I'm Home

Hi everyone, just a quick post to let you all know that I have arrived home safely. Both flights were a bit bumpy but then there is a lot of weird weather in the Atlantic at the moment and changing planes in Reykjavik early this morning was a bit inconvenient but that's life.

Thank you all for reading my blog, it has been really nice to hear from some of you while I have been away and I am glad that you have enjoyed it. I will definitely do this again when I go away as it appears to be a good way to keep in touch.  

In the meantime I'm going to grapple with jet lag and leave you with a couple of night time pics from DC.

15 Things I've Learnt While I've Been Away

1) Even after 8 weeks of traffic on the other side of the road, I'm still looking the wrong way when I try to cross.

2) The Germans don't do cards - Germany is still a very cash based society, if you offer a card to pay for a restaurant bill you are met with tuts and groans.

3) The Swedes don't do cash - Sweden is racing to be the first cashless society. Several places I went in, in Stockholm were card only and refused cash. When I went to church, there were little cards to put in the collection plate indicating that you were donating by bank transfer.

4) Iceland is good value - Iceland is eye-wateringly expensive but compared with Sweden and the USA is very good value. You get what you pay for and yes you pay a lot but what you get - from tours, to goods, to food is generally good quality. Why am I comparing Iceland with the USA? - see next comment.

5) The USA is currently feeling expensive. Not only because of the poor exchange rate but because there is no austerity there. While Europe has had austerity the US has had inflation. 

6) Canadians smile a lot, in particular they beam from ear to ear when they tell you they're not American.

7) Americans have one big gripe with Europeans and it's a big one, I have lost count of the number times they have moaned about it not only in America but also those I met in Europe - We have a statutory 4 weeks holiday and many employers offer 5. In the US it's 2 weeks and that's it. When you point out it's up to their government to obtain this benefit for them, they get even more upset.

8) Airport security staff can't comprehend the fact that after having asked you to remove your belt and put it through the x-ray machine, if they then ask you to raise your arms in the full body scanner your trousers fall down - what do they think we wear belts for? Fortunately it is fashionable these days to wear your trousers half way down your bum so for once in my life I'm trendy.

9) America is not as free as it likes to make out. It lectures us all about freedom including free speech. In reality, at home criticism is only taken up to a point, too much criticism is branded unpatriotic and lets face it there is quite a bit of criticism at the moment!

10) The Germans, however, cherish freedom and this is main reason why running around on the beach naked is so widespread and so important. In the days of the old East Germany you were only truly free when you were naked.

11) The Canadian's have rounding and it may come to Britain. The penny (1 cent coin) has been withdrawn because it cost more than 1 cent to make (in the UK the 1p and 2p coins both cost more to produce than their value.) Everything is priced as normal, if you pay by card you pay the exact amount. If you pay by cash the total is rounded up or down to the nearest 5 cents.

12) When you tell an American that you can't understand what all the fuss is, about healthcare, and surely it is the responsibility of any civilised government to keep its people healthy, they just change the subject. I have come to the conclusion the Americans don't get it either.

13) New Yorkers are friendly - New York like many big cities has a reputation for grumpy citizens but everyone I met there was really friendly.

14) The best guides are those who have to deal with difficult subjects - slavery and 9/11 are two very powerful examples.

15) I never knew hurricanes moved so slowly - I've had to track both Irma and Maria because of the possible impact on the Charleston part of the trip - they take weeks to get anywhere.

USA - What's Inside

Well folks, it's the last full day of my trip and lets face it, like any holiday, the money has pretty much run out. Therefore it's free tour time and there are two particularly good ones here in DC. We have all seen the Capitol building outside but what does the inside of that big white dome look like? Well here you are!

Wow those two pictures sort of line up - that was not intentional believe me!

