Et styks roadtrip vel overstået. Vi var alt for seje på de amerikanske highways/interstates/motorveje og det var kun tæt på et par gange.. og jeg vil til hver en tid påstå at det skyldes den ekstremt dårlige skiltning! Hvad er meningen med at sætte et ”one way” skilt op 20 meter henne af vejen? Specielt når man kører mere end 60? Desuden må jeg lige tilføje at hastighedsgrænserne herovre underligt nok er væsentligt under dem vi har i Danmark..

Bare rolig. Bilen er afleveret uden en skramme, vi løb ikke tør for benzin eller fik motorproblemer og så havde vi det oven i købet rigtig skægt! Se medfølgende billeder for mere info..

Fredag kom vi først af sted midt i myldretiden, men fordelen ved det var, at jeg havde relativt god tid til at finde ud af alle funktionerne i den sprit nye firehjulstrækker vi havde lejet, der midt i køen. Jeg havde for eksempel ret hurtigt brug for at finde ud af at slukke varmen i sædet … aner ikke hvordan jeg kom til at slå den til! Ud over det kan man sige, at selvom bilen var så stor at man sagtens kunne overse en Fiat Punto i den blinde vinkel (tak til pigerne på bagsædet!) så var den alligevel lille i forhold til de ”almindelige” amerikanske biler. Det burde simpelthen ikke være nødvendigt at producere Hummer biler i limousine størrelse..

Under alle omstændigheder kom vi ud af DC i god stil og til Philadelphia på nogle få timer. Vi var ude at prøve den berømte ”Cheese steak” (som i vores tilfælde ikkke kunne anbefales..) og fik nogle få øl på en bar hvor pigerne fik danset lidt til noget salsa/rumba..

Lørdag fik vi set lidt mere af Philly, som viste sig at være en ret fantastisk by. Udover at være byen hvor USA’s afhængighedserklæring og forfatning blev underskrevet er den også super nymodens, hip og shoppe-venlig og vi kunne sagtens have tilbragt hele weekenden der. Til KB’erne: herovre kører de brystkræftmåned for vildt og de havde brugt en hel skyskaber til at lave den lyserøde sløjfe i lys – det så ret vildt ud om natten!

Lørdag eftermiddag kørte vi videre igennem New Jersey og Vineland (der hvor de påstår vikingerne sejlede til) og videre til Ocean City, hvor vi tilbragte lidt tid på stranden med udsigt over Atlanterhavet. Underlig tanke at det nærmeste land er DK…Eller måske England.

Sidst på eftermiddagen kørte vi endelig videre til Atlantic City… Det nordøstlige hjørnes Las Vegas. Vi fandt et motel der var til at betale for (Flamingo Motel!), noget pizza og nogle øl… lidt amerikaner er man vel blevet. Senere gik turen til nærmeste store casino, hvor vi var ganske fornuftige og tabte relativt få penge. Det blev en ret vild tur dog og ja.. vi endte i byen til næsten den lyse morgen (!). Efter nogle timers søvn blev vi sparket ud af motellet og valgte at shoppe et par timer før turen gik hjemad. En mindre fejltagelse ved en afkørsel (fejlskiltning siger jeg jo!!) gjorde at vi fik set os lidt omkring på turen hjemad, men som sagt gik det meste efter planen og ja vi havde en rigtig, rigtig god tur!

Den sidste uges tid har jeg fået overstået de sidste eksaminer for nu (pyha…) og i denne weekend har den kun stået på moderat læsning. Søndag var jeg ude at se nogle ting sammen med en af mine roommates venner og vi var bl.a. i Zoo.. herovre er den store attraktion de store pandaer som faktisk er ret søde, men i det hele taget har de nogle ret anderledes dyr end derhjemme. Kongeørne er faktisk ikke almindelige i Odense Zoo og bæltedyr (eller armadillos) er vist heller ikke noget jeg har set før. De er åbenbart et problem herovre, for de er jo ret forhistoriske og tykhudede, men findes i et stort antal og har det med at vælte ud foran biler og skabe ulykker… ehmm..
Bagefter var jeg i Georgetown, den gamle bydel, sammen med Stine (svenskeren) og et par andre fra skolen for den svenske ambassade åbnede en bygning kaldet ”House of Sweden”. De har en del receptioner i den forbindelse, men søndag var der gratis koncerter med bl.a. ”The Ark” som er store i Skandinavien, men ukendte herovre og derfor på promo-tur.

