Субботу мы посвятили поездке в город Квебек — столицу одноименной провинции. 200 с хвостиком км пути от Монреаля пролетели незаметно. На подьездах к городу мы получили возможность полюбоваться изгибами реки святого Лаврентия по одну сторону дороги, и небольшими уютными домиками по другую. Было забавно видеть развешанное для просушки бельё практически возле каждого домика — вспомнились Беларусь и детство.

Поближе к излюбленному туристами старому городу мы застряли в стоячей пробке. Но вскоре нам повезло — удалось запарковаться на одной из платных стоянок, причём дешево (всего $8 долларов на любой срок в пределах 12 часов). Старый город оказался немного иным чем я представляла. Наверное, моё подсознание подсовывало мне виды Троицкого Предместья (сохранившаяся часть старого Минска). Небольшие площади и дорожки буквально кишели людьми. Вообще надо заметить, что Квебек отпраздновал своё 400-летие буквально за Read more…

1

ufly says:
July 14, 2008 @ 11:19

Красивая и разнообразная архитектура, узкие улочки в горку - выглядит уютно. Больше похоже на старую Европу, чем на Северную Америку.
Мне кажется, что замок ты немного принизила с “мелким принцем” . Мелкому принцу такое жилище было бы слишком роскошно…
А скрытый агент занес свои руки над изумрудом или над субъектом, стоящим перед ним в центре кадра?

2

Daniel says:
July 14, 2008 @ 12:34

Да, агент не на столько скрытый как на той старой фотке из Bryce Canyon.

3

Alena says:
July 14, 2008 @ 14:45

Там скрытый агент над изумрудом чахнет… Там французский дух! Там туристами пахнет!

4

ufly says:
July 14, 2008 @ 14:50

Ого, вот он как французский дух-то, на поэзию потянул…
А туристами как, хорошо пахнет?

5

Alena says:
July 14, 2008 @ 18:19

Да вроде ничего пахнет-то — едой, жарой и любопытством.

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This was my first visit to French Canada, and the second visit to the country itself. We grouped with Danya’s parents just as the last time — and this made the trip even more interesting. Danya’s dad used to work as a tour guide, so he knows a lot about the history of Canada as well as tourist attraction spots.

We left Brooklyn at around 14:30 on Thursday, picked up Danya’s mom from work, and headed towards Montréal. The traffic was brutal, just as expected, so it took us 3-4 hours to drive through Manhattan.

On our way we stopped two times for sightseeing — in Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, and in Montpelier, the capital of Vermont. Harford’s capitol building is just gorgeous. It’s made of marble and granite, and has some noticeable features of Gothic design. I must say that it’s one of the most impressive Read more…

1

ufly says:
July 10, 2008 @ 13:39

Very nice views and pictures! I liked the church interior and St. Helen Island most.

Did you actually leave Brooklyn on Wednesday? I thought it was Thursday.

2

Alena says:
July 10, 2008 @ 13:55

Oy… Thursday of course. Thank you for pointing that out!

3

Lenchik says:
July 11, 2008 @ 00:43

waaaaaaaaaah. nice trip.
sorry i didn’t get with you before you left, kept falling asleep in different place after my little ride. sides it would suck to delay your awesome trip.
i never remembered french canada being so beautiful eh?!
yea i’ll be back after graduation hopefully for around a week or two.

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On Saturday we spent the whole day trying to entertain ourselves, and I think we succeeded.

We woke up pretty late, had a quick breakfast and together with Danya’s dad and Ignat went to the lighthouse, located in Sandy Hook, NJ. There are actually a number of lighthouses in the area, but we visited only the Sandy hook lighthouse and the Twin Lights lighthouse.

The Sandy hook lighthouse was built in 1764 and is a little taller than a 100 ft. It is still operational (I just read it online), although this fact wasn’t apparent to me when I saw it. There is a tour of the lighthouse offered by the New Jersey Lighthouse society, but we didn’t take it because we kind of arrived there late and wanted to visit the Twin Lights while we still had time. Everybody got a pretty cool stamp though, and we bought a new lighthouse magnet for our fridge.

