Washington D.C.

So, I haven´t posted anything on the blog for some days. As may be known, we were in D.C. from Wednesday until Saturday. Some may think the blogging stopped because there was nothing fun to write about. You could not have been more wrong. I`ll try to give you an impression of our stay, and just hope you are lucky enough to see it as we did once.

Actually, you could have been a little more wrong about the no blogging - no fun thing. I had my most boring moment during the entire USA trip after we left NY. It´s called "Bolt Bus", and it will give you NO FUN. This is me innocently looking forward to a fun roadtip:

Julia is also excited:


I was looking forward to see some of USA outside the cities and blogging with help from the wireless internet. What did I get? High way (almost exclusively) and a wireless connection that took several minutes to upload a picture. This is the only fun thing that happened on the bus trip:

I love the Americans - they make so many funny things! Like this - butter sculptures!

Garret, another friend from the trip to Finland, picked us up at the bus station. We had our dinner at a very special place in Georgetown. Their specialty is lobster rolls. Lobster rolls is lobster in bread (and french fries on the side). If you ever go there, DON´T ask if it "is sort of a MacDonald´s with seafood". That is apparently not something you should say.

The meal was great, who would imagine ever eating lobster with french fries? It tastes however even better than the Belgian specialty: Clams and french fries.

After we had finished at the nothing-like-McDonald´s lobster restaurant, we went with Garrett to a class he teaches at Georgetown University. Put in short: it was about the use of internett (blogging, youtube and so on) in the presidential election. Very interesting! We ended the evening with Garrett and his class at a local bar where we watched the last presidential debate. We caught obamania during that night! That guy is the BEST!

I learned another important lesson that night: DON´T wear a short skirt in D.C. People WILL give you undesired attention.

DAY 2

So we woke up thursday morning. This is the sight that met us:

This is our breakfast. Donuts for breakfast. I have now vowed to work out every day for a month. Se the one in the top right corner? I had that one. It was bliss. Garrett was a perfect host and served coffee as well, and the world was good.

This day was our museum day. We went to:

• The National Portrait Gallery (check it out, Ice T for instance channels Napoleon!)
• The National Archive (Where the constitution is, and where you will learn how little of American history you actually know)
• The National Gallery (or something - I lost track)

The National Archives:


The museums in Washington are really good and worth the effort. As I´ve seen National Treasure, it was also fun just to watch the buildings easily recognizable from the movie. The architecture in D.C.is worth mentioning. The feeling of the city is remarkably different from that of NY. As it seems like there are more office buildings per square meter in D.C., it seems sort of colder. The museums and other important buildings have architecture inspired by old times of greatness (for instance the Roman Empire and Ancient Greece), which make it look like the city i on display. However, I´ve found that as you get to know it, it has more to offer.

As you get to know Garrett you realize he also has more to offer, both for him and the city. This guy seriously knows everything you need to know when you are in D.C. Fortunately he gave us a tour of the monuments and memorials in the city. Highlights were the White House, George Washington monument, the sttue of Einstein, the Vietnam Wall and the Lincoln Memorial. As Garrett has a much better camera than me I suggest you visit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vermontgmg

Look for the "Viking Visit"-album.

It is very difficult to describe, but I think that there is a great feeling of national pride lingering over the monuments and memorials we saw, that you can feel even though you are not American. At Lincoln the view was amazing.


This is from the stairs, looking towards the George Washington monument.





On the Vietnam Wall every name of every soldier that died in the war is written, and people leave things like letters and flowers there in their honour. Still the parkstaff has to clean up every night. Everything that´s left on the wall goes in an archive.


The day was great, both impressive, fun and a bit emotional.

Not to forget today´s dinner: Clam pizza! The Washintonians apparently has a weird, butt great, taste inn food. It was surprisingly delicious.

So did I mention a lesson I learned? DON´T wear a short skirt in D.C. People WILL give you undesired attention. I think I got it this time.

DAY 3

Hey, guess what´s for breakfast?

That´s right. I love America!

Today was the best day ever. This is why:

We went to Arlington Cemetery right outside D.C. Here lie soldiers from every war America has participated in. Both Kennedys lie here as well. The Cemetery is situated on the former grounds of Robert E. Lee, a former American general.


