This trip has been extremely fun and interesting. We´ve learn a lot about The US, like history, culture and of course about the American people. We started our road trip in Boston and now we´re on our way back home. Time really flies when you´re having fun!
The history of The United States is quite unknown for us Europeans, so we´re happy that we have been able to learn more about the historical monuments, such as The White House, Capitol Hill and Jimmy Carters museum. Before this trip we didn´t even know, who Jimmy Carter was.
The food is a chapter of its own, believe it or not, but you can eat more than just Cheeseburgers and pizza. The local kitchen varies a lot between the states. In the south, you could really see and smell the differences, it´s like a mix of African, French and Mexican food.
According to us, the people here are very open-minded and curious, but very shallow and therefor it´s hard to get under their skin. Despite that, we have been able to get new friends and hopefully we´ll be able keep in touch over Facebook and MSN, when we´ll be back in town.
So we’re finally here, at our goal, Alabama. Unfortunately there´s a thunderstorm going on right now, and we’ve heard that they are quite common in Alabama.
The name Alabama comes from a native American tribe. Alabama is unofficially named the Yellowhammer state, after the state bird.
The people are really nice here, and they´re not all rednecks. They do speak with a southern accent though, which we try not to laugh at.
Everyone seems to be christians, and they go to church on Sundays. That´s something we´re not familiar with, but it seems normal here. We´re not going to try It though. There are also lots of conservatives, which I´m not very happy about.
Alabama is the thirtieth largest state in the US, so it isn´t that big. The capital is Montgomery, but we´re going to Birmingham. It was funded in 1871. Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama with a population of about 230 000 people. A quarter of the population in Alabama lives in the Birmingham area. In the 1950s and 1960s Birmingham was a center of the civil right struggle for African-Americans
Nowadays Birmingham is the culture and entertainment capital of Alabama with several art galleries ant theatres. There´s also opera, ballet and orchestra companies, but that´s nothing we´re really interested in.
Birmingham doesn´t have any major league teams so we won´t go watching any games, which I´m happy about.
We didn´t really know what we could do here in Birmingham, so we downloaded the iphone app and found out more about the city. For example we read about the railroad park, the Birmingham Zoo and Alabama adventure theme park.
Yesterday we had really great day. It was 24 degrees Celsius in march! We we´re really happy about that and we decided to go to the zoo
Birmingham zoo is Alabama’s most popular attraction, drawing more than 500,000 visitors annually. They got more than 750 animals in all kind from spider-monkeys to hippos.
The animals were wonderful, especially the butterflies on their show. But we all thought that the snakes were pretty scary,.
Here, to the right, you can see a map of the zoo, like you can see there´s a part called “Trails of Africa” and that was a new grand opening attraction at the zoo.
Well it was a new part at the zoo and the most interesting. They had built up a whole landscape that looked like Africa, and you could see real elephants, zebras etc. It looked like Africa for real, we thought we were visiting Africa not Alabama.
The best part, according to me, was all the endangered animals, they get saved from extinction.
So for fun we thought we all could say which animal we liked the most:
Hanna liked the kangaroos, Sophie liked the monkeys, Simon liked the lions and Julia liked the birds of all kind.
Simon went out and spoke to the people who lived here in Alabama and most of them were students from the local universities and colleges. They all spoke well about Alabama and said that if you want to study in America, then Alabama is the right state for you. They also told us that there are some special rules in college, like a codex. Its sounds exactly like in the American teen movies. According to us that sound kind of wrong, since were in the 21th century. Some people still have a higher status in the society, for example jocks and people with money. I need to point that it’s not the same now as it was for 20-30 years ago. At that time the black people had their own student corridors. So the racists aren’t that many as before, and that´s a big step to a better world.
Since we´ve already posted "Sweet home alabama", we´ll have to post another song.
Hanna chose "Alabama Song" since it´s sung by David Bowie
We'll see you all again soon! Love, Hanna, Sophia, Simon and Julia.
Ps. We were planning on posting a recording with us telling you about Orlando, but it wouldn´t work :(
We have been in Miami for about a week now. Miami is a really nice city with sun all year round and great beaches, and I really love all the palm trees that are everywhere
Lots of cruise ships are docked in the harbor, so everywhere we go there´s always tons of tourists. There are also a lot of people who lives in Miami, about 5 million. The city isn´t that big though, and is therefore one of the most densely populated cities in the U.S.
So what have we been doing here? That’s actually a good question, let us tell you:
We have been staying here for three days, the first day we were really tired so we were just chilling around the hotel, “La Quinta inn – Miami airport north” It isn´t the best hotel in Miami, but it’s only 20 minutes from the dolphin stadium. So at least Simon is happy. We also bought some souvenirs, and went to Miami Beach, and got some sun. We even tried to surf. Even though it was really hard, and the water was very cold, we had a lot of fun, and we´re really happy that we tried it.