Yes yes… det er vist alt hvad jeg har oplevet i den seneste tid.. Håber i har det godt alle sammen..
Jeg skriver når der sker noget spændende..

Knus Anette :)



One road trip over and done with. We were way too cool on the American highway/interstates and we only came close to problems a few times.. and I would at any time blame that on the bad placement of the signs! What’s the point of putting up a “one way” sign 20 meters down the road? Especially when you are driving 60/h? Aside from this I have to mention that the speed limits over here funnily enough are quite a lot lower than those we have in Denmark.

Don’t worry. The car has been given back to AVIS without a scratch. We did not run out of gas and we did not have any problems with the car – and then we even had a lot of fun! See the pictures for more info.

Friday we didn’t get out of the city until rush hour, but the good part of that was that I had relatively much time to figure out where all the functions in the brand new SUV we had rented were. I had for instance relatively fast a need to turn of the heating in the seat.. I have no idea how I accidentally turned that on. Aside from this I will say that despite the fact that we had rented a fairly big car (you could easily miss a Fiat Punto in the blind angle – thank you girls in the back seat!) it was still pretty small compared to the “regular” American cars. It really shouldn’t be necessary to produce Hummers in limousine size – should it?

In any case.. we made it out of DC in great style and made it to Philadelphia in a few hours. We tried the famous “Cheese Steak” (which in our case wasn’t recommendable) and had a few beers in a bar where the girls got to dance a bit of salsa/rumba.

Saturday we got to see a bit more of Philly, which turned out to be quite a fantastic city. Aside from being the city where the declaration of independence and the constitution were signed the city is as well modern, hip and shopping-friendly and we could easily have spent the entire weekend there.

Saturday afternoon we drove on through New Jersey and Vineland (Which is said to be where the Vikings sailed to) and further on to Ocean City where we spend a little time on the beach with a view over the Atlantic Ocean. Strange thought that the closest land is Denmark… or maybe the UK.

Late afternoon we finally drove on to Atlantic City – the north eastern corner’s Las Vegas. We found a motel that we could actually pay for (Flamingo Motel!) some pizza and some beers – I guess we have turned a bit into Americans. Later we went to the nearest big casino. We were reasonably smart and only lost a little money. It did turn kind of crazy though and we ended up partying until sunrise (!). After a few hours of sleep we got kicked out of the motel and chose to shop for a few hours before turning back to DC. A small mistake at an exit on the highway (bad signs I said!!) did that we got to see a bit more on the way home, but as explained the trip went fine and we had an awesome time.

This past week I’ve had my last midterms/exams (for now) – phew.. and this weekend I’ve only read some. Sunday I went to the zoo with a friend of my roommates. Over here one of the big attractions is the great pandas which actually are kind of cute and in total I would say that they have some quite different animals in the zoo over here than they do at home. Huge eagles are not that common in the local zoo and neither are armadillos. I don’t think I’ve seen armadillos before but they are apparently quite a big problem over here cause they are pre-historic and think-skinned. I was told that they exist in quite a big number and has the unfortunate idea to run out in front of cars and create accidents…ehm..

Afterwards I went to Georgetown, the old part of town, with Stine (the Swedish girl) and a couple of other people from school because the Swedish embassy was opening a building called “House of Sweden”. They have quite a few receptions in connection with that but Sunday they also had some free concerts with among others “The Ark”, who are quite big in Scandinavia but totally unknown over here (and therefore had a promo-tour).

Yes yes, I think that’s all I’ve experienced in the past weeks. I hope you are all doing well and .. I’ll write when something exiting happens.

Hugs Anette :)