you be without them, for example, the doors are very simple in themselves and creak a lot, the ceilings, by the standards of even our Khrushchev-era apartments, are the same as in them, the sculpture of dolphins, instead of cast iron, turned out to be wooden , but this is already particular, of course. Beds a meter high are also very unusual and not very comfortable for Russian people. Although I’m definitely being picky now - an excellent apartment, exactly what we needed on this trip. So, again, I can recommend it to everyone, especially looking ahead, I will recommend Orlando to those who have small children, and if there are several children, then it’s a fairy tale.

They will remember a trip here for many years, although in this case it is better to go for at least a week, and then you are unlikely to have time to visit everything. I, too, in my story, will not go deep into the description of each attraction in each park that we visited, since in this case my story will last for two hundred pages, I will describe the impressions of each park and try to explain for which audience they were created mainly, as this again it seemed to us.

So Universal Studios was the first place we visited; it was about a 15-minute drive from our condo. Parking costs 12 dollars, it’s more convenient to drive your car onto the roof, it’s closer to the entrance. Ticket - about one hundred dollars per adult. In general, all the parks around Orlando have a high entrance fee, so if you are traveling with your family and specifically walking through the parks in the vicinity of this Florida town, it makes sense to purchase a Pass that gives you the right to multiple visits to several parks at once. Check the most profitable programs at the customer support desk of each park. The pass also gives you the right to visit all attractions without queuing, which sometimes saves quite a lot of time (for the most popular attractions the queue stretches for 30 - 40 minutes). In general, it's up to you anyway; all prices for standard admission tickets for adults range from $80 to $100. There are an incredible number of people in the parks; they come from all over America, which is not surprising, because in these huge entertainment complexes there really is a lot to see.

Universal Studios is a luxurious world of Hollywood films collected in themed attractions. The attractions themselves are different, but usually funny in their naivety, although if you look at it from the perspective of a Russian person, Americans laugh, get scared, and are delighted. Truly children at any age. Since from the moment you enter the park there is no additional cost to visit all the attractions, it certainly makes sense to visit all the shows the park has to offer. The only inconvenience is that some have to hand over large items (backpacks, bags, cameras) to a special storage room. Usually these are the ones where you will be spun around in some chair. Again, everything in the park is done on a grand scale and with typical American gigantomania. Of course, children will enjoy it much more than adults; for adults, the park will seem naive and toy-like (for example, openly puppet sharks in the attraction based on the famous film “Jaws”). Nevertheless, I definitely recommend it for visiting, simply because I have never seen anything like it in our homeland. Be sure to visit “Shrek 4D” - the feeling of spiders running along your legs can’t be compared with anything else.

In general, the park is wonderful, but in terms of the level of the attractions themselves, in a number of points it is inferior to another local attraction - Disney World Hollywood Studios. We will talk about it a little lower. The next park on our program was Sea World - I think the name speaks for itself. It seemed to us that the park is quite old and, accordingly, is no longer as popular as the same Universal Studios. There are enough visitors, but there is no rush, some of the attractions do not work for some reason. We have an aquarium with sharks, built according to the principles of the Georgia State Aquarium, however, it is inferior to the one described above in Atlanta both in size and in the number of exhibits. There is also a good pool with dolphins, judging by the photos you can swim with them, but no one did this with us; the mammals themselves do not pay much attention to visitors, living their dolphin life in the pool.

Among the interesting and memorable things, I’ll tell you about the simulation of a polar station - firstly, everything is done very realistically, and secondly, there is an opportunity to observe belugas, walruses and polar bears in conditions close to their real habitat. These magnificent animals, gracefully swimming past you behind the armored glass of the pool, will take your breath away. You can watch them endlessly and can only admire the wisdom of nature that created such majestic creatures. In addition to the station, I advise you to visit the penguins - the best penguin world I have ever seen. And a rich collection of these same waterfowl birds. From small to very large and some healthy brown ones covered with fur - this is the first time I’ve seen these, alas, I’m not very into penguins, but I looked at them with all my eyes with undisguised curiosity. The park has a large children's playground and a pizza buffet. I don't recommend visiting the cafe. Expensive and very little food. In general, I’m ready to partially take back my words on the topic of good food in the states.

After Atlanta, the number of establishments with normal cuisine began to sharply decrease and practically disappeared in the south of Florida. The basis of food on all interstates after New York is McDonald's and Burger King. True, something positive was also discovered - Red Lobster turned out to be a chain of restaurants all over America, albeit an extremely popular chain, but if you have a little patience, you can eat very tasty seafood in almost any state. In the south, fish is generally prepared quite well, even in America, the land of hamburgers in our minds. But I digressed from the main topic of this part of the trip, sorry. So, we continue to walk through the parks of Orlando.

The third on our conditional list was the Disney World park, which turned out to be a whole complex of various parks and entertainment venues with an area equal to Lipetsk region(relatively of course, but the scale is similar). To get around the whole world of the great Grandfather Disney, not even a week is enough, as it seems to me, here you need to take a guidebook, a map, money and live on the territory of the “world”, fortunately it also has plenty of hotels. We didn’t have such a large supply of free time, as a result, I moved towards the sign that appealed to me the most, logically calculating that for three adults, the youngest of whom will soon be thirty, Hollywood Studios would be somewhat more interesting than Magic Kingdom, at least based on the name.

