East Coast Travels

I've decided to take this in a different direction; mostly, so that anyone who wants to can keep in touch with me when I am gone (to Spain, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Morocco, and Egypt) this summer, as internet time on the Semester at Sea ship is scarce and expensive. So, after deleting all my previous posts (I finally figured out how to do it!), I figured I would begin my new blogging venture with pictures from James' and my trip to the east coast from the last two weeks in May.

We started in Boston, and unfortunately, James's memory card from this portion of the trip is lost (somewhere between Voorhees, NJ, Philadelphia, the Jersey shore, and California) and our pictures are, for now, gone. My grandmother and uncle (who I haven't seen in years, which is surprising for me to realize) picked us up from the airport and we went to Legal seafood restaurant, which was excellent (Alaskan crab legs are the best). The next day we went to the New England aquarium, which was beautiful; I will always prefer aquariums to museums. We went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts the day after, which was my second favorite museum of the trip (we went to four), and then James, my grandmother, and I took the train to Princeton, New Jersey, where my aunt picked us up. We went to a surprisingly good Mexican/barbeque place and the next day wandered Princeton (attending the museum on campus) for about 6 hours and then meandered along a 67-mile trail from New Jersey to Pennsylvania (we only went about a half-mile in).

James and I took the train into New York's Penn Station the next day. We spent three days there and did everything we could think of. The first day we arrived, we checked into the hotel (after realizing we had booked it for the wrong night.. err), then had lunch in central park and wandered Midtown and the Upper East Side.

Our first night in New York, we just happened to run into two of James's friends in SoHo (on the street and by accident, literally) and they took us to La Esquina, which had the most delicious Yuca Frita. I stayed relatively tame with my order and had chicken and rice, which was very good. James had chile relleno and finished all of it so I'm assuming it was good, though he'll finish anything. We went to a bar afterwards for drinks and then had an early night. Over the next couple of days we went to the MOMA, financial district, battery park, and did some shopping. We also went to Dylan's Candy Bar, twice, so that I could have my sweet tooth satisfied and also so I could take notes on what NOT to do when I open up my own candy shop (i.e. keep my place clean, keep it old school, and keep it simple, as opposed to the overcrowded, smelly, and overpriced Dylan's). We had really good food and I got some very cute clothes; James had never been to New York and I hadn't been there for years, so we tried to do everything. We both loved it.

After New York we headed back to Princeton for a day before going to Voorhees, in south New Jersey, where we stayed with one of my mom's best friends, Linda, across the street from the house I grew up in. While we were there we went to Wawa (YES!) and Diane's water ice at least three times each. James and I went into Philadelphia for a day and went to the Franklin Institute (a letdown) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Our last venture was to the Jersey shore; we stayed at Linda's shorehouse in Sea Isle City, where we got tans and excellent seafood (Alaskan snow crab!) and then we headed to Ocean City where we bought mass amounts of salt water taffy and wandered the boardwalk.

It was a fantastic and beautiful trip.