The East Coast!!

Hello!!

It has been about two weeks since we last wrote and since then we have been to Washington D.C, New New York, Boston, Connecticut, and Maine. I'm warning you all now, this is going to be a long one! I'll split it up into cities, that way if you read it and want to come (if you dare) you can easily find your place. Here goes!

WASHINGTON D.C

We got into Fairfax, Virginia on thursday night, which is right across the river from D.C. We were pretty tired that night from all the driving, so we decided to treat ourselves to some take out thai food as we knew we had a long day of walking and sightseeing ahead of us. In the morning we headed out for the Metro around 8:30 and made it into the city. We grabbed a couple of breakfast sandwiches and started our day of exploring. We first went to the Lincoln Memorial. I knew it was going to be big, but I didn't realize HOW big. Walking up the stairs, I couldn't help but think of the hundreds of movies that were filmed on the steps looking out to the Washington Monument. After the Lincoln we went straight to the Vietnam Memorial. At first sight, it doesn't actually look like much, it's not huge like the Lincoln Memorial and there aren't crazy statues like the Korean Memorial but as you get closer and start reading the names on the wall and seeing how many names there actually are you start to understand the magnitude of the memorial. The Korean Memorial was next and I really liked this one. In the middle of the memorial, there were about 12 large statues of soldiers. Surrounding the statues, there is a large black reflective wall that had faces engraved on it. Looking at it is kind of eerie and we were told that at night it's actually pretty creepy because everything is dark except the statues are lit up. Next we went to the WWII memorial. This was my favorite. It's hard to describe but it basically had huge pillars, each representing one state with stone wreaths placed on top with a big fountain in the middle. The Washington Monument was directly in front of the memorial across the grass, so it just gave it a pretty powerful feel. We lingered there for a little while and then made our way to the Washington Monument to snap some pictures. It was already super hot at this point so we figure it would be a good time for a museum. We got our tickets for the Holocaust Museum, the one museum I was most eager to go in, and then headed to American History Museum. I had no idea how enormous these museums were. We had about an hour and half to get back to the Holocaust Museum and we didn't even get through half the history museum. It was really cool through and had so many exhibits I can't even remember half of them. Finally, we headed back to the Holocaust museum. The first thing you do when you enter is pick up a passport id. This I.D tells the story of a real person who experienced life during the Holocaust. At the end of each page, it tells you when to read the next page. At the end of the museum, it tells whether your person survived the Holocaust or not. I have never been so moved by a museum, it did not hide anything. It took you through the war, from the rise of Hitler to the end of the war, showing and explaining both sides. It was hard for me not to get teary, especially when it came to the children's section. The museum just made everything feel very personal. After two and a half hours we were super hungry and tired. We got some sandwiches at a place called Potbellys and then made our way back to the History museum to finish up. My favorite part was the First Lady section because it showed all e their inauguration gowns. By this time, we had been walking around in the heat for about 8 hours so we called it a day.

The next day we headed back into the city and met up with Natalia, Conner's friend's girlfriend. She was amazing and took charge to show us the rest of the city. We went to the Air and Space museum and watched a cool IMAX movie about the Hubble telescope. After that, we made our way to the capital and took some pictures. For lunch we got indian food and brought it to the Sculpture Gardens. This was really pretty and a good rest. We felt like we saw what we needed to see in D.C so Natalia and her friend Manny took us to Georgetown. It was super pretty and cute, but as Natalia said, super stuck up and rich. However, that didn't take away from the experience. She took us to a really cool spot that overlooked the river. We sat for a while and then headed through the town until it was time for dinner. Con and I had reservations at The Palm (thank you Steve!!) so we had to get ready for that and by getting ready, I mean changing in the car in front of the restaurant. We probably could have been a bit more dressed up but once we got our food, we didn't care anymore. It was amazing AND we got to pick any dessert on the menu on the house :) After dinner, we met up with Natalia and went out. It was really fun because we hadn't really been able to go out much on our trip. I got to see my friend Abby, who I studied with in Spain so that was really exciting. Around 2:00 am, we were beat. We have been used to just going to bed when it got dark when we were camping so 2 am was LATE for us. We got home around 3:30am and crashed. The next day, we were so tired, we decided to stay an extra nice just so we could lay in bed, eat and watch tv all day. Natalia, if you are reading this, thank you so much, you are amazing!!