These signs, and tourists are everywhere. It is very interesting to see how Americans use words like honour and respect. Several signs reminded us to honour the dead, show respect and act with dignity. People are very aware of honouring and taking pride in their nation. I´ve never seen anything like this in Norway, and I find it immensely interesting.

Every hour the guards are changing at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We just made it, this is a soldier instructing participating children to what they should do:


So this was very interesting. But the best is yet to come.

We met up with Garrett and yet another friend from Finland: Michael. Mike is a lawyer, and a great and funny guy. After a magnificent lunch at the Old Ebbitt Grill (with oysters, crab cakes and a chicken salad) we went to supreme court. As Mike has worked as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, we got a behind the scenes tour of the Court. I stood where the lawyers do when they make their arguments during trial!


And we got to med Justice Kennedy himself. That was a great experience, and we learned a lot from him when he gave us a quick lecture on how judges are chosen in Europe.

The day was not yet over, but as my flight for Oslo is about to leave, updates will come later!

Finally New Yorkers

Today Julia and I were on our own, as Nancy went back to work. We started the day off with renting bikes and going to Central Park.


Our breakfast was truly New Yorkish: a bagel and a coffee, eaten while sitting on the grass in Central Park. We bought our coffe from a charming café that claimed to be the first espresso bar in New York. We sincerely doubted that, and later got our suspicions confirmed: The first espresso bar in New York (and North America) is apparently in Little Italy.


Central park is very large, in case you didn´t know, but you can still see the city surrounding it:


Bicycling through the park was great fun, at least when we understood where you may, and where you may not, use your bicycle. We were told by a very nice parkguard, who also told us we were the most beautiful women he had seen. That made our day.

Of course we also had to visit the met, situated on the outskirts of the park. As this museum is very large, we only got to see a small part of it. It was great! The museum has a very interesting admission: it´s suggested. I paid $10, but could in theory paid only $1. I figured this would be mo good deed for the day.

The best part of the museum was the picture described below:


As we spent most of our day in a park, I will not go into details, just share a few sightings:


A man playing his sax


A bush in the shape of a horse


The lake in the middle of the park. The park also has a castle, the "Belvedere Castle". I think this castlething is more exciting when you´re not from a country that actually has a royal family.

When we were done in Central Park, we delivered our bicycles. All this traveling from one spot to another might seem like an everyday, boring thing not worth noticing. It is not. The "getting to places" actually means that we succeeded finding our way on our own!) around New York. New Yorkers, you said? I think so!

We had dinner at The Modern tonight, a restaurant situated in the Modern Museum of Arts.

As you can see, it has a star in the Michelin guide (as has 41 other restaurants in NY, from one to three!). The star is well earned, and the dinner was delicious! On our way home for the night we saw two cockroaches on the street. This was my first cockroach sighting. I then realized I am not so "New York" after all.

Welcome to my gaybourhood

We started off today with brunch at Café Cluny in the West Village. A very charming café with fun and smiling waiters! They also had the best food EVER, served in large portions. I could barely finish my pancakes. The brunches here makes me very happy I´m not living in New York. If I did, I would be twice my size.

We walked around The Village just looking for a couple of hours. Amongst other things we ran into


A pumpkin that was "bolted" to a tree,



Actual puppies for sale in a shop window! I didn´t want to disturb them with the flash of my camera, so I took a picture of the sign instead.


Several beautiful streets (amongst then "Gay street", which is crooked of course),


And a sign that, luckily, told us not to use the flowerbeds as a toilet. After walking around we went to C. O. Bigelow Pharmacy (also in The Village). It sold everything you could possibly need for beautycare. It also had a fun staff, who let us customers in on the pharmacy´s internal drama.

We also visited Soho and the area around the Union Square Park today. At the park I met a very funny man, who appeared to be best friends with the many MANY squirrels who are living in the park. They are tame, and will climb you if you ask them


Tonight we had dinner at tha Socarrat Paella bar not far from the park. Their paella was amazing.


The restaurant was full, but we got lucky. They´re apparently not supposed to do it, but they situated us in the backyard of the restaurant. The weather was warm, the paella delicious and we almost felt like we were in spain!

After dinner we went to Nancy´s friends to see Ground Zero. They live at the 37th floor, so the view was amazing:



The last stop this evening was the bar "Employees Only" in the West Village. They had complicated, fancy and very tasty drinks. We met up with Laurie, a friend we met in Finland in March. It was very good to see her again, and the evening ended excellently.

