Somewhere in ... Quebec

"Bonjour Quebec" we said as we crossed the state line into the province of Quebec, Canada, when all the road signs turned to french only, even the until now universal STOP signs! And this "Nouvelle France" does try to retain much of the Older France culture and language while, at times reluctantly, embracing many features of the nearby English-speaking New World!

Our first destination was the big city of Montreal, where we were able to practise none less than our swiss-german with fellow europeans Pablo and Chantal! Their house featured one of the first interesting features of Montreal, double-storey buildings with external staircases leading directly to the 2nd floor! Montreal made quite a difference from Toronto, more compact and many, MANY more churches (quebequois are historically a very catholic bunch), while still remaining a canadian metropolis with a skyscraper skyline and the ubiquitous Tim Horton's, a very canadian coffee shop chain with delicious cheap treats! Oh and did you know that many, many Hollywood films are made in either Montreal or Toronto due to their older architecture and just as importantly, lower production costs!

After saying goodbye to Montreal and our swiss hosts, we headed for Quebec City, the capital of the province of Quebec. And while Montreal retained many of its fellow New-World qualities, Quebec is pretty unique in that it is purely french-speaking, historical, old (even by european standards) charming small city, with the old core surrounded by the original military walls, and even despite a significant presence of english architecture, it felt more french than many french towns we visited, with the kind of old french charm of small restaurants, outdoor cafes, exquisite little urban gardens and street musicians.

We would love to have spent more time in this romantic city but our journey relentlessly must go on with many more places to see, and anyway we look even more forward to experiencing again this french lifestyle back home, and amazing to think it's not so far off any more! But for the moment we must bid all of it, Au Revoir!

Somewhere in ... Ontario, Canada

We have crossed the border now between the United States and Canada with the first impression immediately that we were in another country - we can understand the temperatures which are in celsius and the distances which are in kilometres! What a beautiful border too, decorated as it is by the famous, and most impressive, Niagara Falls, which we had the chance to experience upclose in the boat "Maid of the Mist" which takes us to only within a few feet of the falls and gets us all wet in the process!

We spent then the weekend in Toronto, hosted by some real Torontonians, Hilary and Clinton! And even though we are coming in from New York, Toronto seems so vast! The difference clearly is that in New York the attractions are mostly concentrated in Manhattan in a very compact area and the residential neighborhoods surround it. In Toronto, the real attractions are the residential neighborhoods themselves, which are spread out so much walking around by foot is just impossible. In fact there is no real feeling of a "city of Toronto" - with half of its 2.6 million population born outside of Canada it is not surprising to see a varied collection of neighborhoods hailing from many different countries, each with its different personality, culture and often language.

Hence we have passed first by Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Italy, and by accident, Little Portugal, where many Portuguese and Azorean flags adorn the houses and shops alongside the Canadian flags, and Portuguese with an azorean accent is heard.

After Toronto, we did a short drive to one of the most impressive natural parks in Lower Canada, the Algonquin Park, a huge expanse of maple trees and pines, and lakes everywhere, where moose and bears and wolves roam. We saw amazingly built beaver dams (although the beavers themselves were waiting for us onwards in Ottawa!), and we even spotted some moose in the distance, animals the size of horses!

Our final stop in Ontario, before moving on to french-speaking Quebec, was the capital of Canada, Ottawa, itself already a bilingual city. As with Canberra, Australia, we were expecting a bland, featureless "new" capital, but instead we found a really exciting town, with amazing architecture including the impressive Parliament Buildings themselves, and with a size of 700,000 it felt like a very chilled out and pretty capital city.

We have now reached the region of Quebec, where we stay for almost another week and practise again our french, hopefully we have not forgotten it! Donc, a Bientot!

Somewhere in ... The Big Apple

We had a successful crossing of the American Continent and arrived at the chaotic JFK, where Ponty, our new hire car, took us through the New York Saturday traffic, across the very busy Brooklynn bridge where we got a taste of the impossible New York traffic. Thank goodness for the invention of the GPS which again saved us from spending most of our trip finding our way! Driving in NY became almost bearable!

For the third time in our trip we meet with friends from Strasbourg, this time it is Matt and Lisa, who have not chaged much apart from a small detail called Maddie, an adorable bundle of smiles which monopolises attention everywhere. We had a chance to relax in the beautiful surroundings of Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania and even had the opportunity to meet many of Lisa's relatives over a feast of barbequeued pork and beer tasting almost like Oktoberfest back in Germany!

We bravely took Ponty back to the heart of Manhattan to start a two days tour of New York. We love this city that never sleeps, its amazing energy, dynamism sucks you in and you can't resist but to love it, its harmonious multiculturalism, the robust and impressive early 20th century architecture, its green parks and sophisticated skyscrapers, its cultural museums and the Times Square neons, there's something of everything here! It is so interesting to see live all these icons of modern culture, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Central Park, the sad sight of Ground Zero at the World Trace Center, the long street of Broadway...

Last night we shared the small Bryant Park with thousands of people, fighting for the last piece of lawn to picnic or the last french chair to sit in to watch a free 70s open-air cinema, preceded by an old "Thats all folks!" cartoon about the West coast national parks, all these amazing places now familiar to us.
Tomorrow we go back to the Fidlers' to regain our energy, and start our tour of the East Coast of America. But before we finish it, we will definitely come back to see more of New York. Two days is just not enough to take it all in, the Apple is way too Big!

Somewhere in ... the National Parks

"It looks exactly like a Google earth", said today a five years old kid to his father, when we were enjoying one of the amazing views if Yosemite valley. Oh well, this is one way how one can enjoy the wonders of nature.

