USTOUR.be

Back home.

2006-09-03T23:38:00.000-07:00

After waiting in airports, sitting in planes for 20 hours, we arrived saturday morning in Brussels. Our parents and brother and sisters were there waiting for us, to welcome us back home in Belgium.
The 30th of august we took the bus to Santa Monica, a part of Los Angeles, at the ocean. After walking a bit around we decided to rent ourselves some bikes, so we followed the bike trial that followed the ocean. Afterwards we went back to Hollywood, to see Pirates of the Caribbean that evening in the El Capitan theatre. This was more then a standard movie experience, they played live movie music, there were props from the movie,...
The next day, our last day of our journey to the states, we went to Universal City, where we did the city walk; then we walked around in the neighbourhoud of Hollywood; to Paramount Studios,... Then we walked to the Hollywood Bowl and went back to the Hollywood Boulevard, through the Hollywood Hills, where we went to see Snakes on a Plane in the Chinese Theatre, it's really a great movie. Afterwards we ate something and went back to our hostels.
At 4:30 AM that night we started our journey back home. At 7:30 we had a first flight to Atlanta, in the airport there we had to wait 3 hours; Then we had a 8 hour flight to Brussels ahead of us, before our trip would really come to an end, which I really regret, I could have stayed in the states for a few more days, weeks, months, ... But no worries I'll be back.

So this is it, probably the end of this blog, I hope you all enjoyed it. I want to thank once more everyone, but especially the people I got to know in the States (also the ones from Germany,...), and even more especially the ones that let us stay in their homes, we really enjoyed it and we will see each other again. I loved everyday of this trip, it was really such a great experience: I did and saw so much in so less time, it's amazing!

Kurt.

San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, LA

2006-08-29T22:29:00.000-07:00

Hey, it has been a long time since we posted something, isn't it? We couldn't use the www the last days, cause we were travelling like real hikers. First we went to San Luis Obispo, where we stayed in a hostel (which was much more familiar as the previous hostels) We walked a lot in this village, trying to find "downtown", where we spent a few hours: we ate really good natural food in the "natural cafe".
The next day we took once more, a 'greyhound'bus, to Santa Barbara. There we hadn't booked a hostel before we left on this trip. So we tried to find something, we ended up in the State Street Hotel, where we got a room with 20 percent discount. While travelling these few days, the temperature got higher and higher (it's really hot here in Hollywood). In Santa Barbara which is a beautiful coast city, we walked on the pier, went for a little while on the beach, we walked around in the centre of the city, went for the second day in a row to the natural cafe. Later that evening we went to the movies and saw "the illusionist", a good, but a bit strange movie. Afterwards (after trying to get in and out of our hotel) we went for a "night"walk, which was really great.
The next day, which is yesterday, the 28th of august; we took the bus in the direction of Hollywood. When we arrived here, it was another temperature shock. We walked for the third day in a row with our heavy bags through a city. This time on the famous Hollywood Boulevard. Finally we found our hostel, located only 0.1 mile from the chinese theatre, Kodak theatre, walk of fame,... We bought ourselves a citypass (50 bucks) and did two of the four attractions that evening. We did a two hour tour with a van, that guided us to all the homes of the celebrities here in the Hollywood Hills, Beverly Hills. After eating, and going to the Wax Museum (citypass), we did a long walk to the sunset strip, where we saw a lot of famous places where celebrities hang out,...
Today we started our day (after going to Starbucks for a breakfast) with a Redline Hollywood Tour; we saw a famous acting school, the egyptian theatre, el capitan theatre,... Then we took the metro to downtown LA, where we saw the civic centre, little tokyo, chinatown,... Then we headed back to Hollywood, got ourselves tickets to be in the audience of a tv show. So at 6 PM we waited to get in to see the Jimmy Kimmel Live show. Some famous guests were there; Pat Green (grammy nominee),... It was an amazing experience, as is whole this trip!

TTYL, Kurt and Vincent.