Each state is permitted two statues in the Capitol and they are also allowed to change them if someone else who is more important comes along. There are major historical figuresfrom US history who I've never heard of but equally Americans of world importance like Thomas Edison who is depicted holding a lightbulb. Congress itself also provides statues of Americans who are of greater meaning to the US that is applicable to just one state such as Rosa Parks

Then across the road you can get a free tour of the Library of Congress which is a copyright library and operates a bit like the British Library in London. Another stunning building.

USA - Winding Down

9.5 Hours by train (and it was 3 hours late!) brought me to Washington DC. I'm winding down a bit now, partly because I have been here before so no list of sights to tick off and partly because it's hot - 31 degrees and almost no wind. My hotel is just behind the Capitol Building (where I have a tour booked for tomorrow) so I have just spent the day wandering around the "National Mall" which is the large park like area in the centre of the city.

The US Capitol

Washington Monument

Washington is a very low rise city because  no building is allowed to be taller than the monument. The city was also a purpose built capital, so has wide avenues, grand government buildings and wide open spaces. It also has a very modern metro system - note DC has a metro not a subway, as the capital it has to be cosmopolitan! Washington is one of my favourite cities and the Lincoln memorial is one of my favourite things to see in the world. It is so big!



Lincoln Memorial

View Down the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial

The President says Hi

Martin Luther King Memorial

USA - "Sold down the river"

The river in the saying "Sold down the river" is the Mississippi but the saying generally refers to the sale and movement of slaves from northern Southern States like Virginia to those further south. As with everything even for slaves there were good places to be and places you dreaded being sent to. Life in the tobacco plantations of Virginia was hard but with a more temperate climate etc was better than the rice and cotton plantations further south. Therefore if you were on the tobacco plantations and repeatedly misbehaved or tried to escape being "sold down the river" was an effective punishment.

The United States prohibited the import of slaves from Africa in 1807 but slavery continued until 1865. In the intervening period there was a domestic slave trade and today I have been to the Old Slave Mart in Charleston where they were bought and sold.  The very nice and knowledgeable lady at the welcome desk, did, however, make a point of saying "This museum is part of your history as well you know."

When we think of slavery we usually think of people toiling on sugar or cotton plantations, outside in the open but here in Charleston as with many southern cities there was also urban slavery. The gentry ran their houses in exactly the same way as their counterparts in Britain so they needed butlers, footman, parlour maids, cooks, scullery maids etc etc - the difference here was that instead of employing someone, you bought them.  There were therefore people that owned hundreds of slaves but others that only had one or two. This afternoon I went to the Aiken-Rhett House which had a typical urban upstairs/downstairs set up but obviously not quite what we would see in the UK.

Interestingly they still had this thing with painting plaster to look like stone, marble and wood. Here it was noticeable because the paint was peeling on the walls of the "marble" staircase!

Today is my last day in Charleston and tomorrow I start the long journey home with an all day train trip north to Washington DC. 

USA - Life in the swamp

A few miles inland from Charleston is the Magnolia Plantation which is where I have been today. When it was operating (up until the end of the Civil War) it was a rice plantation but after rice production stopped, mother nature reclaimed the land. The result is that today there is a plantation house by the River Ashley surrounded by formal and informal gardens but the former rice fields are a sort of swamp.

Of course wandering around the grounds I saw all sorts of things. They have butterflies here the size of small birds, big spiders too and swamp also equals mosquitoes - big ones at that!

The stuff hanging from all the trees is called Spanish Moss which is an epiphyte i.e it gets all its nutrients from the air.

As I walked around the gardens there were some rather odd looking signs, the like of which I had not seen at any National Trust property in the UK.

Rachel - do not read the next paragraph

Now let me make it clear exactly where I stand in relation to Alligators and Crocodiles - firstly as far away as possible - secondly I see no purpose for them, why they are on the planet is completely  beyond me - thirdly make them all into handbags and have done with it. You will have guessed reader - I am not a fan.