I dare to believe that my intuition did not let me down, since this Entertainment Center left us with perhaps the most vivid impressions namely on the design and richness of the attractions, as well as their thoughtfulness and realism. In terms of receiving useful information and touches of history, much more impressions from the Kennedy Space Center, but more about that below, but for now Disney and its Hollywood Studios. Here I’ll probably focus on a couple of attractions that truly amazed me to the core. This is an excellent tour of Hollywood films, including mainly Disney ones - the essence of the tour is a slow ride on a special trolley through episodes of various films, scenery has been created inside each hall and the most interesting thing is robotic mannequins, so professionally and realistically made that if you don’t look closely, some can be mistaken for living people. Here you have Indiana Jones and Alien and the Greatest Wizard of Oz and the classic Hollywood Mary Poppins and several gangster films, I can’t remember them all. Everything is bright, spectacular, albeit a little naive, but at the same time incredibly beautiful.

I also really liked the attraction based on Star Wars, I’m generally a big fan of the entire saga, and even if it doesn’t last long, my presence inside it is incomparable to anything. The attraction, judging by the inscriptions, is open in the spring of this year, so we were lucky, its essence is as follows. They put you in a capsule that resembles a passenger space shuttle, fasten you with a seat belt like on an airplane, the lights go out and off you go. The feeling of presence is complete, I have never experienced anything like it, the shuttle, controlled by S3-PO (who knows, will understand), is doing something incredible, the screen on the entire front panel and 3D glasses create a complete visualization of the ongoing flight, and how the capsule moves in space , creating overloads, turns, braking, even a slight feeling of weightlessness when you fall from the orbit of Coruscant at the moment of the battle between the Republic clones and the Separatist droids, down to the foot of the planet's skyscrapers. WOW! Fantastic feeling! Thanks to the creators of this miracle of modern computer graphics and robotics. You can also go to a play that is a parody of Indiana Jones, but it is done quite naively, in places I would even say primitively. It’s worth going just to see a black man on a motorcycle in a German uniform for the only time in his life. The Negro is a true Aryan, this is so American.

The park, of course, produces a much more expensive enterprise than the same Universal Studios, the approach is clearly with soul and they do not spare money on the attractions. The downside is that there are very few places that sell water, given the heat of forty degrees, this is a big omission. We were generally lucky with the weather in Orlando, the rains all either passed us by or at night, and during the day the weather was magnificent, it could have been even ten degrees cooler, it was painfully difficult to wander around the parks in such heat, the only salvation was in the souvenir shops, but there Once you come in, there’s no way you can leave empty-handed. I recommend all three parks described above to be visited by everyone, without exception, especially if you have children, if they are small and you like such light adventures.

It’s easy to spend a day at the park, it’s not worth it anymore, there’s nothing to do there too much time, everything should be in moderation. For history buffs, those who know who Neil Armstrong is and why he is famous, everyone who watched the movie Apollo 13, who heard about the brilliant designer Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, who is interested in space and everything unknown, as well as fans of the wonderful TV series Star Trek ) I recommend visiting the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, which is only fifty miles from Orlando. We set off there on our last day in this city, in fact, we were already on our way to the ocean, to the coastal town of Siesta Key recommended by our friends, I’ll tell you about it a little later.

The cheapest entrance ticket we bought is about $30 and you find yourself in the world of American astronautics, the pride of NASA, where the era of space exploration began in parallel with our Plesetsk, where the famous shuttles, missions to the Moon and much more took off on their expeditions more. In the rocket park there is a real Saturn 5, which launched the ships of the Apollo program, the landing module of Armstrong and his expedition to the Moon, a full-size model of the shuttle and a flight simulation on it, two iMAX cinemas with magnificent 3D films about space, several interesting attractions, dedicated to my favorite Star Trek, the Enterprise's pilothouse, after all, from the set of the first season of The Original Series! Ten years ago, I would have sold my homeland for the opportunity to sit in Captain Kirk’s chair on the bridge of NCC 1701 A (here, few people will understand me, and whoever understands should die of envy). And soon the real shuttle Atlantis, decommissioned from flights after the closure of the program, should be transferred to the center’s museum!

This is an exhibit that is definitely worth seeing. In general, I went to Siesta Key with a complete feeling of absolute bliss and euphoria from touching the history of space exploration by mankind and thanks to NASA for this opportunity. I highly recommend it to everyone who cares. We certainly wanted to end our stay in Florida by the ocean, but the path to Miami seemed too long and in the opposite direction from our next destination - Washington, DC. In this connection, again following the advice of our New York friends, we decided to drop by for a day in the resort town of Siesta Key, located a hundred miles from Orlando. The experience of ordering apartments through the same website www.vacationrentals.com this time turned out to be extremely unsuccessful. Compared to Irina’s Orlando condo, it was quite dirty, very old and insanely expensive.

The only plus is the proximity to the ocean - the beach is a five-minute walk through the closed area of ​​the complex. By the way, in this regard, Siesta Key is very strange - all access to the beach is blocked by complexes stuck along the coast perpendicular to the beach in huge quantities and equipped with signs with all sorts of threats to those who illegally enter the territory. In fact, there is only one access to the beach in the city, but there is also a large free parking and showers, but there are no changing cabins at all. By the way, they don’t exist in Bulgaria either, maybe it’s so fashionable now and we’re behind the times, but it’s fundamentally inconvenient, especially for women, of course. The Atlantic Ocean at this time of year is warm and calm, the sand is white and not at all hot. The width of the beach is amazing - in wide places there is up to half a kilometer of sandy zone, even in the Maldives we have not seen this. There are very few people - apparently it’s not the season, although strangely, the weather is beautiful and the water is amazingly warm. Overall, the impression was that there were far fewer people on the beach than seagulls and pelicans, the real masters of the coast at this time of year. By the way, there are also a lot of fish along the shore, the water is very salty, but the waves were small and it was pleasant to swim. In any case, for us personally there was nothing very impressive on the coast, but there cannot be a consensus here, we are not fans at all beach holiday, perhaps the impression was not spoiled the most best place where we lived. The beach itself is beautiful, the sand is simply amazing, there are no words for it, and I think it’s very cool to relax on the coast, again with children, again when you want to sunbathe in the sun.