Thanks for the comments Cathy, Rosa, parents, ...
See you again soon!

Monterey bay

2006-08-25T23:46:00.000-07:00

First we went to Starbucks to have a croissant and a coffee (cappucino for Vincent, coffee Americano for Kurt). Then we headed to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where we walked around for two hours and saw some amazing fishes, jellies, sharks, ... At noon we walked to the Fishermans Wharf, where we walked around and went in some souvenir shops, ... Then we went to Taco Bell, another fastfood restaurant, where Kurt had a Bean Burrito, cheese caesadilla and a coke for 5 bucks, Vincent ate a supreme Burrito and something else. Afterwards we started trying follow the signs of the path of history, which lead us to the first brick house, the city hall, an old jail, ... At 4:30 PM we went back to the hostel, but it was closed, so we had to wait half an hour. A bit later we walked to Pacific Grove, where we walked around and at 6:15 we went to an hamburger restaurant, before going to the movies. We saw at 7:40 PM You, me and Dupree in the Lighthouse cinema (Yes, another movie with Matt Dilan). It was a funny movie. Afterwards we walked to the ocean and followed it back to the hostel, where we arrived at 10:45. Then we wrote this blogs,...

Greetings Kurtand Vincent.

PS, thanks for the comments.

24/08

2006-08-25T23:35:00.000-07:00

We had breakfast, we made ourselfs some eggs,... And we got ready to leave. A bit before noon we took off with sarah to the greyhound station in Oakland. There we bought our tickets for 20$ and had to wait 45 minutes for our bus to Salinas, while waiting we ate our sandwiches.So drove from 1 PM to 5PM. When we arrived in Salinas we had to take an other bus to Monterey. After an hour we arrived at the Monterey transit. Then we started walking around trying to find our Hostel with our backpacks on our backs. Because of Vincents orientation and Kurts remeberence of having a Starbucks near the hostel, we almost walked straight to the hostel.(tough it was hard)
After checking in we went for a walk on Cannery row. Then we shared an XL-pizza (which was a bit to XL) Then we went to the hostel and read the newspaper and all the folders we could find before going to sleep.

Kurt and Vincent

six flags and burgers

2006-08-23T21:26:00.000-07:00

We woke up at 9.30 AM. We made our breakfast: eggs, a bagel and milk. Afterwards we tried to upload de photos from the memorystick on the computer. Then we noticed that our photos were gone!!! But no worries, we will be able to recover them when we are home. Then we wrote the blog and wrote some postcarts. When Joe came home we ate lunch and went to six flags marine world.
There we saw some shows: a bird show, tiger show, a killer whale,... and I (Vincent) went on some rollercoasters. We went in a splach. At 6 PM we left the park and went to a restaurant where we met the parents of Sarah. In the restaurant we ate some... burgers.
tomorow we are going to Monterey. We are staying in hostels, so it will be hard to write the blog, but we will try to update our blog as much as possible.

Vincent & Kurt

22/08

2006-08-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

We woke up at 7 AM in San Jose, because they could drop us off at the Bart station in Fremont, around 9 AM. We first had breakfast; cereals and some coffee. Then we met the baby (21 months old); Maya. We took the train to Orinda, where we left again at 11 AM, and we took off to Berkeley. We walked a bit around in the center of the city: there were a lot of book shops, ...
After 2 hours we ate something in a mexican restaurant: Caescadillas with chicken, I took the ones with cheese. This was served with chips and sauces: sauer cream and avocado. Afterwards we walked a little bit on the university site, Berkeley has a famous college. Then we took Bart again, to Oakland this time; the trains were still having delays, in the evening we found out that two people were found under a train. Oakland seems nice when you walk out of the station, but a bit further this changes. So, we left after half an hour. At 4:30 we were back in Orinda. We watched a bit the television with the kids and had dinner at 6 PM: something really tasty, that looked a bit like lasagna and was mexican. Then Joe called us, if we would like to come to the Embarcadero Center One, to watch an american avant-premiere of Factotum, a movie with Matt Dilan. So we went to San Fransisco to see it, and it was great. Afterwards Joe walked a little bit with us and went home, we took a cable car and walked a bit around till 10:30 PM. We got home at 11:30 and went to sleep.

