Aug 19 2017

The US adventure(part 9): getting my feet wet in the Atlantic Ocean

Category: Miscellaneous — Iuliana @ 20:29

So that was my birthday, now gone and the John Mayer concert too. Gone were the wishes of happiness and success and all the best the world has to offer. While driving back to Washington, they all seemed so far in the past that was scary. Time perception is a weird thing.

Before heading off the Washington, I went to Atlantic City, because honestly I just could not stand the feeling of knowing I was so close to the ocean and not getting my feet wet in it. Atlantic City is not that interesting in itself, a lot of hotels, casinos and other tourist attractions. But the beach was awesome and the sand felt silky under my feet. So yeah, I just drove 62 miles just to stay with my feet in the ocean water for 30 minutes.

After that I just jumped in the car amnd made one stop in resting place along the highway, where I put some gas and got some food.

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Aug 18 2017

The US adventure(part 8): and now what?

Category: Miscellaneous — Iuliana @ 20:11

After my personal phone died for good, I had to find a solution. Just so you understand, my personal phone was an HTC Mini One 2 and it was the first smartphone I bought for myself, in the summer of 2014 before moving to Sibiu. So, there were some feelings involved. I took extra care of it for a while, but as it happens with humans, they lose interest after a while. It has some nasty falls, but overall it was looking well, the battery was still working fine, needed recharging every 2 days or so, the camera was nice, although it was difficult to take good photos if you did not have enough light. In the summer of 2016 I started playing volleyball with the kids of the house owner and forgot about the phone in my pocket. And it fell again and for the first time, the screen cracked. Not much, I was still able to use it, but it looked bad. So I considered buying a new phone, but then again, I had the company phone which was in pristine shape, why would I bother? I mean, the personal phone, is just so my relatives can find me. It can do that job with a cracked screen as well, right? I also used that phone as an e-book reader, but now I have the iPad, so again, why bother buying a new phone, right? I mean, it would be a waste of money in this context…

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Aug 17 2017

The US adventure(part 7): the long walk along the pier

Category: Miscellaneous — Iuliana @ 7:26

In my second entry about my US vacation I mentioned buying an iPad, the same one I’ve been posting blog entries for a while now. I also learned how to use the iCloud so the pictures made with the iPhone are accessible from the iPad and now I     can also post a few pictures here and there. It is funny how a few years ago I considered the iPad to be a useless, expensive toy.

When I reached Philadelphia, the first step was to park the car. I only found a place at the last level, the eleventh. The second step was to drop my troller at the hotel. According to Google Maps, the hotel was 1 minute away. Well, it was, sort of. When I turned the corner and saw the entrance I panicked. The hotel door looked old and above it there was a pavilion that looked also very old and was shattered as if a bear scratched it. I reluctantly entered and there was a notice:”Office at level two”. Phuck!, I must have said that out loud looking at the 23kg troller. I started up the stairs. Everything looked very old and poorly maintained, the walls, the furniture, the carpet on the stairs. And the space was very small as well, cozy. I finally managed to reach level two and met the owner. She was cleaning the rooms. I left her the troller and started my way around the town. I visited the “America Philosofical Society Museum” waiting for the tour of the Independence Hall, where the US constitution and Declaration of Independence were drafted. Philadelphia is one of the oldest cities in the US, and for a while it was the capital of the US. Actually Abraham Lincoln was the president of US, while Philadelphia was capital, he died before Washington DC became capital. I did the historical tour, seeing the Liberty Bell and Thomas Jefferson’s house. Then I stopped a little at the “Red Owl” for a cheese steak and a beer. As the car was stuck in the parking lot for the next two days, I could finally drink a beer”. Then I headed over to the Pier where I photographed some ships and a building that looks like a ship but it is actually a block with flats. And it has a parking as well. I was looking at it and wondered, how is the life of somebody living there.