Siesta Key typical resort town, even the number of expensive convertibles meets global standards. In Miami, I think it’s much noisier, probably more fun, so everyone makes a choice for themselves, as well as the choice of whether it’s worth getting a visa and flying so far for a beach holiday. If you don’t like to travel, don’t like to explore the world, get new experiences, and prefer to lie quietly on the beach with a cocktail in hand, then you probably shouldn’t go to Florida. On the other hand, if you at least partially repeat our route or for some other reason end up in the states, I highly recommend that you visit the beaches of Florida and plunge into the Atlantic Ocean. So, goodbye Sunny State, our path lies to the north, most of the journey is behind us, the capital is ahead, a little bit of New York and, according to tradition, summing up my story on board a Lufthansa Boeing 747.

Washington. Columbia region.

And here I am again, behind the wheel of a Kia Sorento, for many days now, grinding the wheels on the magnificent asphalt of wide interstates to the music of real country music and rare comments from the iGo navigation system that has suddenly started working again. This time the system took us along surprisingly picturesque country roads. Of course, they can be called country roads very conditionally; there are at least four lanes in both directions, a real autobahn by Russian standards. But the scenery along the side of the road is much more picturesque; as we understand, it is forbidden to build anything on large highways, everything is at exits, but here you are welcome - on the right to the left are shops, gas stations, old motels, used car lots, whatever.

This is, you know, a real American province. Not as glossy as large cities like Atlanta, not as resort Orlando, but nevertheless very clean, well-groomed and very loved by its residents. It’s a paradox, in America there is also poverty, you can see it in poor houses along the highway, in simple and not very new cars, in provincial cafes with separate toilets, but this poverty is somehow, I don’t know, proud or something. You take it for granted, not as something negative and negative, no, they do not live this way out of despair, they are simply satisfied with this level and they do not see anything humiliating in it.

I noticed a lot of people drive quite old cars. Old, but in excellent condition. This car suits them and that’s enough, it’s serviced on time, it doesn’t fall apart while driving, and none of those around him point a finger at him - look how wrecked he is.

Poverty in America is radically different from poverty in Russia; our poverty borders on wretchedness, on misery, and this, in my opinion, is the worst thing. There is poverty in America, but there is no poverty, there is nothing that could disgrace both the country and those who live in it, at least we did not see it. We bought five pounds of real, fresh Florida oranges at a roadside stand and ate them all the way to Washington, almost 1,600 kilometers. And to spend the night, as on the way to Atlanta, we stopped in Florence, although that Florence was in the state of Kentucky, and this one is in North Carolina, I wouldn’t be surprised if Minisota or Ohio have their own Florences, for example, there are a lot of St. Petersburgs all over the country in our capital The sparkling lights of the Grand Hyatt were waiting, very conveniently located in the middle of all the main museums and attractions.

I will dwell on Washington in detail; it deserves it.

Well, where is the first place a tourist will go in Washington? Well, of course, look at the place of residence of the presidents of the state in which this moment located. The White House is currently surrounded by several rings of security, concrete block barricades and a large police presence. Access inside is completely closed, as far as I understand, and there are currently no excursions inside the White House; the tourist center that dealt with this was constantly closed during our stay in the US capital.

I suspect that there are special days for excursions, perhaps now you need to sign up for them, in any case, we limited ourselves to a few routine photos against the backdrop of the world-famous house with a semicircular colonnade and moved on. If you don’t want to visit stores, of which there are as many in the capital as anywhere else in the United States, then it makes sense to walk from the White House, passing the Washington Monument, towards the Capitol. Firstly, you also need to take a photo with the Capitol, after all, one of the symbols of American democracy, and secondly, along this peculiar alley there are the main museums of the city, entrance to which, by the way, is free, which after the crazy expensive parks of Orlando seemed the height of delicacy on the part of US authorities.

In general, in Washington, all museums are free and all are worth visiting, alas, again, this requires a huge amount of time. I will dwell on those we visited, first of all - the Museum of Natural History - a huge collection of dinosaur skeletons already deserves you to turn your attention to this museum, and having found inside several halls dedicated to the development of man and almost all large animals of the United States and creatures of the underwater world, a stuffed elephant , whale (I still haven’t figured out whether it’s actually stuffed or a polymer copy; if it’s a copy, it’s incredibly accurate). There's definitely something to see there.

Next, go to the Central Art Gallery, unfortunately, part of the exhibition was closed when we arrived, but in the souvenir shop you can buy cool posters - copies of paintings by famous artists, which we immediately did. Next, you should definitely go to the most visited Aerospace Museum, which houses the space suit of the First Cosmonaut of the planet, as well as a wonderful exhibition of aircraft of all times, from a model of the first glider of the Wright brothers, to the cockpit of a Boeing 747-100, various rockets and landing capsules of the Apollo project. different years. Large exhibition of aircraft from World Wars I and II (it’s a shame there isn’t a single Russian), a lot of stuff civil aviation Overall, this museum is a great addition to the Kennedy Space Center. What’s interesting, judging by the exhibition, the Americans recognize our common leadership with them in space exploration, one full-scale model of the famous Soyuz-Apollo docking is worth something and they have our rockets and, as I already said, the spacesuit (suit) in which Gagarin flew into space also, photographs by Korolev and von Braun.