Rachel - you can start reading again now

Trouble is now I have posted a photo saying there are alligators at the Magnolia Plantation you are going to call me a lightweight if I don't post a picture of one. Well with the help of a lot of zoom lens you may just be able to make out a little one in the middle of this picture. 

I did see a bigger alligator but it only had its eyes and nostrils above the water and believe me I was even further away at the time!

USA - It's Hot Hot Hot!

Well the weather app on my phone said it's 30 degrees here but it also says the "feels like" temperature is 36 because of the humidity. Welcome to the south!

Yesterday I took a short flight down to Charleston, South Carolina and the atmosphere is different, the accent is different, in fact everything is different and I'm also beginning to solve the Cream Tea problem too. I'm staying in a B&B in the centre of town and during the siesta time they provide tea and cake (although I hasten to add the locals don't take a siesta only the tourists!). The old town is centred on a peninsula and the architecture is I would say "American Chocolate Box".

If you remember from yesterday's post the Founding Fathers, when they declared independence from Britain (AMEXIT?), kicked the slavery issue into the long grass for a future generation to sort out. This and other issues eventually formed a north/south divide in the new country and in 1860 when Abraham Lincoln became president, South Carolina was the first state to decide to go it alone and leave the Union (SCEXIT?).  They were then joined by other southern states, formed the Confederacy, and this in 1861 lead to the American Civil War.

The first shots of the war were here in Charleston when government troops refused to leave Fort Sumter at the entrance to Charleston harbour and were fired upon by Confederate troops. Today I took a guided boat trip out into the harbour to Fort Sumter but unfortunately we had to say on the boat and not get off there because of damage caused by Hurricane Irma. The fort was badly flooded and the landing pier damaged.

USA - "All men are created equal"

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." These words were written by Thomas Jefferson, as part of the US Declaration of Independence.

Today I am in Charlottesville, Virginia, a town that has recently been in the news due to a debate over a statue that has sparked civil unrest but the town was also home to Thomas Jefferson and his estate, Monticello, is on its outskirts.

The house is on a hill overlooking the Virginian countryside, the views are stunning, the house is lovely but it's what's "round the back" that causes some interest - for while Thomas Jefferson was penning those famous words, he had up to 200 enslaved people working on the estate which as well as his home was a tobacco plantation.

I have to say that the guides both inside and outside the house were fantastic and those doing the "slave tours" were particularly good at describing and handling questions on a very difficult subject. How could the man that wrote "all men are created equal" possibly keep slaves? His initial draft of the Declaration included a piece attacking slavery but this was removed because several states would not agree to it being left in. He knew that leaving it in would mean that the new country would fall at the first hurdle and the British would use the divisions to regain power. The issue was therefore, in true political fashion, "kicked into long grass" for a later generation to sort out. Of course we now know that the country did in fact split apart during the Civil War over this very thing. 

A reconstructed slave dwelling

Monticello is surrounded with forested areas where there are really some good hiking trails which of course I went for a walk on. The weather was hot and sunny and the cicadas were being noisy. For those of you that don't know what cicadas are, they are the insect that makes that loud buzzing/humming noise in the trees here. There are annual ones, but some types only emerge every 13 or 17 years. They are completely harmless to man but the noise they make (which is a mating cry) is the loudest noise in the natural world in relation to the size of the creature that makes it. You either love them or hate them. The wildlife here, of course, is different anyway - look what I came across as I wandered along.

The cream tea issue had appeared again folks. Monticello is a very important place to visit, the home of the 3rd president and writer of the Declaration of Independence but there is still no cream tea. The sandwiches in the cafe were very good but to be honest the cling film wrapped cake offering was pretty poor. I am sure that the Founding Fathers when they decided to go it alone 1776, did not intend for their new country to be deprived of scones and clotted cream - The Mayflower with the Pilgrim Fathers did after all put in at Plymouth on the way, so all the first settlers must have had a cream tea before they left England. 