Greetings, Kurt & Vincent.

Picknic and Shakira

2006-08-22T10:36:00.000-07:00

Today we woke up at 9 AM, had breakfast (bagels + milk), and got ready to eave Orinda at about 10:15 AM. We headed towards the Claremont resort and spa, because the hotel company of Joe was having a picknic there. They organised nice games for the kids, there was a swimming lake, ... We first had lunch; caribbean style food, on very nice decorated tables. Afterwards we went swimming and went on a paddle boat together with Kylie and Ann (a friend of hers). We ate a second time, watched the limbo game, ... At 4:45 PM we left and went back to Orinda (I was already getting nervous to make it on time to san Jose) I bought tickets for a concert of shakira in the HP Pavilion and it would start at 7:30 PM.
At 5:15 we sat on Bart, had to transfer in Macarthur station and we arrived at 6:30 in Fremont. There we had to take the VTA bus towards the pavilion. It was a very friendly busdriver, (in Belgium I never spoke to one) but we soon found out we wouldn't make it to the concert on time. After going to will call, where the woman was very happy to see her first belgian passport, we got in our places at 8 PM. But we weren't to late, the concert only started at 9, and went on till 11. I found it very amuzing, so the second time I went to a concert of Shakira won't be the last time. I bought some souvenirs and Vincent called Jeff, a very friendly manm that drove us and is letting us stay with him this night. We already ate a late evening snack: some chicken for Vincent and potatoes for me. Tomorrow morning we'll go back to Orinda.

Greetings, Kurt and Vincent, from San Jose.

PS: Thanks for the comments; Jonathanm Sofie, Els, Silke and our parents. And for letting us stay here in San Jose; Jeff and family!

san fransisco

2006-08-20T23:34:00.000-07:00

today we slept till 10.30, because we were tired of our camping trip. then we had this magnificent breakfast, pancakes and a smoothie. MMMMMM YAMMIE. Afterwards we uploaded some photo's on the site because it was SOOOOOOO long ago. Then we took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transportation) to San Fransisco and we got out at Powell street station. But first we visited some shops like the Virgin Megastore and the Apple store... Then we went to a little park where we ate our lunch: sandwishes made by Joe and some spicy chips. On Union square we walked in a hotel, where the elevator was made in glass. We took it and we went all the way to the top, where we had an amazing view. Back on the ground, we walked to China town. (The biggest population chinese people in the world, except from China) We went in some shops were they even sold a lot of weapons like samurai swords and other kinds of knives. We found some machines who could transform our pennies into a souvenir penny.
Around 5.30 p.m. we walked back to the train station and headed towards Orinda. There we were unable to get into the house. So we waited till Joe came back, he did a BBQ and he made us some hamburgers and corn. It was VERY tasty. After watching the Incredibles the previous evening, we played, together with the kids, some learnfull games on the nintendo DS.