In general, I even feel some kind of pride in my Motherland (for the first time during the trip). However, in what is dedicated to the Second World War, there is not a word about us at all in any of the paragraphs. Why do Americans fundamentally not want to recognize, if not the leading role of the USSR in the war, then at least its participation, otherwise it’s a shame for the country and for the veterans and for the millions of dead (this is where I became very patriotic). Of course this is not right, but we won’t change anything here. Although criticism is criticism, the museum is still amazing, a must visit.

And finally, the Museum of the American Indians is a very unique place, completely incomprehensible to our people, but it has a cafe with national cuisine(very good by the way) and already familiar to everyone tourist place in America there is a souvenir shop, which contains a variety of national goods that you are unlikely to buy anywhere else, considering that the museum is free - you can easily visit it for the store and cafe, I think it will be interesting.

There are still a lot of museums, as I wrote above, to visit them all requires many times more time than we had at our disposal. I briefly described where we were, what to see, after all, everyone decides for themselves, they say the Postal Museum is very interesting, for example, we simply didn’t have enough time for it, like the Lincoln Monument and the Library of Congress. So it makes sense to return to Washington once again. The city itself is amazing, it is like no other American city similar to Western Europe, and in essence it is just as calm, quiet and very inviting. Perhaps this is due to the small size and some kind of general culture of the capital’s residents, it’s difficult to say, but the city quickly attracts you and you begin to miss it at the mere thought that you will soon have to leave it.

And in Washington there are a lot of people involved in sports, namely running, everyone runs everywhere, from young to old, of any size, it seems like a very athletic city, I have never seen so much running anywhere in America. And again the squirrels, a lot of fat, smug squirrels and homeless people on benches along the streets in large quantities, also, by the way, a spectacle that has not been seen anywhere else. However, the fact that the city is metropolitan is felt, a couple of times there were motorcades, apparently delivering some important government officials somewhere, I won’t say who exactly, I just don’t know, but judging by the motorcades, cars of five, it’s unlikely lower than the vice President (correct me if I'm wrong).

What’s surprising is that such a number of institutions and structures within a relatively small urban settlement do not visually cause any inconvenience to the city’s residents; it seems that officials actually want to make the lives of citizens easier and cause as little inconvenience as possible with their presence (that’s surprising, is not it). You can also take a taxi to a very large shopping mall— Tysons Corner Center, it’s really a long drive, but all the brands are in one place and for almost any level of income, you just need to keep in mind that there is intensive road repair and construction of viaducts around Washington, as a result - a taxi can be quite expensive, it might be wise to go to car. However, we liked Washington, it was a nice breath of fresh air at the end of the trip before falling back into the web of crazy New York.

Hello again or I LOVE NY!

From the administrative capital to the financial capital (or maybe the capital of the World? Have you ever thought?) The distance, by the standards of what has already been traveled, is simply ridiculous - 220 miles. Surprisingly and incredibly, there were no places in the Crowne Plaza, which we were already familiar with from our first visit almost three weeks ago, so we couldn’t stay in Times Square again; we booked a room in the extremely bustling Hilton at the intersection of 5th Avenue and West 53rd.

After calm cities, which to some extent I would include Washington, not to mention Orlando and Siesta Key, New York was met with a huge traffic jam near the Lincoln Tunnel (and who came up with the idea of ​​running such large buses there, and in such numbers at that), in which Given the traffic jams at the entrance to the city, I had to wait for an hour and a half. It’s good that Russian ingenuity, driving experience in the capital (I mean Moscow) and a bit of arrogance inherent in the Russian people, allowed us to successfully bypass our neighbors in some places, although I must say there is quite a lot of rudeness in traffic jams in New York, mainly from bus drivers and taxi drivers . Finally, already on Fifth Avenue, I almost hit a gaping Yankee at a traffic light in the back of his Chrysler and with a light heart drove the car into the Avis garage, the total of the automobile part of the trip was 3605 miles (entry in the rental office receipt), they never checked my car and this time was no exception, I’ll give you another piece of advice - be sure to check “unlimited mileage” when ordering a car, because you are going to drive and drive a lot, so you don’t need additional payment for over-mileage, at least I ordered with unlimited mileage.

We’ve driven around Europe even more on vacation, but given that the road home is always quite long across the territory of our homeland, well, I personally like driving my own car more. Eh... If only there was a bridge or tunnel under Atlantic Ocean... Of course, that’s all dreams, but if only there was a bridge... We ended up driving a lot or a little, I can’t say enough for the first time, it’s a pity that Miami and Atlantic City fell out of the original plan, well, what are our years, we’ll want to come again.

But there was an opportunity to get to the Museum of Modern Art in New York - an impressive institution, I must say, the collection of paintings alone is worth it, or the halls with photographs where you can walk for hours. Yes, there are also exhibits that are frankly incomprehensible and alien to common sense, where would we be without them, but on the whole the exhibition is interesting and extremely educational, only I didn’t find Campbell’s Soup Cans there, perhaps I overlooked them, or maybe they weren’t there, although they should have been Perhaps I didn’t understand, but for consolation I looked at the portrait of Marilyn Monroe by the same Warhol. There is a lot of beautiful designer furniture, there is an excellent hall dedicated to architecture and design in construction, I appreciated it with a professional eye, everything is very worthy. The result of the visit is, as always, a souvenir shop with funny designer things and, of course, posters copying famous works of art.

