Quick Recap

Better make this a long one. (ish)

I found my travel journal - yay! But then I lost my Mets cap - boooo :(

Siobhan - the food in NYC is yummy. There's every kind of food you could want. But the easiest and cheapest stuff is fast food or deli food. Not very healthy but delicious. I had bagels frequently. I also had sushi, Korean, Vietnamese, Italian etc.

On my last full day in New York I went up the Empire State Building. It was so beautiful and inspiring. The images of the city from up there are firmly imprinted on my mind. I'm already pining for it and can't wait to go back.

I'm sad to have left NYC, but Plimoth (where Erin lives) is beautiful - loads of coastline and trees! That's a bad description though because it's actually completely different to anywhere I've ever been in terms of the architecture and landscape. There are wooden houses and it all looks very pretty and very "American". Like I said to Erin, I felt like I was in TV.

I stayed with Erin and her family in their home (which is completely gorgeous) and she showed me around and looked after me for my whole time there (except when I ventured out into Boston city on my own for a day - nice and historical).
One of the best parts of the trip (besides crying laughing at Erin's stories - woman you crack me up) was that I learned loads about American history because we went to the Plymoth Plantation. Completely weird but very cool. Plymouth (today spelled Plimoth) was where the ship Mayflower landed and it was also the site of the first thanksgiving meal. It's a famous town, historically speaking and so to mark this, they have a recreation of the first Plymouth Plantation. Not weird at all - yes you're right. I like a good historical recreation as much as the next person. However this just went that one little step further. There were people involved in the recreation and their job was to inhabit the Pilgrim village as the 17th Century pilgrims would have done. They interact with the visitors in character at all times - so you're having a conversation with them about history but you're phrasing the questions like: "what's it like living here?" and they're answering as if they're living in the 1600s. Bizarre. I also got to chat with some Native Americans about their history and their life now in terms of language and values etc. I found this really interesting also as I knew almost nothing about the Native Communities in North America.

Got to DC yesterday morning and immediately was in a bad mood. I hadn't eaten for hours and I was tired and lugging a huge case around with me. I got lost for about an hour and a half and had to ring my mom and get her to ask my auntie Mary to ring me because she and her family had visited DC last year and would be able to locate where I was! So eventually I got my bearings and chilled out in some bookstores for a while. DC is nice but the amount of time I had people look at me about to walk through a door with a big suitcase and not hold the door for me or walk in front of me and let the door swing back in my face, is shocking. I've never experienced anything like that kind of rudeness before. Normally it wouldn't bother me too much. But it was very much accentuated in my mind because I was really struggling with my case. Hopefully I'll meet some more polite people today.

Hope you're all well and had a great Easter Weekend and a good week this week.

Lots of love xxxx