USA - All the fun of the fair

As someone who, when it comes to holidays, tends to do a lot of planning and research it is a nice change now and again to just take pot luck and see what happens. On the tourist information stand at the station I picked up a leaflet which was a guide to the small towns along this part of the Connecticut coast. There is a train that shuttles along the coast regularly between New London and New Haven and putting them together I chose to take a ride to Guilford (They've dropped the middle 'd' here).

In the UK a shuttle train like this would be a single car Class 153 or a 2 coach Pacer but not here where it produced a big, thumping, noisy diesel with 3 carriages and in the labour intensive world that is the US rail system, 2 guards!

Guilford is a fairly typical New England coastal town. On one side of the tracks, a small harbour overlooking salt marsh, the open sea and in the distance an island with a lighthouse. On the other, a quaint town of clapperboard houses and shops overlooking a large rectangular green.

It wasn't completely peaceful though as I had, by chance, stepped into the Guilford Fair so I went and had a look at a fair American style. 

It was part, normal bog standard fairground, part agricultural show, part WI extravaganza. There was a big wheel and other rides, tractor driving demonstrations, a live band, prize winning sheep, goats and cattle and some very amusing donkey trials. I did feel a bit sorry for the guys from the local donkey sanctuary who were trying to lead various donkeys around a course of jumps and other obstacles. Donkeys are not known for their co-operative nature and once one decides it's not going to move it's virtually super-glued to the spot.

In the "tents", they had entries for jam, baking and flower arranging competitions and entries for the Connecticut Fairs State Quilting Competition (Nerida - if you are reading this, I expect an entry from you next year!). All the fruit and vegetable competition entries looked a bit basic given that my grandfather was a champion gardener, he could have to taught them a thing or to. There was however one item that the New England American's are famous for that he could not have won. The biggest pumpkin! Boy do they know how to grow pumpkins here! The winning entry is in the photo below and it had 390 on the board next to it, so I'm guessing it was 390lbs?

One thing I have to mention of course is the food. The food at fairs in general is not usually particularly healthy so imagine what it's like here. Lots of trailers advertising "Fried Dough". Having said that I have now taken a liking to Apple Cider Doughnuts! 

USA - Block (Fog) Island

Today I took the high speed ferry from New London to Block Island which is a journey of 1.25 hours - Block Island is just over the border in the state of Rhode Island. For the first time in 6.5 weeks though the weather just wasn't going to play ball, it was foggy when I left New London this morning and out on Block Island apart from a brief couple of hours early in the afternoon, the fog did not lift at all.

The main reason for going out there was to visit two lighthouses. The first one was the North Lighthouse on the far northern tip (of course). For those readers from South Foreland, we shouldn't moan about our access road as the volunteers have to use a track across the beach - 4x4's only! I had a great time there and spent an hour chatting to the two volunteers on duty. This one is ground floor only access, so you can't go up to the lamp room.

Block Island - North Lighthouse

The road to the North Lighthouse!

However, I spent so much time up at the north of the island that it was a race to get to the Southeast Lighthouse at the other end. So by the time I got there I was a five to fiver i.e. expecting a full tour 5 minutes before closing! The guide was very good and took me and a large group of latecomers round but obviously there was not as much chat! The large house like building behind the tower accommodated all three keepers and their families. The mist had returned at this point and there was really no view at all from the lamp room which was accessed by a cast iron stairway. This one is still operational and has a flashing signal but it's all electronic - unlike the UK, here the mercury baths have to be removed before the buildings are handed over to the preservationists. The volunteers then look after the cleaning etc of the lamp on behalf of the US Coastguard.

Block Island - Southeast Lighthouse

The cast iron stairway in the Southeast Light

I should be able to show you some great photo's of blue skies, blue sea and golden beaches but alas it was not to be. The foggy weather though gave an interesting gloomy sunset.

There is a sign in the middle of the main settlement which for some reason has chosen Stonehenge as the UK landmark to show the distance to. So if you have ever wondered Stonehenge is  3287 miles from Block Island.