By the way, during our stay, a very interesting parade took place in the city, I would even say a whole carnival. For several days, the entire Fifth Avenue was closed to traffic and people were walking along it, as far as we could understand, representatives of various communities of the city, all kinds of schools, municipalities, etc. The spectacle is fantastic, I have never seen so many people united in a single impulse.

It's nice to see that people can be so proud of the country they live in. The rest of the time in wonderful New York was spent on a little shopping and purchasing more souvenirs. On the last evening we walked around Times Square - fantastic, of course, although there could have been fewer people, and how can we explain to Americans that they shouldn’t walk in such a crowd with one-year-old children in strollers, it’s very dangerous, children can simply be crushed, plus in such crowds you can It’s easy to get lost, and unfortunately, walking is actually inconvenient.

And yet, Times Square is one of the most stunning places on earth that I have ever seen, and New York... I can’t even convey the storm of emotions that are boiling in me after visiting this city that delights in its splendor. I can only say that I put it on a par with my beloved Rome, the pearl of the Mediterranean. Yes, it is impossible to compare Rome and New York, just as it is difficult to draw parallels between America and Italy in general, but a new star has appeared on my personal pedestal of the best cities in the world, and although it did not shift Rome to the second level, it is difficult to defeat my love for Italy, but New York forced the capital to move slightly ancient civilization, for which I thank him very much, there is nothing better than learning new things, and especially such great new things. Well, Big Apple, we are leaving you, but something tells me that I will return here again, and maybe more than once.

God forbid, as they say, and God bless America, she deserves it.

A little bit of emotion and what we think about it in general.

So, what is America? Of course, this is a great country, perhaps the greatest on the planet, but first of all, it is a great people, citizens of the United States of America, taxpayers, those on whom the future of the state in which they all live fully depends. It’s difficult for me to judge America as a land of opportunity, about the realities of realizing the notorious “American Dream” or something similar, we were there as tourists, we didn’t intend to stay, we didn’t try to earn money, in other words, we didn’t try to live. I think, of course, there are difficulties there, perhaps not typical even for us, only those who live there can judge this, although during the entire trip and even before it, if I had to communicate with people whose friends or relatives live in the USA, I never from one person I did not hear a desire to return to their homeland, and if such cases occur, then this is rather the exception than the rule.

The main thing that catches your eye is the almost perfect cleanliness everywhere on the roads, clean roadsides, mowed lawns around. I already wrote, we drove through different Americas, both glamorous Manhattan and beautiful Niagara Falls and relatively provincial Atlanta, the same state of Kentucky or the Florida outback. The main feeling in any place is pride in one’s country, in the right to be called a Citizen of the United States of America. The number of flags is huge everywhere, they are placed in courtyards, hung on the balconies of houses, glued to cars, on license plates, people are thoroughly imbued with patriotism, they are incredibly cultured, very friendly and even though they really don’t care how I’m doing, looking at that When they ask this, you always want to answer.

I haven’t seen one simple and yet so important thing in Russia for a very long time - I haven’t seen people smiling. In general, nowhere, neither in cafes, nor on the streets, nor in cars, have we forgotten the main thing - to rejoice in the fact that we live, but the Americans do not, they, like children, rejoice at a plastic shark swimming out at them, which in our compatriots only causes a feeling of disgust and desire go away, close yourself inside your own little world and so that no one tries to get out of there. And tell me also that I’m wrong, a tourist (I emphasize, a tourist and precisely one who arrived on a voucher through a travel agency) from Russia can be seen a mile away in any country in the world and, alas, not from the best side. I don’t want to offend anyone, again, my personal opinion, although based on the facts I saw. Russian people do not feel free, unfortunately, and this is the main difference between us and them, and this is the trouble of our people and our country, and I think the main trouble, and from it comes the lack of infrastructure and so on...

Well, I digress. Did we like America? Of course yes, one hundred percent, and this vacation was perhaps one of the most interesting last years, definitely the most informative. I am happy that such countries exist and, God willing, there will only be more of them, I am glad that we have the opportunity to travel and explore the world, and definitely the best part of it. Would I personally like to live in America? A very difficult question. It was sad to fly away from there, on the other hand, having a two-year visa allows you to return there if you wish, if there was time and opportunity. Should I go there and live? At this stage it’s unlikely, there are still enough worries and work in the homeland and living here is, of course, more familiar and understandable for a Russian person. Although I certainly don’t blame people who move here.

Striving for the best is a completely natural human instinct. And why, after all, normal healthy patriotism, the desire to develop and develop our country was killed in us, it is not clear why and who needed it. And you can easily be proud of America, you go to any rest area (Rest Area) on any interstate, go to the toilet - and you are bursting with pride - I have not seen such cleanliness anywhere, except perhaps for Germany with its autobahns, but the Germans are a different story altogether. Clean, civilized, cola machines, sandwich machines and not a single person serving, of course there are cameras, the police sometimes pass by, but a huge number cars, nothing broken or stolen.

