We spent our summer vacation in Boston and New York City (13-29th July). It was the second time we visited America but our first in the US.
What were our impressions? Well, we did like Boston and the Cape Cod area. NYC was somewhat of a disappointment as it reminded us of Athens, only in larger scale! The hectic pace and rhythms of life were so similar. The city was impressive of course, especially the skyscrapers but we wouldn't call NY a 'beautiful' city...
We had exchanged homes with a couple in Boston (through Intervac of course, as we usually do every year). We stayed in a neighborhood called Jamaica Plain which we really liked and was very conveniently located near public transport.(we liked especially the wooden houses, as we don't have many of them...We did like waiting for the bus and watching the traffic and the people...)
Boston has lovely corners (but we'd like more of waterfront shops, cafes and activities). We had fun at the Theatre -we went at a play called 'Shear madness' (a hit in Athens too) Cape Cod was above descriptions: Provincetown was too touristic but colorful, and the rest full of what we named 'Barbie doll' houses - we liked it a lot! We stayed at a motel by Craigville Beach, near
Hyannis. In general, we have to say that we found a lot of similarities between the US and Europe (as we did not expect); but then we visited mainly the region called 'New England' so we might have suspected so! As we exchanged cars as well, here's a note on driving a car with automatic gears as opposed to our own car here: it was very hard for about 5 minutes, then SO boring! :-) But we wouldn't enjoy the Cape without the car.
Naturally we have to mention that we visited the World Trade Center (the 'Twin Towers') and took some pictures there too. But, as we hadn't much time in NYC, we didn't go to the top, thinking that this could be done in our next visit. Who could have imagined what a terrible thing would happen so soon.
All in all, our trip to the US last summer was a memorable one and it did recharge our batteries!!