NEW YORK CITY

On our way to NYC, we stopped in Philadelphia. Can anyone guess why??? Philly Cheese Steaks, obviously. Once again, we found the winner of food wars and headed straight to Pat's. They are actually the original cheese steak so it was pretty cool. We were planning on each getting our own, but we didn't have enough cash. This worked out well because we were full after just splitting one. I had never had a philly cheese, so I can't really compare, but it was pretty good. A couple hours later we were driving into NYC. We knew it was going to be an expensive couple days when we had already paid $15 in tolls and hadn't even been IN the city yet. We were in disbelief on how huge these buildings were. I felt like a little ant. We were staying at Rose's apartment, a friend of Conner's from home, so we had to find our way to her work to get the house key. So our first experience in the city? Driving. By the time we got to Rose's work, poor Conner was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. I ran up to get the key while he circled around. When I got back he told me he understands why people are so angry in the city because he feels it rising in him. People just honk at you for no reason. Its craziness. We got to Rose's and just hung out until she was done with work. She lives in the East Village in Manhattan, a really cool section of the city. For dinner, she took us to an AMAZING Italian restaurant, which fulfilled 1 of the four "must eat things" when we were in NY. After dinner, we headed to a bar, where my friend from high school met us. I told Conner at the beginning of our trip that I was bound to see someone from my hometown, somewhere. Well, first night in NY I saw 4 people, only one of which was intentional. One person tapped me on the shoulder the ask for directions on the corner of a random street, it was a surprise when I turned around. The next morning, we woke up and headed to an awesome little New York cafe. We filled up because we knew we were going to walking around a lot. We started our journey to Lower Manhattan, which was 50 blocks in the extreme heat. We found ourselves on Wall Street which was really crazy. As Conner put it, this is where it all happens. We saw the New York Stock Exchange which was flooded with tourists outside taking pictures. We finally got down to the water and hopped onto the Staten Island Ferry. This was really cool because it was free and it took us right around the Statue of Liberty. We got to Staten Island and just got off and right back on the ferry. By this time, we were hungry and hot and knew exactly what we wanted for lunch. Number 2 on our list was a NY hot dog. We went to Grays Papaya and got the recession special. Two hot dogs and a drink for 3 bucks. Pretty much the best hot dog I've had. We needed to be in the shade for a while so we layed down in Washington Square for a little bit. I was so hot I finally had to just go back to the apartment to cool off. We rested for a bit and then met Rose for Thai food (number 3 on our list). For those of you from Chico, this place is as good, if not better that Chada Thai. So so so good. After dinner, she took us to the oldest bar in New York. When you walk in, the guy just puts you at a random table with other random people, a good way to meet people if you're by yourself. There are only two kinds of beer here, dark or light. So all you do is ask for a dark or a light. Pretty simple and really good. We were tired after that so we headed back and fell asleep pretty early. In the morning, we packed up and headed to Connecticut. We stayed with my friend Cheryl and her family and they were more than hospitable. Caminiti's if you are reading this, you are amazing and so generous and we love you. It was amazing to see Cheryl after TWO years.

