Taking the long way home from Germany to America
- Pennsylvania
- New Jersey
- New York
- Maryland
- Ohio
- Illinois
- Virginia
- Florida
- Mississippi
That's it...
So I'm thinking something must be wrong here, surely I've seen more of the country than this! But after carefully looking things over, not counting Puerto Rico as it's a Territory and not a State I realized my information was correct. So that's about all I've ever seen of the good ol' US of A. In fact, I haven't even made it west of the Mississippi in my entire life! The closest I came to the west coast was seeing California through a pair of binoculars when I was in the Navy.
My original plan when leaving Germany was to "swing west through the east." I wanted to hit old Constantinople to see the Hagia Sophia. Then take a train to St. Petersburg (The Hermitage), Moscow (Red Square, Onion Domes & stuff and the Lenin Mausoleum), the Trans-Siberian Railway, then south to Beijing (The Forbidden City) and north to Vladivostok.
The whole plan was to avoid flying (which I hate) and see things on the ground. Thinking there was some kind of ferry or cruise across the Bering Strait (this was December, so their wasn't), I'd hit Alaska, then head down to Vancouver for a few days. Could tick off Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and LA, before swinging around to the Grand Canyon Texas before heading back up north home to Pennsylvania.
Well, the Russian students quickly informed me about visa problems which would preclude my leisurely jaunt across Russia. Apparently, there are no roads connecting the cities east of Vladivostok allowing you to get to Provideniya on Russia's eastern point. Then from there, a quick hop on over to Nome. Also finding out that getting from Vladivostok to Anchorage by boat in December was a no-go, combined with the sheer amount of time such a trip would have entailed, called for the entire adventure to be scrapped.
I've always wondered why we never got that little strip of land between Alaska and Washington State. Say, 100 miles in from the coast. That way we could drive on down to Seattle without needing to cross a border and dealing with those Mountie dudes. We could swap them Maine for it, since it's mostly empty and they're practically Canadians anyway. They have like one city up there where Stephen King lives, isn't it Portland or something? the rest is just woods, so no big loss. It's not an important State. I've never met anyone from Maine and don't know anyone who has. It's cold as fuck, and I can't imagine why anyone would want to live there.
(You didn't take that last paragraph seriously did you? I was just having some fun. Are you kidding me? Americans LOVE Canadians and Mainers too!) :)
There's no place like HOME
Planning that reverse-around-the-world-trip was a lot of fun and showed me the beauty of different cultures. However, there's no place like home. And after a terrifying 9-hour flight across the Atlantic, it felt good to step back on Terra Firma. While I'm proud to be American, I fell in love with England and the UK in general. Never met nicer people than I did over there and hope to return someday for good. What fanciful trips have you planned? and where would you like to go next?
Thank you so much!
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You have travelled quite a bit but it doesn’t look like we will be going to far until this pandemic is over. I’ve visited Maine often as an aunt lived there near Houlton, Maine. I had a Maine Coon cat I called Houlton in memory of the town.😊😺
Fabulous architecture on the buildings in Russia.
Thanks for your support, but I didn't manage to make that trip due to the problem of crossing from Russia to Alaska in the winter.
I play a casual hidden object game where they mention that cat species. I'd thought it was mythical until you mentioned having one! :)
Most welcome @evernoticethat. The Maine Coons are beautiful long-haired cats. I still miss Houlton. He was intelligent and at times it sounded like words coming out of his mouth.
My present cat, Red, looks at bit like one except Houlton had dark fur.
I'd say that was a pretty ambitious plan to travel across Russia like that. Most of the time in the past when I was traveling I had grandiose plans only for them to almost immediately fall apart.
A friend of mine did the trans-Siberian railroad journey, thought it was going to be awesome, hated it, bailed halfway through and got a flight to St Petersburg :P
PS. Loved your comments about Maine :)
I went so deep into research that I found YouTube videos explaining the different classes aboard the train and advising to go for the highest class private/shared (cabin?) available.
Germany was amazing and England too. The streets were clean and the people were wonderful. I think half the world wants to move to America, when they have so much going for them right at home.
There are a bunch of States in Nigeria that sort of remind me of Maine. I mean, I know there are people there and shit, but damn, sometimes I could swear they're imaginary places like Australia and shit.
While reading this, I played out the scenes in my head and it was really fun. I have always been fascinated by trains that run across countries and whatnot. Like, you just sit there and move in between countries? Damn
I spent many, many hours trying to plan this. Passing through Russia and China was relatively cheap, but my Russian classmates said I'd only have a three day visa. Aside from that, I always ran into the problem of how to cross over to Alaska by ship.
I went so far as to view YouTube videos of Trans-Siberian Railway cars. The trains were surprisingly good and I planned to take my time getting to the coast. If I could have done it, I would have had to start the semester late. But for a trip like this, it would have been worth it! :)
Maybe you could circumvent those hurdles by flying across. I know it will take some of the gloss off the road trip but as they say, half road trip is better than none
Only I am scared to death of flying. This was back in 2017 and I did fly home Germany>UK>US. Nine hours over the Atlantic. You never saw a guy gripping the armrests so hard! lol
lol. I've never flown in my life funny enough. I've always wanted to but the ticket price often changes my mind