One way_English: julio 2011

It's been a lot of days since we last posted. We could apologize, but we won't. Instead, we're going to tell you what we.ve been doing.

This will not be a normal post because for the first time we won't write about one place: we'll mix a little of everything that's been going on during the whole week.

First NYC 2.0. The last thing we told you was that we had just moved to a slightly shitty place. Well, now that some days have passed and we can put it in perspective, we've decided to change our opinion: it was not slightly lame, it was one of the shitties hostels we've ever been to.

Why is it so shitty? You'll wonder. Well, we could start with the kitchen, whose size was that of a wardrobe and which was taken by THE INHABITANTS, those beings that populated the hostel and thet worked at it in exchange of a bed to sleep in instead of a salary. They behaved as if they were at home since they actually were and they made the rest of us feel like instruders who could not sit in the few existing spots because they were already reserved for them.

Let.s continue with the bathrooms. Are you familiar with the feeling that if you touch the wall or curtain while showering you'll end up with three arms? that you'll get out of the shower dirtier than you got in? that the mold on the curtains is so developped it says hello when you get into the shower? Well, hen you're familiar with these kind of bathrooms.

Note to family and friends: no gene mutations had taken place so far not until the camping episode, at leats, but that's a different story).

To continue with our NYC happiness, we look up on the internet chep places to go out at night and we found these place where you could sign up via email for a one-hour long open bar so we did. At night we dressed up a little and took the subway, but in the place where the bar should be there was a building of condos. Nothing else to say.

However, we found a relly cool place to go out to redeem the value of the subway tickets (really, what's wrong with them? $2 for a one-way ticket? come on!). Its was full of cheap bars and eateries and most of them had a really long happy hour that could last until 2am. It was 2nd Av from St Mark's St down and St Mar's St between 3rd and 4th Av. There was this Irish pub where we had some beers (not from a free open bar, but ind of cheap too) and talked to the bouncer at the door, who, surprisingly, was Irish.

And speaking about recommendations, we have one more even though it doen't have much to do with this: you have to try Sam's Falafel, a food stand right next to Wall St and Trinity Church, in a square full of food stands. The falafel is so good and not expensive at all (all the other stands were empty, but this one had a bunch of newyorkers in suits waiting in a line for an to give them their falafel).

We discovered something in NYC: at Subway, the food place, there's always a monthly special for $5 and two people can eat with that sub cause is quite big. Eating individual small subs is much more expensive and the size is the same (the big one is two times a small one).

Talking about different things, while we were in NYC gay marriage was legalized, so New York State is the sixth state to legalize it in the US.

We tried to go to the pride parade, but it was Boston's parade while we were in NYC and New York City's while we were in Boston, our next stop.

Let's talk about Boston, then. It was a nice surprise for us, eve though we had bittersweet feelings at first.

On the one hand it was raining so bad and the sidewalks in Boston are very messy, they're full of puddles and we felt as if we were trying to cross the Charles River. However, we had to stop twice to ask for directions and both times, the Bostonians stopped under the rain for as long as necessary to take out their iphones and look up in the map how to get to the place we were asking for.

The hostel (Hostelling International) was more or less downtown and acceptable. Just two bad things about it: th wifi did not exist and only worked during our last night and we did not get beds in the same room because "there were no coed dorms", but both our dorms were coed.

Boston, even if it doesn't have an essential monument to visit, is a very pleasant city (and everywhere is withing walking distance, which makes it easy to get from one place to another).

Curious fact: it has a trail which cover all the main points of the city. It's called "Freedom Trail" and doesn't require a map, as a double row of red bricks guide you through the city making you feel like Dorothy following the yellow brick road throught the city where the American revolition started.

Essential stop: Quincy Market, an old market (part of the Freedom Trail) now full of food places where you can buy food from every corner of the world and take it upstairs to the second level to eat in one of the many little tables. Prices are quite good and you can find from lobster to pizza, Asian food or tex-mex. Besides, if you walk through the little street where the McDonald's is (rught in the corner with Quincy Market) you can find lots of bars with really cheap pints (between $2 and $3).

Culinary recommendation: Mike's Patry, an Italian place in the main street of the North End (the Bostonian Little Italy). You'll probably start seeing people carrying boxes from Mike's Pastry as soon as you get to Boston and you'll see the huge line outside the store (don't worry, it moves quickly) with lots and lots of people thinking what cannoly to order, because they have literaly all kinds.

We also walked around Harvard and the MIT, where, by the way, we tried to find Noam Chomsky's office, We didn' succeed, but instead we found the MIT Quidditch Team, which not only celebrates Hary Potter trivia and gives prizes to the house with most points, but also has weekly Quidditch training. To all of you who don't know, the MIT stands out for having most of the US' (and the world's) scientific and technological geniuses (the inventor of the Campbell's soup, among them). And we insist, ganiuses playing Quidditch, a sport for which you need flying brooms and alive balls.

In Havard we wanted to meet the expectations and the intellectual level, so we spend a while playing cards in the comfy green grass while flipping out about the dorms, schools and libraries.

Next day, the 28th, was a milestone in our trip. we met Chuso and from then on we've always been together. Chuso, short for Massachuso, is a white Hyundai Accent whose name comes from the place his plate was created. He his a little conceited and asthmatic (he suffocates when running uphill), but he is just right for this trip, as his plate says "The Spirit of America" and he has a huge trunk in which everything fits.

We left Boston to go to Salem, the place of the big whitch hunt, but when we got to park the car we were already so disappointed that we decided to leave and go straight to Galway, where Nuria's American family waited for us (and saying family is not too much, sices, as usual, they treated us as if we were their actual children).

We changed the plan and, instead of staying just one night and leaving the next day to New England, decided to stay three days enjoying the family life in the countryside. And we could not be happies that we changed our plans. There are not enought thanks in the world to thank them for how they have treated us and we just hope they visit Spain soon so that we can do the same.

Culinary suggestions: Raindancer, Barb's typical American breakfast, Rod's steak and white gravy, absolutely EVERYTHING that comes out of the back yard (well, everything but the garden snaked that chased us) and probably everything they had prepared if we had stayed longer.

W take this opportunity to wish a nice trip to Barb (who is moving to Colorado right now), to tell Joy that we can send her the recipe for salmorejo if she wants us to and to tell Becca and Rod and we'd like to get photos of the new horse.

The stories about our first campings and about us crossing the border for the first time will be in the next post. We stop here to walk around Quebec city for the very first time.