BOSTON

If Cheryl's family didn't already do enough, Cheryl's brother Brian, who I have never met, housed us in Boston which we are so grateful for. WE LOVE BOSTON. I had been to Boston twice before but I didn't actually remember too much about it. We stayed in the North End, which is basically the Italian part of Boston. It is so beautiful and cute, we both just fell in love with it. Everything is super close together so you don't get the feeling that you are in a big city. The first thing we did when we got there was grab a drink. We walked into a bar/restaurant and found out that they actually weren't even open yet, and their opening night was a couple days later. They offered to make us any drink we wanted because we were their first costumers. After a glass of sangria, we were ready for some good Italian food in Little Italy. Apparently our food was taking a long time (though we didn’t notice) so they brought us a plate of calamari for free and at the end they gave us, and the whole restaurant a complimentary piece of tiramisu…yum! We were super full after dinner so we walked along the water. It was so beautiful and I fell even more in love with the city. The next morning, we walked across the bridge to the USS Constitution. We took a tour of the ship which was really interesting and then headed hopped on the T (Boston’s metro) to Cambridge. The one thing I remembered from the last time I was here was Mr. Bartley’s, which is known for it’s burgers. The line was out the door and there was an old man sitting on a stool, who I think is Mr. Bartley, taking orders. Our burger and sweet potato fries were awesome. We also went to the brewery and sampled some beers, we are just spoiled with Sierra Nevada. We walked around Harvard, we tried to find an empty classroom so we could feel like we went there, but we failed. We couldn’t even get the elevators to work…Chico didn’t prepare us enough for Harvard. After Cambridge, we went back to the apartment and hung out until dinner time. This is where number 4 on our food list in NY came in, and I am very happy it happened in Boston. We went to Regina Pizzaria, which got 4.5 stars on 700 reviews. I have been to Italy, eaten real Italian pizza and this was the best pizza I have ever had hands down. That was the perfect end to our few days in Boston.

MAINE

Our first stop in Maine was the Clam Shack, which was voted the best lobster roll in Maine. First lobster roll, and lobster for that matter, and it was delicious. We drove through Kennebunkport, a beautiful town on the water and looked at the houses. I instantly decided that this was my top 3 favorite places we have been and we hadn’t even gotten to our destination yet. The whole drive to Acadia National Park was beautiful. The park is located on Mount Dessert but we thought the whole island was the park. The boundaries are actually just kind of sporadic through out the island which makes the people who live here the luckiest people in the world. This is one of the most beautiful places I have seen, the coastline is awesome with houses whose backyards is the ocean. Pretty much every house I saw I told Conner I wanted to live in. We got to our campsite at night and just had some soup and went to bed. We woke up around 5:00 am so we could go to the beach and watch the sunrise. We missed it by a few minutes but it was still gorgeous. It was still too early to go to breakfast so we headed down to Bar Harbor and walked along the water. We talked to a local fisherman for a while and he told us where to go to breakfast. Jordan’s was an awesome little diner with super good food and nice people. I’m not sure if it’s all of Maine or just where we were, but I had no idea that they were so known for their blueberries. Everywhere we went had blueberries whether they were blueberry pancakes or blueberry martinis. Our plan for the day was to rent bikes and go around the island but we changed our minds once we saw we could rent kayaks. We headed out to Barlett’s landing to launch our tandem kayak. It was absolutely beautiful out, super calm and sunny. We found a really cool secret beach and hung out there for a long time. We kept paddling around Bartlett Island and then found a little island in the middle of the water. We park our boat and ate some lunch on “our” island. I decided we should buy the little island one day and build a hut. I just can’t reiterate how gorgeous this whole place is. It kind of reminded me of a giant Tahoe but even more beautiful if you can imagine. After about 6 hours of paddling we figured we should head in. We made it just in time because the wind was really picking up at the end so we definitely got a good work out. That night we headed back into Bar Harbor for dinner. We went to West Side Café known for their lobster of course. I loved Maine so much that I told my parents they should buy a house there.

Music lovers, now is when you get jealous. Last night we went to The Allman Brothers Band Live at the Beacon Theater in NY. This was pretty much Conner’s dream come true. The Allman bros were amazing alone but to make the show even greater they brought out Natalie Cole, Crosby and Nash, Phil Lesh and Billy Gibbons. The show lasted nearly 4 hours!

Hope some of you got through this blog! If not, thank for attempting!

Love,
Katie and Conner