All the best

kurt & Vinn(i)e

SUNTREK TOUR

2006-08-19T19:23:00.000-07:00

Hi,

we arrived in Orinda, close to San Fransisco where we'll stay a few days with Joe, Sarah, Kylie and Sydnie. The last week we couldn't write something to you guys, because we were on a tour. the 12th we flew from JFK (New York) to LAX (Los Angeles), took a cab to the Holiday Inn, where the next morning our suntrek tour started. I,m not going to write everything we saw, did, ...; because that would take to much time right now, But I,ll tell all of you later what happened over here in sunny, California. I,ll give you already a bit of our adventure; the 13th we met our tourguide Joe, a really nice guy and the 11 other people we would travel with, it were all girls, most of them were aupairs and most of them were from germany. The first day of the tour we visited LA (Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Venice Beach) and drove to Joshua Tree National Park. The next day we went to lake Havasu, route 66 and the Grand Canyon; one of the 7 natural wonders of the world (if you see it, you believe that, I even flew over it by helicoptre), all this days we camped (the campfires were great), but the next day we went (after visiting Oatman), to Las Vegas where we stayed in a hotel (we didn't sleep that much there though). We visited a lot of casinos on the Strip, drove the biggest limousine in the world, and partied; but we couldn't go into clubs, because you have to be 21 (all ways the same song; not allowed to get into clubs, to gamble, to drink, but us being underage, didn't kept our tourguide from giving us some wodkamixes). We slept from 4 till 7, so the next day everyone was sleeping in the van. The next day we drove to Death Valley; where we walked a bit in bad water (the lowest place in the northern atmosphere) at night we camped outside of the desert, and we went to a hot spring before going to bed. The folowing we headed towards Mono Lake and Yosemite afterwards, where we rented a bike, went to the yosemite falls, climbed a rock,... The next day we went to San Fransisco; where we did a bit of sightseeing and in the evening we went to Fisherman's wharf, where we went on a sailing boat and went all the way around Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge. Today we went to the Golden Gate Park and then we walked accross the famous bridge, after that the tour ended. It was such a great experience; meeting so much people, visit so much amazing places in so little time,... It was a once in a lifetime experience, like a dream come true for me.
(Eating wasn't a problem for me, being a vegeterian because one of the girls and the tourguide were also vegetarian, so almost all the food they made was vegetarian.) So thanks to all the othet trekkers and to our fantastic tourguide Joe. Today after saying goodbye and checking out at 11 AM, we took BART to Orinda where we'll stay with another Joe. After visiting the town here and going to the local cinema, where we watched WTC, we finally met this nice family. I'm really tired now (we haven't slept that much and that good on our amazing trip of a week here in California. So some pictures will follow, tomorrow evening.

TTYL, Kurt (and vincent who went to bed)

11/08 NY part 3

2006-08-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

Our first stop was ground zero, this place was 5 years ago the WTC. So we walked around this place and we tried to imagine that there were 2 huge towers. After a while we walked to battery park, passing the world financial center. In battery park we saw something incredible. In the middle of this big river there was a huge statue, Lady liberty.
We headed to a place called castle clinton. There we bought some tickets for the ferry who would bring us to liberty and Ellis Island. After a long time waiting and being checked by the security we went to liberty island. We walked around the statue and we took some pictures.
our next stop was Ellis Island. There we saw this short play about the voyage that many people have made to reach America. After this we wondered around on Ellis Island and we took the next ferry to manhattan.
So we walked towards broadway and followed it for a while. We walked back to "ground zero" and then we went to Wall street. There we saw the stock exchange and trinity Church. We headed back to brooadway and we followed it untill it crossed the 5th avenue. We went to a "au bon pain"
We continued our journey and we walked in the direction of the empire state building. There we went to the NY SKYRIDE. A simulation of a flight above and in New York. Then we headed to the observatory at the 86th floor of the Empire State building. But there were so many people that we progressed very slowly. A few lines later (An hour later) we reached the observatory. It was almost 9.30PM and it was already dark. We saw thousands and thousands and ... thousands of lights.
Then we went back to Queens