It smells like Chinatown...

Our 3rd day started with our very first taxi ride! In the famous yellow New York taxis. We risked our lives going out onthe trafficked streets to flag one down. The taxis doesn´t look like the ones on the show Sex in the City, they are dirtier and has more security precautions.

We took this taxi to the Lower East Side, to the most amazing restaurant for brunch. Stanton Social is a very trendy place with great decorations and food. The interior is in fall colours, very fitting for our October-brunch.


The brunch was amazing. At Stanton Social you eat social style, just as we did at Mara´s homemade. This (photo) was our first course, buttermilk and banana pancakes and donuts. You would think this was to sweet a meal for brunch, but it is not. It´s simply delicious.

Full and happy from the breakfast at Stanton we walked around at the Lower East Side, looking into vintage shops and admiring Lacroix shoes at $ 700 a pair.

Suddenly everything went Chinese. We were in Chinatown!


Chinatown is very different. This is an example of what you see in Chinatown:




This day was the day of walking, so we walked all through Chinatown, Little Italy, the government area and down to South Street Seaport.

As you can see, this is very different from the other areas of New York. It´s charming and much calmer. The best thing about this area must be the blue marble ice cream at the café "Jack´s".

Day three wasn´t only "Walking Day", but also "Brooklyn Day". The Brooklyn Bridge is long, crowded and beautiful. It was so bizarre walking over it when I´ve seen Spiderman and Fantastic Four.

In Brooklyn we went shopping, and I bought my first ever piece of vintage clothing!


Our dinner we got from Grimaldi´s , the best pizza in town. We stood in line for an hour, and eat it on the subway!

New York in a nutshell.

I`ll start blogging in english now as we are starting to get english speaking readers. If it´s difficult to read for anyone, send me an sms and I´ll find a solution.

Today we had brunch at Le Pain Quotidien, a really cute French place with great coffee and good service. As I was going to the bathroom I discovered something that has reappeared everywhere we´ve been eating:



Apparently, that is not an implicit action after having visited the restroom. I find this a bit disturbing.

After eating a great brunch, we went for a walk down fifth avenue on Manhattan, I´m sure the most expensive place in earth.



We visited the Applestore, and saw great brand shops like that of Gucci, Armani, JustCavalli, Van Cleef and Arpels, Botticelli, Banana Republic and more.


And suddenly we were at Trump Tower!



No Donald today, only his golfclubs. No, not his personal ones, the series they are selling. Along with Trump hard liquor and signed ties. Was anyone saying large ego?

After the walk down the fifth (which felt like being in a movie - it was so famliar!), we went to Rockefeller centre. This is what Nancy and Julia saw:


This is what I saw:


As I am afraid of heights it was only Nancy an Julia who made it to the top. I did mnage, however to get to the sauna. To be honest, we all managed that.


This sauna is in the East Village, and has had visitors like Chris North, Julia Roberts and several other celebrities. None of which were there today though. It was extremely relaxing, and it made us feel very clean, fresh and hungry. Fortunately our restaurant, Mara´s homemade, was just close by. This was my dinner today:


Spare ribs, yams, corn pudding and jalapeno and corn bread. We eat our dinner in what appears to be called "family-style", which means that everyone is tasting everyone´s food. It was a very intimate but pleasurable experience!


The spareribs were delicious and greasy.

Of course we had to get dessert as wel. Because it is famous we went to the "Dessert truck" not far from the restaurant. It is not as famou as it should be. We had the Moltn chocolate cake. This dessert alone was worth the trip from Norway, and I am now sure I will return. This was like tasting a piece of heaven. It was like I always imagined Willy Wonka´s chocolate river would taste like. It was perfection, and I cannot praise it enough. Go try it for yourself.


This is Nancy and me beeing very happy with our dessert.

The subway was really great today, taking us everywhere we needed. I haven´t managed to get a picture of the rats down there yet (I will!), but I have been able to capture some of it´s other inhabitants:


This night was finished at a new winebar near Time Square. I have no pictures as both the wine and the conversation became more interesting than the camera, unfortunately. Now it is night in New York, and the moon is high in the skies. Good night!

NEW YORK DAG 2

Utsikten fra Nancys leilighet om morgenen.


Vi kan se små hus rundt omkring på de andre takene.