And now we switch to the newest Russian highway M-4 DON, which has been expanding with fanfare for several years now, even to two lanes in each direction, thanks for that, are there toll sections? Yes. How much are? Enough to make some citizens billionaires very quickly. What about the route infrastructure? This is also where the problem lies, which we are not yet able to solve. In general, I think that I came up with a theory that the State begins with a public toilet, this is the form of a public toilet, especially in a busy place and when it is free, this is the state of the state and the people living in it. So the disappointing conclusion arises for the umpteenth time, where are we still, and where are they already and how far are we from them? It’s an open question, I don’t think my life is enough. No, I’m not afraid for myself and for my parents either, we will live our centuries and perhaps even within this country, but for the future of my children, who have not yet been born, I am of course worried, because our homeland is also distinguished by its unpredictability, which is even more makes you think about going abroad, not necessarily to the states.

And one more, this time the last argument, how many Russians have left the country over the past five years? How many Americans came to live with us? Here is the answer to any question about what America is and what Russia is. Nevertheless, I urge you not to despair and not run headlong, but I urge you to sit down and think, go out into the street and try to smile, hold the door at the entrance to the store for the girl walking behind you, apologize when someone pushes you, stand in line and not squeeze through your heads everyone, and a lot more can be done. We need to start small, start with ourselves, think about why abroad you throw a bottle in the trash bin, but at home you throw it on the road, why you smile at a foreigner but come into conflict with a compatriot, don’t hide behind masks, don’t be outcasts, believe , dream, try to work in the end. And put a small tricolor in your organizer at work to remember that after all, we are a great nation, we live in a great country and only we must change something in it, that we can and simply must live no worse than people in developed countries, defeat servility in yourself and become better, more honest with yourself, with your country, with those who are nearby, there are many of us, we are able to change history, even if not right away, even if more than one generation will pass, but I dream that my children will bear your passport with the double-headed eagle with the same pride with which US citizens carry their stars and stripes. Otherwise, I'm afraid they, and I, too, are nearing retirement, we'll be raising the Stars and Stripes on our ranch in Ohio every morning and singing a different anthem in a different language, and if they ask me why, I'll answer that I did everything I could, but they left me no choice, I didn’t leave my Motherland, but she left me...

And at my work, I will put my native tricolor and the stars and stripes in my organizer so that I always know what to strive for. The plane is approaching, I’ll wrap it up, forgive me if the last part wasn’t very constructive, but it comes from the heart. I hope I was able to tell you enough about the East Coast of the USA that you would want to visit it; if my story is useful to someone, this is the main happiness for me. If we have enough time in winter and have the opportunity, in about three months I will write a similar story and West coast USA.

7 months before the trip

Every big idea starts with the words “What if...?”

One day at the beginning of 2012, on one of the cold February evenings, when you didn’t want to go outside, we gathered in a close group at the house of our friends. Over a glass of wine, we told each other stories, and once again I remembered how I went on a student program to the USA for 4 months. My enthusiastic stories inspired my husband and our friends, and I don’t remember who was the first to suggest:

“What if we go to America together?”

Hurray, we're going!

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We selected “cult” ones for the trip American cities, because they wanted to cover only the best in 15 days. So, our golden list included New York (the cradle of American civilization), Washington (the capital, it’s like coming to Russia and not seeing Moscow), Austin (at the suggestion of Misha, a music lover and great blues connoisseur. As it turned out later, It’s not for nothing that this city was included in our list), Los Angeles (Hollywood!), San Francisco (a disco-style city), Las Vegas (the city of sin, which had the highest expectations), Chicago (gangster chic).

Travel route

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For a company trip to be successful, every team member is important. We had to be with each other 24 hours a day, sleep in the same room, use the same toilet, decide where to go to eat, what to see. It is important that no everyday trifles disturb the harmony of relationships, otherwise the entire trip, no matter how exciting it may be, will be ruined. But we were lucky with our companions - we got along well and understood each other perfectly.

Meet the trip participants

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Yuri, 27 years old (Anna’s husband)

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Michail, 27 years old

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Svetlana, 25 years old (Mikhail’s wife)

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Preface to the main story, I want to emphasize that we did not have any special problems with obtaining visas. No additional documents were required, the whole procedure (interview) took no more than a minute.

Chapter 1. In which we discover the “sneaker rule”

For the thousandth time I look at the ticket printout: Domodedovo airport, 11.10 am, Transaero airline. My heart skips a beat - I’m returning to the USA, a country that I dream about so often! This trip would be much shorter, but, I was sure, much more exciting, since the guys had to discover America, and I myself had to see and learn more about it.

November 3, early morning. A full work week is behind us, which makes you feel tired and have a strong desire to sleep. The suitcase was packed on Thursday, the last check - did you take everything? Of course, they forgot something, and most importantly, they made a mistake with the suitcase itself. But more on that later.

Has our journey begun? I can’t even believe it – 7 months of waiting are behind us! How long we waited for this moment, with what impatience we counted down the last days and even hours (all avid travelers will certainly understand me)…

The last photograph taken on Russian soil. Waiting for flight UN-1111 sitting right on the floor

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The first photograph taken on American soil. We are greeted at Kennedy Airport by the Stars and Stripes

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We went through passport control in about 15 minutes: everything was fast, correct and polite. A feeling of relief immediately after the cherished Welcome to the United States! To be fair, it should be noted that a friend, who was on a flight 3 hours later than ours, stood in line at passport control for more than 2 hours.

14.00. The day is in full swing in New York. And New York itself, so far terra incognita for my companions and a city of vivid memories for me, persistently calls us.

Since there are four of us, we decide that taking a taxi to the hotel will be both more reasonable and not much more expensive than using public transport. In America, at airports there is a queue for taxis, led by a person specially trained for this purpose - a dispatcher. And we, obedient to his instructions, get into the cab that drives up to us.