Kurt and Vincent

NYC day 2

2006-08-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

When we woke up, we got an excellent breakfast that Jamahl made; some roasted bread, something with eggs and cheese and a fresh cup of coffee.
We took the subway at 10:20 AM (2 dollar a ride), line E till we where near 14th street. That's a thing I really like about New York; it's always easy to find your way, because of the avenue-street patron.
We passed the Forbes magazine galleries, and walked on 5th avenue till the
Washington Square. This is near the NY university and there is a famous arch.
Then we walked through SoHo (we walked on Canal street) and Tribeca to the woolworth building and the civic center city hall.
There we headed towards Chinatown (we took the Mott street) and little Italy. After walking around in those nice district, we followed Broadway for a long time. But first we had a piece of pizza as lunch and got ourselves a soda in a Wendy's. Walking on Broadway, we passed; Union Square, Madison Square and the Flatiron Building. We went into one of the biggest stores: Macy's, it has nine floors (we noticed that the firstfloor the same is as the mainfloor here).
When we came out of the store it was raining, so we waited a little bit; and it was nice to have some rain, it's really hot here in NYC.
Afterwards we took a look in Madison Square Garden and Penn Station, followed by a bit of walking to the Empire State Building (we'll visit it tomorrow) and headed towards Park Avenue. Where we saw the Morgan Library and Grant Central Terminal. Then we took 41th Street to Bryant Park where the NY public library is situated. Then we went to Times Square and bought Broadway tickets in the Tkts shop in 46th Street. (Tickets for the same evening at 8:00 PM and they were $60, which is half of the normal price) So before going to see The Producers in St James theatre, we walked a bit around on Times Square, Broadway and had some more fastfood in a BurgerKing.
The musical was amazing, I really like that kind of theatre; the decors were stunning, the singing was great,... We had a wonderfull evening and saw Times Square again, but it was as beautiful as the first time. We got back in Queens at 11:30 PM

Thanks to everyone for the comments, and Brienne, sorry for writing your name wrong on the post, but I changed it, ttyl;

Kurt and Vincent (Who's writing our 250 photos we took today on a cd)

PS; thanks to Philip for having a link to our site and to mijn zusje Silke om te proberen deze vreemde taal te begrijpen en mijn tocht te volgen.

NYC

2006-08-09T18:39:00.000-07:00

So, today we went to NY city. This morning we took the subway from kew garden,queens to 53th street (5th avenue), Manhattan. We went out of the subway and the first things we saw were huge buildings, yellow cabs, "one way"signs, ...
The next thing I can remember is the big MoMa building. We walked a bit further and saw the disney store. We waited a few minutes till it opened and we were supprised the applaus of the shopkeepers. A bit further on 5th avenue we found the brand new Apple store, which is underground but it has a glass cube above.
We walked further and further (passing the frick collection), untill we recognised a huge museum, the Metropolitan Museum. We walked in this place for 2 hours. There were different area's: egyptian art, medieval art, american wing, japenese art, europian art, ... and the roof. On the roof we had this really nice view over the central park and the rest of the city. When we left the Metropolitan we walked in the direction of the Guggenheim museum. We took a few pictures of the stairs and went back outside. We bought a Hot-dog and a pretzel and a bottle of coke. We went in the central park. Their we saw this amazing creature: a raccoon. The next stop was the museum of natural history. There we saw this Darwin exhibition and almost all the other rooms. After two and a half hours and we went back in Central park and searched the strawberry fields.
Then we strolled to the Lincoln Center. And then we walked to Broadway. We followed this street untill we were on the famous Times square. There it was VERY crowded. We went to the MTV store, this huge toy shop and the Virgin megastore. Then we tried to buy tickets for a broadway show but because they didn't accept visa and becauce the bank of america hadn't enough cash, we changed our mind and went to the rockefeller center. But first we went to MC Donald's.
Then we headed towards the st. Patrick's cathedral, to the chrysler building (really nice view) and the united nations headquarter. After a day of walking we were pleased to get in the subway, back to Queens.

All the best
Kurt and Vincent

To NYC

2006-08-08T17:07:00.000-07:00

We got up this morning, we packed our stuff and said goodbye to Jonathan (thanks again for everything and see you again) and Simba.
Then, around 11:00 AM, we headed towards Connecticut, where Claudia lives. We drove to Vermont first, drove through it and got gas just before entering Massasuchets, we also had lunch in a Subway. It's a kind of fastfood restaurant where you get your sandwish made.
We drove further, all the way through Massasuchets to Connecticut, where we stopped for about 20 minutes.
At 4:00 PM we headed towards NYC; while driving that much we got used to listening to the radio and I found out I actually do like Country music. We were getting really near Kew Garden in Queens, but we were still on the highway when Vincent and I heard a "pop", followed by a really strange sound, the car made. We got aside and saw that we had a flat tire; Claudia called AAA, some kind of help service. But a car from NYPD stopped and he placed the extra tire on the car, but that one had a screw in it, so we had to go to an auto repair shop, before getting to Jamahl, Amity and their child Rufus place.
So we're in New York right now writing our blog and posting some pictures, we'll get to Manhattan for the first time tomorrow.

