Thanksgiving in New Jersey

Thanksgiving: we've all heard of it here in Europe, even though we don't celebrate it. So Benoit and I were more than excited when Kurt organized  for us to celebrate this holiday with his friend and her family  in the countryside of New Jersey, about an hour and a half from New York. The contrast with the city couldn't have been bigger; sloping hills and gorgeous wooden houses that  made me feel like I was walking around in an American holiday movie. Thanksgiving is all about coming together with family and friends, staying in, watching (American) football and eating lots of Turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin and pecan pie...oh and let's not forget about pitching horseshoes! Something I proved to be quite skilled at;-)

Dad in charge of smoked turkey

 Mum in charge of roast turkey

Kurt in charge of eating it all

Happy Thanksgiving!

New York (Part I)

Final stop... And what better place than ending these  amazing seven months in the mother of all cities: New York! For the last time, we were extremely lucky to find an incredible host in Benoit's ex-colleague and friend, Kurt, who let us stay in his Manhattan apartment for eight entire days and told us about the best bagel and pizza places around:-) This is the first part of a whole bunch of NYC pictures, enjoy!

The next president....(Washington D.C.)

Four days in Washington: the capital that apart from being the political heart of the US has also become the creative and entrepreneurial heart after Obama came into office in 2008. I am not making this up; several American travel magazines I read during this trip are warmly recommending a visit to this city that has shifted from being cold and political to modern, vibrant and young in only four years time. While I haven't been to D.C. before, I totally agree on that atmosphere. The city is super clean, cozy, easy to get around and has lovely neighborhoods, such as historic Georgetown where you'll find the nicest houses, coffee places and shops that remind me a little bit of London. 

Of course, there are all the monuments and memorials that take an entire day to photograph but there also hundreds of (huge) museums that are all free to enter so even on a rainy day, there's absolutely no need to be bored in Washington! After we flashed our biggest smiles in front of the White House, I better understood this joke that circulated on the net right after the elections: 

Q: Why is Ann Romney so happy her husband didn't become the new US president? 

A: Because she didn't feel like moving into a smaller house. 

I expected one of the most powerful men on earth to live in a gigantic mansion but we've seen bigger ones when driving through Texas! 

We couch surfed with a couple of journalists (how very appropriate for D.C.) and promised them to take care of their two cats when they would be away for a wedding at the weekend. So for two entire days we had our own house, cooked our own meals and cleaned out Rudy and Catstein's litter boxes. Getting accustomed to sedentic life again!

And the next president of the US is... French!

Everglades and Blue Springs

In the southern most part of Florida, about one hour south of Miami, you can find the Everglades National Park. It's a vast wetland that covers more than 1.5 million acres. It's most know for its population of alligators which was also the reason we wanted to go there. At the information center we were told that it wasn't the best time for visiting because it had rained too much and the alligators would be swimming around instead of lazing in the sun. I am not quite sure if they were aware that plenty of them were just sitting along side the road and that some very stupid tourists (including us) got pretty close to get some nice shots. One of the gators started running after Benoit and Larry (our CS host with the awesome apartment in Miami) which almost gave me a heart attack. Luckily they weren't too far from the car and the croc wasn't a fast runner either.

The three last pictures aren't taken in the Everglades but in Blue Springs, Orlando. We went there to spot manatees, an animal we had no idea of how it could look like. I googled it before going and found out that it's called 'zeekoe' in Dutch and 'lamantin' in French. Whenever the ocean is cooling down, these mammals swim inland and hibernate in little springs. In Blue Springs, they had counted 240 the day we visited and it was the most unusual sight ever. Manatees are quite big and move super slow without making any noise which makes them hard to detect at first, also because they don't come up to breathe very often. But once you see them they're just fascinating and you don't want to take your eyes off of them!