There are off course lots of other things to do in Miami besides surfing and going to the beach. For example you could visit Midtown, where a lot of bohemians and artist live. Or go to Little Havana and enjoy all the Cuban food and music. There are a lot of Cuban immigrants living in Miami, and therefore the culture is highly influenced by Cuban culture.
Right now we´re on our way to Orlando and Disneyworld! We all wanted to go there and we think we´ll have a great time. After that we´ll continue on to our final destination, Alabama.
Today, we´ve decided to visit The Capital of Georgia, Atlanta. Atlanta is mostly known by two things, business and trees. It might sound like an odd combination, and maybe that is why the National Geographic’s named it “a place of the lifetime”, a few years back.
It might sound quite boring, but Atlanta seems to have much to offer even for us young people. We´ve been here for a few days now, and we have visited The Olympic Park, which is where The Olympic Games took place in 1996, strolled around in the Little five points, a bohemian city area with special boutiques and cafes. Our new friends took us to the aquarium, which was gigantic!!!!!!! So we could not see everything, but we
were able to look at their main attraction, the whale-sharks.
Atlanta offers a lot of high-education, and it promotes itself as a multicultural-city so we fell very welcome and go well with the environment.
The weather is the best so far, it´s sunny and about 20 degrees, which are pretty normal here, at this time of the year.
Tomorrow is our last day here, and we will spend it by visiting the famous Fox theatre and Jimmy Caters museum. Jimmy Carter was the 30th President of the US, so we thought it could be interesting to learn some more about him.
PS: We are staying at a nice little motel, it´s called Days Inn. It costs us about 250 sek /room and night.
Next time you´ll hear from us we´ll be in Florida. Love, Simon, Hanna, Julia and Sophie.
South Carolina is called “The Palmetto State”. We had no idea what a palmetto is but now we know that it is a small palm tree. On South Carolina’s website it says it´s the perfect state for tourism. It might be in the summer. Unfortunately, right now it´s only 8 degrees Celsius, but it can be as warm as 18 degrees here in March. South Carolina has a humid subtropical climate and occasionally South Carolina is affected by hurricanes, but fortunately it isn´t hurricane season right now.
At first we thought S.C would be incredibly boring, and we were kind of right. The capital of South Carolina is Columbus, but we stopped in Charleston, a pretty small city right next to the beach.
Charleston is the second largest city in the state, it was created in 1901. There hasn´t really been happening anything here since. The city is quite nice though, with lots of old houses and the beach. I just wish that it was summer so we could swim in the ocean.
Next stop is Georgia, we hope that there´s more to do there.
We are in North Carolina now. The first question we asked ourselves when we reached Carolina was “what can we do here?” So we went down to the travel agency and asked for some brochures. There wasn’t so much to do. They got a big National Park called Great Smoky Mountains national park and a well-known Hockey team called Carolina Hurricanes. We decided to go to the National park. This park got so much history. It was the homeland for the Cherokee Indians before the European settlers came there.
The park was pretty big so it was really exhausting walking around there, but it was really beautiful. We will soon be heading back to our motel and pack our things because we’re going to South Carolina Tomorrow. Maybe there will be more stuff to do there. Well then… see you soon. //Simon, Hanna, Sophie and Julia
Today we are arriving at the capital of the US. Right now we are in the car driving through Virginia. There are a lot of national parks here and lots of animals. We almost hit a white-tailed deer, or a Virginia deer as they´re also called. Fortunately both we and the deer are all right.
The weather is pretty bad. It´s raining, but It isn´t very cold though. The temperature is about 60 degrees Fahrenheit which is about 15 degrees Celsius. The climate is very changing so it can be sunny one moment, and then it starts to rain. We hope the sun will come out later today.
The city of Washington D.C is quite special. It doesn´t belong to any state, but it´s between Virginia and Maryland. It was founded in 1790 and is off course named after the first president of America, George Washington. The D.C. stands for District of Colombia, and the city is often confused with the state Washington, at least by tourists like us.
Now we’re almost in Washington. We are going to stay at a cheap motel at Central Avenue. It is only going to cost us 50 dollars a night. That’s about 320 sek, so it is very cheapJ.
In D.C we´re going to visit the white house and Capitol hill. Both are landmarks, and we have to visit them while we’re here. There are also lots of other stuff to see, like the Washington monument, a big obelisk near the national mall. The national mall isn´t a mall lika I thought, but a national park.
Washington D.C seems like a really nice city, but there are so many politicians here and not that many young people in our own age. We think we'll have a great time anyways.
We´ve learned the national anthem and we have been singing it in the car. Here’s a video of the anthem with lyrics so that you can sing it at home. :)