One question that I had in mind was why the lighthouse was build so far from the shore. Here is the answer: “When the lighthouse was built in 1764, it stood only 500 feet (150 m) from the tip of Sandy Hook; however, today, due to growth caused by littoral drift, it is almost one and half miles (2.4 km) inland from the tip.” Interesting!

The Twin Lights are non-operational, and we took a short climb to the top of the North Tower. I’m a bit claustrophobic, so going up and down the narrow stairs wasn’t very pleasant, but this activity was rewarded by a beautiful view of the Sandy Hook Bay.

It’s interesting that the Twins are actually not identical (Ignat was the one who noticed it), as one might expect. They look alike, but there are some noticeable differences in their design.

The area around the lighthouses was very nice too. It smelled like hay, and I even laid down on the grass, and it totally felt as if I were in my grandmother’s village again.

I spotted a cherry tree, and Danya harvested some ripe berries by moving the car under the tree and using it’s bumper as a stepping stone. Oh, those cherries were delicious!

Not far off the Twin Lights we stopped at some scenic viewpoint. The view was great, and we also saw a monument dedicated to the events of September 11 — it portrays an eagle carrying a piece of deformed metal in its paws. I guess, the metal once belonged to the Twin Towers.

Later on we went home, ate in the local Uzbek Kebab place (although the kebab was worse than normally), and then went to the movie theater to see “The Incredible Hulk”.

We just booked another trip. This time we’re going to Canada¹ for July 4th weekend. We plan to spend 4 nights there.

The plan is very simple. We take off on July 3rd, as early as possible and head straight to Montreal through Vermont. Even though it will be late we want to stop in Montpelier and check out the capital building. We expect to arrive to Montreal somewhere in the middle of the night. We’re going to spend 3 nights there². Read more…

1

Lenchik says:
June 22, 2008 @ 19:16

awesome.
so i’ll wake you up on the third as soon as i roll in.

2

Daniel says:
June 22, 2008 @ 23:25

When do you get in, approximately?

3

Lenchik says:
June 23, 2008 @ 20:31

hopefully no later then 0600

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Наша замечательная традиция куда-нибудь ездить на Memorial Day weekend была воплощена в жизнь и в этом году. Как уже писал Даня, мы зарезервировали отели в Providence, RI и в Boston, MA.

Так как я сдала последние экзамены в четверг и была свободна аки птица, мы с Даней разработали хитроумный план избежать предпраздничные Нью-Йоркские пробки: в пятницу утром мы должны были ехать к нему на работу, вечером на поезде туда же должен был подтянуться Игнат, ну и дальше все вместе мы продолжили бы славный путь в Провиденс. Однако ввиду того что Данин босс вдвое сократил рабочий день, мы пересмотрели наш план и решили просто выехать из города как можно раньше после окончания работы. Read more…

1

Geoff says:
May 30, 2008 @ 11:27

Hey–I can almost read this! Something something something Freedom Trail! something something Quincy Market! something something Foxwoods Casino! I’m bilingual now–sweet.

2

Daniel says:
May 30, 2008 @ 16:54

You’re definitely getting there with your language skills. I shall start being more careful with bad-mouthing you in Russian from now on.

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We booked another trip. A short one this time. The final destination is Boston with a 1 night stop in Providence, RI. Now we’ve been to Boston before, but we didn’t want to waste a 3 day weekend and just sit at home. We’re planning to do a lot of sightseeing and hunt for some National Park Passport stamps on the way.

My memories of our vacation go more and more out of focus and transform into a beautiful bright cloud of warmth as time passes by.

The desire to keep at least some details sharp propels me to write this post about our Salt Lake City experience.