By the way, we often had to use taxi services, but not once did we come across a taxi driver, let alone from Russia, or even from Eastern Europe. Ethnic composition: 80% Indian, 10% African American, 5% Arab and another 5% white.

Our ne ragged Yellow Cab

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In our first cab in America, the driver turned out to be Indian. He brought us to the address, but charged us exorbitantly - 90 bucks, explaining that because of Hurricane Sandy, the Brooklyn Tunnel was closed, and he had to take a detour. Perhaps he thought that we were rich Pinocchios, since he brought us to the hotel The Bowery Hotel- the most stylish hotel in New York, which looks something like this:

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Then the thought occurred to me that rooms in such a luxurious hotel could not cost 2,000 rubles for two. But it appeared and somehow immediately disappeared, dissolving in that mixture of euphoria (from the fact that we are finally in the USA and we have such a cool hotel!) and panic (from the fact that we forgot to print out the bookings and there was no one at the hotel reception can find my reservation).

The lack of paper bookings, however, turned out to be not the biggest problem - we were armed with modern technologies in the form of tablets, laptops and smartphones, and Wi-Fi in the USA is not only in almost every hotel, but even on buses and planes. Showing our booking on the tablet screen, the girl at the reception smiled and noticed that this was not their hotel. The hotel we need is across the street.

But across the road there just happened to be a hotel, or rather a hostel, the rooms of which could easily cost 2,000 rubles for two. Remember this name - Bowery's WhiteHouse Hostel.

Judging by the photos on the booking, it seems that this hostel is quite nice. In this case, I will tell you: do not believe your eyes!

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However, in fact, unlike its pompous neighbor Bowery Hotel, the Bowery Hostel is inconspicuous and unprepossessing: old rickety glass doors, a room tiled like in Soviet sanatoriums, unfriendly staff and a bunch of restrictions like “don’t drink in the corridors” and “after 10 don’t make any noise.” This very thing “in the corridors” and the cash deposit should have alerted us, but we were too tired after the flight to adequately analyze the situation.

Since we arrived ahead of time, check-in was delayed by an hour. Thank God there was at least Wi-Fi in this hole. Then each of us considered it our duty to check in to the FourSquare app and get points for a new place before everyone else, and I did not fail to take advantage of the opportunity to check in at the hotel opposite. As it turned out through tips that users can leave about a particular place, Lindsay Lohan recently visited this five-star hotel. It was naive to think that for 2000 rubles we could have gotten a hotel room where Lindsay herself had been, and Rihanna too :)

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Well, our hostel could confidently claim the title of the worst hostel of all time. It’s clear that you shouldn’t expect the luxury of its five-star namesake, but what I saw there was something I’d never seen anywhere else, and I’ve stayed in hostels in Europe and Asia.

Let's start with the fact that the numbers there represent both appearance, and on the interior decoration of a stall in a public toilet. Imagine that the rooms are separated from each other by thin plywood partitions, over which there is no ceiling. Out of shock, we couldn’t even take a photo of it, so I’m attaching a photo from Booking.com (although it doesn’t convey all the sensations of what we saw)

When we entered one of the cabins in which we were to spend the night, even the steely male nerves could not stand it. First - silence, and then a choice Russian curse.

Our cabin

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Guys' cabin

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After the Bowery Hostel, sneakers became a household name for the worst thing that could happen. All the other places we lived didn’t seem so terrible. Someone's forgotten sneakers instantly turned us into undemanding Spartans, enjoying the simple blessings of civilization - clean sheets, a separate shower and a normal ceiling above our heads.

Needless to say, we immediately went down to the reception, took a deposit for the night and went out into the arms of a city unfamiliar to us.

Chapter 2. In which we learn about the consequences of Hurricane Sandy

Our first, quite reasonable impulse was to try to rent a room at the nearby Bowery Hotel, but the prices there turned out to be simply 2 times higher than the maximum amount that we were willing to pay.

16.00, no place to stay for the night. But, thank God, the Internet today replaces thousands of calls and personal requests. While searching the Internet, we find our first catering establishment - Italian restaurant, which, on the occasion of Saturday, was crowded with large noisy companies.

Without any further questions they let us in along with our suitcases. This is what a country of emigrants means!

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Our first meal of delicious thin pizza turned out to be quite successful. The search for accommodation for the night was also successful. Due to Hurricane Sandy, whose devastating impact also affected tourism, the hotel Holiday Inn Soho has reduced prices by 2 times - one night for four for only 6,000 rubles! Compared to the damned “sneaker”, these were Queen Elizabeth’s apartments :)

Before leaving the Bowery forever and moving to Chinatown, I’ll tell you a little about the area that we had to leave due to housing problems.

Bowery is both a street and a neighborhood located in midtown Manhattan. Outwardly, it is an unremarkable place, which at first even frightened us a little with its urban aggressiveness.

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But, despite its nondescript nature, the Bowery is still of some interest to those who are interested in the history of cities. The Bowery is the first thoroughfare, which arose in the 17th century as a road from New Amsterdam to the farm (n. bouwerij) of Governor Stuyvesant.(information from Wikipedia)

This area, as well as Soho in general, was home to the creative elite and the aesthetically pleasing wealthy bourgeoisie...

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But during the Great Depression, “prosperous” houses had to make room under the pressure of rooming houses. Now it’s clear why a wretched hostel could, on completely legitimate historical grounds, coexist with a luxurious five-star hotel!