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Aug 16 2017

The US adventure(part 6): perfect day

Category: Miscellaneous — Iuliana @ 4:59

When I was about to start my vacation, I had a few days when I felt like crying. I was so panicked about the unknown, about being one ocean away from any person I know and care about. I was scared that if something happened to me, nobody would know and maybe the US officials would not even have an idea who to call. Fuck, I wouldn’t know who to call in case I would be involved in an accident for example. It’s a scary thought, to realise you are all alone in the world. Sure I do have some friends who would gladly take that call probably, but it seems unfair to burden them with the obligation of being considered family.

I decided to do this, to go for a vacation so far away from anybody I know as a test for me, for my ability of dealing with loneliness. The first night here, when I was driving to an unknown destination, in an unfamiliar car, at night, through heavy rain was terrifying. I was so happy to finally at the hotel, that in that moment I had the feeling I could deal with anything this country will throw at me. Including my own feelings, this was going to be a vacation of relaxation, introspection and personal growth.

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Aug 15 2017

The US adventure(part 5): the Baltimore wetland

Category: Miscellaneous — Iuliana @ 4:57

The last entry ended with me leaving Washington in a hurry towards Baltimore. I arrived in Baltimore at 9 in the morning. I found a parking lot close to the hotel and proceeded to leave my car there until 9:00PM – 18$.
I left my bags at the hotel and proceeded to visit the city. The hotel was creepy. All three stars hotels here were creepy to me, because three stars in Europe means something else. But I got used to them. Sometimes they seem dirty, but if the towels and the sheets are clean, add in free WiFi and I’m ok. The most common search criterion I used on Google in this vacation is: “what to do in [town]”. For Baltimore there were quite a few options, but there seemed to be one itsy-bitsy-tiny-winy problem: the rain.

But that was not going to stop me. I had my white raincoat with me, the same immaculate one that was made fun of at Wacken. When it wasn’t raining, I put the jacket in the backpack, but because there were other things in it, the jacket was actually just placed horizontally and fixed with the backpack cap. This was leaving the sides of the jacket out, and more than one person, smiled at me and told me the jacket looked like angel wings.

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Aug 14 2017

The US adventure(part 4):little woman, big city, chaos ensues

Category: Miscellaneous — Iuliana @ 5:32

In the morning of 14th of August, I packet everything and left Vienna behind. The next city to visit was Washington. I planned to hang around the great capitol for 2 days, but sometimes things do not go as planned. The initial plan was to park the car somewhere in the centre of Washington, visit all I could, then go to sleep in Silver Spring, a Washington suburb and repeat the next day, before leaving to Baltimore. Like I said, it definitely did not go as planned.

I entered Washington and got scared when I noticed there was no parking where Google said there would be one. And I sort of drifted in traffic looking like crazy for a place where I could stop the car for a moment so I could check the GPS and choose a destination. And because there was a lot of traffic, I ended up moving around the center of Washington for quite a while, so you could say I saw a lot of it. In the end I found a place where I was able to stop for 5 minutes and by then I was so panicked that I just set the Silver Spring hotel as a destination and left in that direction. It took me about 45 minutes to get there and 30 minutes I drove on street called 16th(apparently somebody low on creativity when naming some streets in Washington). This street was weird like hell, most of it was full of churches. I kid you not, I was actually playing a game, saying “Dang” every time I noticed a building that was not a church. A lot of the churches were Protestant and Reformed, but I also saw a Scientology church.

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Aug 13 2017

The US adventure(part 3):”Looking for Summer” concert

Category: Miscellaneous — Iuliana @ 5:13

Here it is, the day of the concert. This is the concert I bought the thicket by mistake for, the ticket bought at 3:00 am in the morning that started my US adventure.

I had to fill my day with something and as Vienna is quite poor in places to kill time I chose to go to a wetland national park, the Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. As I am a big lover of nature and isolation, this turned out to be a great decision, as the park was mostly empty of human beings and I had the nature all to myself. The water lilies were no longer blooming, but there were other plants and insects just as interesting. I walked between the Deephole Point and Taylors Point, and took small breaks to admire small beaches and butterflies. And of course I got bitten by some bloody insect and have some itchy sports on my right shoulder. But oh well, I will bear it all for the love of nature.

US might have its flaws, but from what I’ve seen seems to take nature and protecting it very seriously.

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