It is our last day on the West coast and after three weeks of national parks marathon we are flying from San Francisco to the Big Apple and we will start our race across the East coast and east of Canada.

But where have we left you last time? After the Grand canyon we saw Red Rocks Canyon, Bryce, Canyon Lands, Monument Valley, Dead Horse Point, Arches, Death Valley, Yosemite NP... I don't think that there are many national parks left which we haven't seen.

Every single of them was special and amazing, with great views, fantastic colours and rock formations... We would show you some photos which we took plenty. You will definitely get bored with all our artistic photos, but the views were just so amazing and we couldn't believe our eyes. Unfortunately we still didn't have the chance of uploading them to the photo gallery. It is like the lady at the petrol station in Death Valley said: How could you expect to have here phone signal or wireless connection, we are in the middle of nowhere:) Her statement was proved directly ten minutes after as we hit the ghost town in the desert, with white zebra lizards, rattelsnakes, lots of sand, abandoned cowboy deserts and crumbling buildongs, all under approximately 46 degrees (celsius, not fahrenheit)!

Nevada, Utah ( with its fire problems), Arizona and we are back to colder California trying to spot some black bears in Yosemite. The only animals we have seen though are tourists, and we have seen plenty as there 3,5 million visitors every year visiting thiscrown jewel of US.

So enough of the beautiful nature and breathtaking views - we need civilisation and some fresh air... Maybe we will get plenty by the Lake Poconos, where we start our second part of US trip and where we will meet yet again with good friends, this time the Fidler's family (and the little sweet Madelyn!)

Somewhere in... the Wild West

Nevada, Arizona and Utah followed California, and what a difference they make, much further than the timezone difference!

Our first stop out of California was none other than the absolutely crazy Las Vegas, a gambling megalomania, neon lights competing for the gambling dollars in a Stravinskian symphony of light. How could we not enjoy this crazy town, it's hard not to have fun enjoying the weird collection of people and casino appeals of watershows, lion and white tiger habitats, amazing conservatories and dance shows, all this in the middle of an utterly inhospitable desert! And to prove beginner's luck holds true, Lenka came out 40 dollars richer and an experienced blackjack player! We left Vegas in our thankfully air-conditioned car (temperatures reach the 40s most days out in the desert), and toured the impressives nature-made Red Rock Canyon and the man-made Hoover Dam.

The next stop was in Arizona and Utah, a much more traditional american experience where one sees cowboys, conservatively dressed mormon ladies tending to their gardens, american flags flying patrioticaly everywhere, traditional gun adverts fighting magazine ad space with country music festivals, and thankfully for us, more reasonably priced food! But without a doubt, the most unique, dazzling feature of this land is its unique natural landscape, and particularly the national parks of Zion and the Grand Canyon which we have visited these two days. No words can make justice to these natural phenomena of undescribable beauty which by itself would make a trip to the USA worthwhile, so I will only direct you to the photos which still fail to capture the magic of the place, once we manage to upload them.

We are going to leave Kanab, Utah tomorrow go further inland in search of more amazing natural beauty, we'll leave our motel behind, still wth the very same rooms where movie stars from the 50s stayed when shooting their western films, and we'll contine our drive through the desert, prairies, cows and small little towns scattered in this beautiful landscape. We are indeed in the Wild West!

Somewhere in... where streets have no names!

For the U2 fans, I don't have to explain... For those who aren't, all will be explained.

We left our gracious hosts Joshua and Dominic in Oakland, San Francisco, and we took the US famous "Pacific Highway" and drove the Pacific coast towards our first national park visit - Sequoia and Kings Canyon national park. Like its australian sibling "Great Ocean Road", this drive must rank among the best coastal drives in the world, with its beautiful scenes of clear ocean, rugged shores and sandy beaches. On the way we saw a vast colony of huge elephant seals just lounging on the beach, and the sumptuous Hearst castle, with its famous history of 20s film parties and posh visitors.

Kings Canyon and Sequoia NP were completely breathtaking. The views overlooking the mountains, valleys, canyons, fantastic sunsets and most of all the forests of hundreds of gigantic trees. We have never seen anything like this before and felt like small ants againts the wonders of the nature, which are thousands years old.

From this peaceful environment we headed towards californian party city, Los Angeles, where we didn't spot any stars (just the ones on the walk of fame), but we enjoyed the immense villas in Beverly Hills, views of the Hollywood sign and our new hosts Josh and Lynne took us to an LA fringe film festival. We saw "Does your soul have a cold?", an american low budget documentary about japanese depression which was followed by a Q&A with the director, certainly wasn't one of the mainstream films and didn't get as much as advertising as Die Hard 4, but it was a great way to experience the true arts environment of this bustling metropolis. Los Angeles is also the city of the rich, famous and beautiful - we toured Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Santa Monica, Malibu beach, Mulholand drive - all the places so familiar from the movies, just the movie stars are missing, as they are hiding behind the high walls of their wealthy mansions as big as a whole street.

LA was crazy, vibrant, with lots of traffic, so we were longing for something more empty, vaste, hot... And we ended up in the desert, in the small town 29 Palms, which is in the middle of the Joshua Tree National Park. And yes, if the name sounds familiar to you, you are completely right. The famous CD Joshua Tree by the band U2 was written in this desert, in this national park, in the motel Harmony Inn, we are staying and writing you this blog entry. Yes, the spirit of U2 is surrounding us, and as it is approximately 40 degrees outside (109 fahrenheit) we are going to jump into the famous pool and open a bottle of californian wine...

See ya later alligators!

PS: And happy birthday to my friend Kate:)!