However, Bowery, good bye. Nihao, Chinatown!

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Praise be to the Internet and built-in jeeps that show how and how long the journey will take! It turned out to be no more than 15 minutes to walk at a leisurely pace to our new place for the night. Along the way, we finally got to know New York a little.

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The cliche “city of contrasts” can often be heard in the same sentence with the Big Apple. But the first hours of our acquaintance coincided not with the splendor and eternal holiday of Times Square, but with the negativity of the poor streets.

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We saw a bunch of garbage bags along the roads, beggars begging for alms, some half-crazed old people.

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I don’t want to say that we specifically looked for any shortcomings and noticed exclusively negative aspects, trying to prove that “for them” not everything is as rosy as they show in the life-polishing films and TV series produced by Hollywood.

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It just so happened that our journey began not with iconic landmarks or beautiful avenues licked for tourists with luxurious boutiques and expensive cars, but with ordinary New York streets, along which ordinary New Yorkers go about their business.

This comrade, although he walks around Times Square, clearly belongs to the “proletariat”. Perhaps this is the future Brad Pitt, who started his career in much the same way :)

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New York is similar to any other metropolis in the world, but at the same time it has those unique features that set it apart from others and make it unmistakably recognizable. multifaceted and unequal to itself.

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I don’t know why, but looking at them, I was reminded of my favorite childhood movie, “Ghostbusters.”

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The famous yellow taxis, into which heroes of various films and TV series literally jump on the go, trying to catch a love date or running away from being chased...

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Distribution of humanitarian aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy.

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By the way, there were no obvious consequences of the hurricane, which, let me remind you, swept over the East Coast just a few days before our arrival - no fallen trees, broken storefronts, or mangled cars. Maybe all this happened, but the Americans somehow quickly cleaned up after the raging Sandy. And even the metro, flooded with salt water, was restored as quickly as possible...

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Holiday Inn exceeded all our expectations: soft beds with feather beds cooler than those of the Princess and the Pea. A dazzlingly clean bathroom, fluffy towels that are comfortable to wipe your most intimate places with. After the “sneaker”, even the view from the window on the wall did not particularly bother us, but seemed to be a completely natural element of the urban landscape.

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Chapter 3. Work like all New Yorkers

Tired after a tiring flight, we were unable to carry out the planned forced march to the sights. Having overcome ourselves, we nevertheless decided to take a little walk around Times Square in order to decorate our first day in the States with at least one bright and beautiful experience.

Next to the hotel there is the Canal Street metro station, where we went down. I will say right away that it is difficult for newcomers to navigate the New York subway, so it is better to travel around the city, especially over short distances, by taxi. If you have time to figure out the difference between routes A, B and C, which can all move simultaneously along the same color line, then feel free to go underground.

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I remember that when I first found myself in New York back in 2005, I was scared on the subway because of the abundance of blacks and simply poor people around, and I clutched to my chest an expensive mp3 player with 124 MB of memory at that time. In 2012 I was no longer afraid of anything.

But an unexpected obstacle on our way turned out to be the same ubiquitous Hurricane Sandy, or rather, its consequences. The tunnel was flooded and we had to switch to another metro line.

A vivid impression was the scene that took place in a subway car on the way to Times Square. Some young girl turned to passengers asking for help. In appearance, she was not a beggar, but she asked for alms, explaining that she had small children in her arms and had nothing to feed them. The crisis, and she, like many Americans, lost her job.

At first I listened to this with interest. But then I, as, apparently, other passengers, began to be irritated by her pathetic speech that flowed in a continuous stream. Finally, someone couldn’t stand it anymore and told her: “Go work like all the other New Yorkers and stop complaining.” I think that Americans, just like us, dislike those who are accustomed to living at the expense of others or at the expense of the state, finding thousands of reasons not to fight for their well-being.

Chapter 4. This crazy, crazy, crazy world

We go out to Times Square. It’s already dark outside, which, however, works to our advantage. During the day the square does not look so impressive.

5

2

For some reason, I associate Times Square with the New Year, people kissing and hugging, and a machine-gun line of opening champagne bottles

East Coast of the United States of America(Also East Coast or Eastern Seaside; English East Coast; English Eastern Seaboard) - historical and geographical region of the United States, coverage. eastern states bordering the Atlantic Ocean, from the Canadian border in the north to the Florida Peninsula in the south. The lowlands along the shores of the ocean and its many bays and river estuaries gradually narrow when moving north. The region is bordered to the west by the Appalachian Mountains.

Story

This area, especially the state of Virginia, is the cradle of American culture in its modern Anglo-Saxon sense. The northern half of this area, where the first 13 colonies emerged after gaining independence from Great Britain in 1783, most often constitutes the East Coast proper. For clarification, the term Northeastern states of the USA is used, which includes New England. The southern half of this region, populated and developed already in our time (19th-20th centuries), can be classified as both the South of the USA (Florida) and the Southeast of Georgia, the Carolinas). Some time before this, unsuccessful attempts to colonize this territory were made by Spain and France.

Cities

Major cities on the east coast: Boston, Portland, Providence, Hartford, New York, Newark, Buffalo, Albany, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Richmond, Norfolk, Raleigh, Charlotte, Columbia, Charleston, Atlanta, Savannah, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa and Miami. The population of this area, stretching from Maine to Florida, is approximately 111,508,688 people. according to condition as of 2008 (approximately 36% of the country's total population). The coast also suffers from tropical storms during the annual Atlantic hurricane season (June 1 to November 30).

Source: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_coast_USA