Road Trip with my Family

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since last time i wrote i had a couple of crazy weeks with my family. while i was waiting for them in NYC i went back and forth between a cs meeting and our hotel, and when they finally came the meeting was very exciting. the next two days we spent walking around nyc, which for me was saying goodbye to a city that i spent quite a lot of time in. after those days we went to pick up our rented car at Newark Airport. most of this day was basically getting the car and then figuring out the GPS and the US road system... we were trying to get to Cape Code, and ended up the night in a small city a little before it, called New-Bedford, MA. There wasn't much to do there, so the next day we drove through Cape Code, stopped for a couple of minutes in a couple of beautiful beaches, and continued to Boston through Plymouth, where there is a restored 17th century colonial settlement and a cute old town. In Boston we couldn't find a place to sleep, some hotel let us use their phones, we made calls for hours until finally we found a place in some crappy hostel, and got there on 11pm, just before they closed for the night... The following day my father ordered a suite for 2 nights for us in Boston, and we drove, calmer, to Salem , MA (yeah, the town with the witch-hunt). It's a very cute small city, with a nice old-town that has nice small houses and streets, and obviously there are witch museums spread all over town. So we walked around the old city, enjoying the peace, went to one of the witch museums, and went back to our hotel in Boston. The following day we finally went to see Boston - started the day with a beautiful observation to all of the city (they also gave free audio-guides so we could hear explanations about all the things that we saw, and when we saw them later on the ground we knew their story), and then started walking on the Freedom Trail (not all of it, though) - a trail that goes through Boston's old city and through many american history sites, and we ended the day in the New-England Aquarium watching all kinds of fish, penguins and such, and an IMAX movie... The next day we took the car, made a morning stop in Harvard where we came across two very energetic students that gave a pretty cool tour of the college, and started making our long way to the Niagra Falls. We basically drove the rest of the day, and made a stop for the night in Syracuse, NY. The next day we drove through the beautiful Finger Lakes area, making some quick stops on beautiful lake shores, and got to the American side of the Niagra Falls in the afternoon, took a quick look on the falls and crossed to the Canadian side, where our hotel was. The Falls are kinda big and impressive, but the entire area is highly commercial (think Eilat, just bigger and not as hot). The next day we went on a boat that came really close to the falls which was fun because we finally could appreciate them, and then went to Toronto. There we went on the famous CN Tower for observation which was a little disappointing (expensive, no explanation at all about what you see and a restaurant that blocks a serious portion of the windows!), and then walked a little around the city - I liked it, but my family just wanted to get back to the car and to the US... We drove back and ended the night in a motel off the road near the Buffalo Airport. The next day we started making our way south (the final destination - Washington DC, but it's a long way...), and our next stop was Letchworth State Park, NY - a beautiful steep canyon that a river flows at its bottom, the river has 3 beautiful waterfalls and the area is covered with trees with leaves in all of the different stages and colors of the 'shalechet'. We drove and walked around in the park and the different falls, and slept in Watkins Glen, which is on the southern tip of one of the Finger Lakes. In the morning we went to Watkins Glen State Park (NY) - you walk through a beautiful canyon (not as tall as yesterday's...) with a very nice river with lots of small waterfalls that's flowing besides you. Then we drove to Corning, a city that's famous for its glass industry and visited the glass museum over there (the history of glass and the city, some glass art and that sort of stuff). Then we drove through Pennsylvania, that seemed like a nice state, but we didn't stop a lot to look, until we got to Lancaster, PA, the Amish area, where we spent the night. The next day we drove a little through the Amish countryside and went on a bus-tour of the area, that explained a little about them but basically you don't really get to interact with them. Then my mom and my sister went shopping and me and my dad went to the Lancaster County Library for internet... Lancaster seemed like a nice little town when we drove around in it. Then we started driving to DC, or more correctly - to the nearby Alexandria, VA, where our hotel was. On the way we saw in Alexandria the impressive Masonic Monument to Washington that I heard about in my visit to the Masonic HQ in DC, and the hotel was pretty cool (a big change from the motels we spent the previous nights in, not that it mattered all that much...). The next day we went to the National Mall, saw all of the Smithsonian Museums, went to the Air and Space Museum and saw an IMAX movie there, then we split - my mom and sister went to other museums and me and my dad spent the rest of our time in the Air and Space Museum. Until we found each other again it was pretty late so we went to see the White House and got back to the hotel. The next day we went on a double-decker-bus-tour, which was good because we could see a lot of the city and get explanations, and then we split again. Me and my dad went to the Arlington Cemetery (which was very big and basically took too much time), and then we didn't have a lot of time left so we went to the Holocaust Museum (went in on the last elevator...) and saw part of it, and then walked until the Lincoln Monument and I showed my dad this beautiful area (Washington Monument, WW2 Monument, Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Monument). It took us too much time to get back (during this time my mom and sister went to a couple of art museums and the Zoo), and when we did we went out to eat in Alexandria, found that most of the places were closed, and ate at a Thai restaurant just before they closed... At night we made final arrangements for goodbye and moving stuff between bags, went to sleep late, and in the morning it was time to depart - my family moved north to Philadelphia and NYC, and I stayed behind with the intention to move south at the evening. After the hugs, kisses and goodbyes they drove and I left alone in my room and then it hit me - even though we were arguing quite a lot during the trip and I didn't have the freedom to do whatever I wanted, the last weeks were very full and I was really sad to depart from my family again. After unwillingly packing my things, I headed to DC, where I had an evening bus to Richmond, VA. In Washington I put my bags in the Art Museum in the Mall, wandered around there a little and went for a tour in the Capitol (they didn't let us see the actual rooms where they have meetings in, though) and then headed to the bus. I had time to wait there, so I met some jews that were sitting on the stairs of the old synagogue
in chinatown (near the bus) and sat with them a little, and then they took me to the nearby American Art
Museum that was open until 19:00 and had some pretty cool stuff (more than the ones in the Mall).

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