Salt Lake City was the last stop in our wonderful journey. The city itself has a rather small population of less than 200,000 people, but its metropolitan area is inhabited with a substantially larger population of over a million. Read more…

1

Серёга says:
May 31, 2008 @ 15:45

ага, так на дикую природу тоже тянет!
ну классно, я заочно познакомился с настоящим бизоном

будете там ещё раз, передайте бизону, что он заочно знаком со мной

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The stay in Ruby’s Inn at Bryce Canyon was the only 3 night, 2 day stop during our trip. We assigned the first day to the exploration of Bryce Canyon National Park and the use of the second day was to be decided upon the arrival of the said day.

At first I (and others seemed to agree) thought that maybe we should have spent that extra day in Moab, but when the evening rolled around and the day was behind us we knew that we did the right thing. In the morning it was decided that Zion National Park was too close for us not to explore it. Read more…

1

Artem says:
May 10, 2008 @ 09:40

Red road looks unbelievable

2

Daniel says:
May 10, 2008 @ 11:49

Imagine how great that looks in person.

Thanks for the comment!

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Серёга says:
May 31, 2008 @ 16:00

ну тока я речь про парки завёл, а тут оказывается уже все парки объезженны, это только я сплю в шапку.

коньёны авторитетные

а фотки небось не все выложили, фоток должно быть больше! мот где на фотохостинге каком ещё фоток припрятали? даёшь ссылку!

4

Daniel says:
May 31, 2008 @ 16:19

Фоток на самом деле с путешествия очень много получилось, но руки еще не дошли до того чтоб пройти через них и выложить те которые стоит выкладывать.

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Tuesday (April 22nd) night we arrived at the Bryce Canyon. Hotel we stayed in, Ruby’s Inn, is located right near the entrance to the park. We quickly checked in into our pretty decent room with two king-size beds, and drove to the canyon to see the sunset. The park is open 24 hours a day, and the fee per car is $25. We don’t really care about fees to national parks though, because Danya’s dad bought a senior national park pass for just $10 (you have to be at least 62 and an American citizen at that), and it is valid indefinitely at any national park. Anyway, after a certain time there are no rangers at the entrance to the Canyon, so anybody can enter the park for free.

I saw Bryce Canyon on the pictures before, but to see it with my own eyes was still truly amazing. Tall columns of rocks, called hoodoos, are carved by water and wind. They look nothing like any rock formations I’ve seen before. It seemed as if I accidentally found a magic city built with red, white and orange Read more…

1

Таня says:
May 3, 2008 @ 09:36

Суперский отдых. Было очень интересно читать и смотреть фотографии. Масштабность природы впечатляет!
До этого я думала, что больше всего на свете - из природы - хочу попасть на Камчатку поздней весной. Теперь появились сомнения

2

Yola_k says:
May 4, 2008 @ 16:05

Вау!

3

Alex says:
May 5, 2008 @ 11:21

That “hidden agent” photo cracks me up

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Гуря says:
May 14, 2008 @ 12:33

Горы впечатляют… Увиденные пейзажи мне напомнили Австралию. Ульруру-гору я еще не видела, сужу по картинкам, но и обычный пейзаж поразит любого оттенками красного цвета земли

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В Моабе мы были две ночи. В первый вечер, голодные и уставшие после дороги, мы поели супа, попили пива в местном баре-пивоварне, и рано пошли спать.

На следующее утро мы отправились в Arches National Park. Пожалуй, этот парк произвёл на меня наибольшее впечатление из всей поездки. Красота там ну просто необыкновенная. Красные причудливые горы возвышаются над такой же кирпично-красной землёй. Земля же покрыта кактусами и скромными растениями пустыни, стыдливо раскрывшими свои незамысловатые соцветия навстречу слепящему солнцу.

Даниным родителям очень понравились три скалы, которые д. Боря величал тремя гангстерами (потом мы узнали, что эти горные образования носят название “три сестры”). Произвёл впечатление и огромный каменюга, непонятно каким образом балансирующий на высокой каменной подставке. Но, конечно, самого большого внимания заслуживают сами арки. Read more…