So, greetings to everyone from Kurt and Vincent.

Mt Willard, lake (07/08)

2006-08-07T21:05:00.000-07:00

Hello, it's Kurt here,

because Vincent went already to bed.

What we did today? Well, I got up at about 8:40 AM, took a shower had breakfast and got ready to go on a hike. It was another student of the White mountain school that took us today; Cathy drove us and Kylan to the place where the little hike started. We wondered if we could make the top in half an hour (It's only 1.5 miles with an elevation of a 1000 feet), but Kylan timed it and it was 36 minutes, but he made sure we were up the hill faster then a woman with a dog that was walking in front of us. The summit was 2865 feet high (873 meters) and we had a view of Crawford Notch up there. We talked a bit about and in other languages, eat our lunch Cathy made and went back down. Cathy picked us up and we went back home, around 2:00 PM.

Afterwards Cathy and Jonathan took us to a lake, where they could use a cabin from some friends.

We swimmed a bit, canoed all over the lake, ate a bit of cheese, this area is well-known for it's cheddar and we saw some birds: loons.

Back home in Bethlehem, we had dinner: barbecue with corn.

Then we went to the gym, where we did a bit of basketballing and climbing.

We got some icecream later, I took the flavours: maple walnut and coconut.

I would like to thank Cathy and Jonathan for the wonderfull days we had here in New Hampshire.

Tomorrow Cathy will be driving us all the way back to New York City, where we'll stay in Queens with Claudias son.

TTYL, Kurt

Thanks for the comments on the blog to Philip, our parents, ...

mount washington

2006-08-06T19:31:00.001-07:00

Before noon we went to a small farmers market in Littelton. On the other side of the river is the town center. So we walked over a covered bridge. There we found this old mill wich we visited. Afterwards we walked on mainstreet and visited the local bookstore and an art gallery.
Back at the white mountain school we read the newspaper and we waited till Lisa and Brienne. They are two students from the school. They took us on a trip to the highest peak of the North-east of the US, mount Washington. This mountain is 6288 feet high (1917 meters). There is a road all the way to the summit. So we drove all the way up, sometimes it was a bit spectacular. On the top we got out of the car and we went to the highest point were we made some pictures, but our batteries died. After a while we went down again.
We stopped at the mount washington hotel and we took a look inside. We drove back to littelton and we had some pizza in Gold house. Then we went back to the school. But first we stopped at a petrol station and tanked for 5 bucks, because the pomp kept clicking off.
At the school we said goodbye to those to nice girls, it was about 8.30 PM
About half an hour later we made a little walk to the soccer field and to a little house that the students had build without any nails,...

Thanks to Lisa and Brienne for the beautiful day, Kurt and Vincent.

PS: we posted some new pictures.

