Last Weeks in the US

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After leaving my family, I started couchsurfing my way south, making a stop in every state. The first one was Richmond, VA. My host was a cool (but quite busy) woman called Laura. I arrived at her place pretty late at night, and the following day I woke up late the first time in a long time, took the bus to the city and started walking around. I spent some time in a pretty interesting Civil War Museum, walked around the river (not the prettiest I've seen, but for the first time in the US I saw ppl swimming in it and jumping from ropes, like to the Jordan...), and walked to a really cool district called The Fan - a lot of old and nice houses, an avenue with monuments every couple of blocks, a cool college campus and a nice park. The following day I also walked around downtown - saw the Virginia Government buildings that are located in a really nice square, and an old and nice neighborhood called Church Hill. On the next day I didn't have a lot of things that I still wanted to see, so I went to the Virginia Capitol (they let us see the meeting chambers...) and the Edgar Ellen Poe Museum, and at night met another couchsurfer called Jay and hung out with him and his friends. The next night Richmond hosted a Folk Festival with lots of free live music, but I already wanted to move on, so I made my way to Raleigh, NC. For the first time I took a Greyhound bus, and really didn't like it - if you don't order weeks in advance the price is extremely high and the service is really bad (they simply don't have enough employees). In Raleigh I stayed with a young couple that studies and works pretty hard. There is really not much to see in Raleigh - the next day I walked a little downtown, they have some free museums but I had enough of that, and the city itself isn't that pretty. At night I went with my hosts to the State Fare - there are some shows of award-winning crops and vegetables and livestock (very country...) and mainly A LOT of stands of fried and junk food... It was interesting to see that, but probably not worth the looong line. The next day I went to Charleston, SC and stayed with a cool guy (Brad) that lives somewhat in the outskirts of the city. The next day I went to walk around downtown (getting there took 2 hours) - it's a pretty cool town on the ocean, with some nice parks, lots of cool old buildings and streets and basically good vibes. At night I met my host and we walked around a little and ate at some bar. The next day I didn't really do anything since I took the evening train (had enough of Greyhound, and surprisingly the train was cheaper...) and didn't really have time to commute downtown and back. I got to Savannah, GA to my host James - a black gay guy (Tuna - I didn't know what to lynch him for first 😊 that was really cool and we drove downtown, saw the night life, sat at some bar with a Blues band, and went back. The following day I walked around downtown, seeing the nice squares that Savannah's famous for and the architecture (so many churches...), and went into the old synagogue - there's a Jewish community in Savannah since it began in the 1730's and this synagogue (reform) has a Torah scroll that's still in use that was brought from Spain (possibly the oldest one still in use, maybe after the Abuhav one in Zfat). I spent the next day downtown too, walking around the waterfront (filled with tourist shops...), and in the evening we went to some art show (the artist is James' friend) where we met pretty much their entire neighborhood, and they're all friends (from completely different ages and backgrounds) - that's pretty cool. Then we picked up food and went to eat at Milly's house - she is their almost 90 year old neighbor, still very energetic, and very sweet and welcoming. On Friday I didn't have much more places that I wanted to see, so I rested a little and in the evening went to Arvit in the Orthodox Synagogue. Appearantly the Jewish community in Savannah, except being quite old is also pretty big, and welcoming too - I got 2 offers for dinner and a place to stay, but for dinner me and James went to the 12 Tribes community in Savnnah. I heard about them because one of the ppl there has a couchsurfing profile, and he invited me to their Erev Shabbat celebration. They are a very interesting community, somewhere between Christianity and Judaism (they are messianic, but don't see themselves as Christian and do keep some Mizvot - they try to live a somewhat biblical lifestyle), as far as appearance they look a little like the Amish, but they have no problem with modern technology, all of the families live close to each other in a community and the children learn together, their economy works a little like an old-school Kibbutz without much regard to personal property. The evening schedule was a little like in camp, just more intimate - dinner (with some interesting conversation with them), dancing (Israeli folk dancing, again a little like camp) with live music (they play very well) and singing (they have quite a lot of their own songs). Their kids are very cute and the whole community really seemed like they're enjoying themselves and their time together very much. Early in the morning I took the train to Orlando, FL and since then I'm staying here with Kevin, my cool host, and his roommate Ben. One night we walked around downtown Orlando and saw all of the clubs, and the next day we walked around Cherokee Lake Historic District in Orlando, saw some nice lakes and water birds (Orlando has a whole bunch of random lakes in the middle of the city) and some probably very expensive houses - the surroundance (big houses, lakes) kinda reminded me the camp area (just that the hoses were much close to each other here, obviously...). The next day I went to Universal, it was expensive as hell and more than 2 hours in the local buses to each direction, but was so much fun. It is 2 theme parks - the first one, Islands Of Adventure, has some cool rides and rollercoasters (but not as cool as 6 flags...), and the 2nd park (Universal Studios) is set to look like movie sets of old-times New-York, Beverly Hills and such, and had some really cool rides too music shows and 3D movie-rides (altogether really creates a movie-magic atmosphere...). The rest of the time I'm pretty much hanging around the house, doing arrangements, writing this mail and waiting to go to a Magic-Spurs pre-season basketball game tomorrow. After that I'm off to Miami, and on Tuesday to Buenos-Aires!

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