05/08

2006-08-06T06:34:00.000-07:00

A post about yesterday, because we were to tired after a long day yesterday.
We woke up at 9:30 AM, took a shower and got ready for breakfast. We ate some cereals and afterwards some watermellon.
Then we made a tour on the campusof the White Mountain School: we saw Cathy's and Jonathans classroom, a sporthall, the library,... (The science building was under construction) Actually this school is a bording school and we're staying in a boys dorm (so we,ve a huge bathroom for the two of us), and our hall is connected with the appartment. Different from our school in Belgium is that they may use a laptop, they can choose between some projects, they go skiing/snowboarding too, ...
Afterwards we took together with Jonathan, Simba for a walk; we took the biopath, where we saw a lot of granite (like in whole New Hampshire), one of the rocks was called kitchen rock, because someone painted kitchen stuff on it. There were a lot of different mushrooms on our way.
When we were back, we stepped into the car and we went to lincoln. On our way we stopped at a spring to fill some bottles with water. We drove through Franconia and stopped at an Iron Furnice. We drove by the old mans head; this is a rock formation that looks like a head; it's the symbol of New Hampshire, unfortunately the head fell down a couple of years ago.
When we arrived in Lincoln (a very crowded place), we searched something to eat, we found a little restaurant, called Gypsy's; Vincent took a panini sandwich with tuna, tomatoes and potato chips, Kurt got a quesadilla, it's a toasted tortilla with melted cheese inside, I got one with portabella mushrooms.
We jumped back into the car and got to our next stop,the basin; it's something the water sculptured through the years (you can see a photograph). We made a little walk there, it's a very touristic place too, a lot of people were sitting near or in the water (brrr, it was really cold).
Boise Rock is a rock where as the legend tells us, a man slept under, with only the skin, he took from is horse; he stayed alive while there was a really nasty storm. (Other people say that the horse ate the man and stayed alive that way, we think the first story is more likely).
Our next halt was a bridge where we had a really nice view of Lafayette, one of the mountains there; on the other side we could see Vermont. We also stopped there, because Ben, to conquer his fear of heights, rappelled of this bridge.
We headed back to the White Mountain school, but stopped for a little while at an antique shop.
Back home, we posted some photographs on the site and we went for a walk to the top of the hill, we saw a toad.
We got back for dinner: spaghetti, a salad and some bread.
Afterwards we had an evening walk to a little lake accross the street, where we saw some bats, we walked a bit further, but turned back, because it was getting to dark.
When we we're back we got some icecream and started watching "Gangs of New York", but we were to tired, so we got to bed and didn't write our blog yesterday.

Time is flying, Kurt and Vincent.

04/08

2006-08-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

After our welldeserved "night"rest, we got up at 9:30 AM.
We met a cute little baby Andy and his mum. Before having breakfast we went to the closest grocery store to buy some eggs and bread. Back home with Claudia we got this as breakfast with some delicious patatoes. Around 12.00 AM we drove off heading to New Hampshire. We drove trough Massachusets, Vermont. We stopped at a covered bridge, something typical for New England. After 4 hours of driving we stopped at our destination, the white mountains school in Bethlehem, New Hampshire.
Where we were welcomed by Jonathan and the dog, Simba. After having some chips with salsa and a soda drink, we joined Jonathan to the supermarket. Later we got dinner: Jonathan made buritos with rice and a salad (it was delicious). Then we made a little walk to the vegetable garden, afterwards we saw a video of a trip of Ben (Cathy and Jonathans son) to Peru for a project for school. Finaly we made a little evening walk and got back to write this blog and go to sleep cause we're still tired of our journey to the States yesterday.

Vincent and Kurt.

"Europe will never be as America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy" (Tatcher)

first stories, first impression

2006-08-04T00:14:00.000-07:00

After Vincent wrote a first message, here's someting from my point of view.
Misschien toch nog maar in het Nederlands, zoals Vincent de vertragingen al uitleggen, kan je je voorstellen dat we een tijdspanne van 25 uur ofzo niet hebben geslapen. 's Morgens werd er ons voorgesteld om een rechtstreekse vlucht naar New York te nemen (spijtig genoeg ging dit niet door, omdat we voor mij een vegetarische maaltijd hadden besteld). Na 10 uur vliegen landen we in Atlanta, we vonden het wel lastig om te weten dat we ongeveer over New Hampshire, NYC vlogen. In Atlanta werd het lopen geblazen (lang geleden dat ik nog eens iets aan mijn conditie deed, en dat na 10 uur stil zitten en fillms bekijken op het vliegtuig) Maar helaas was het vliegtuig al vertrokken , dan maar een latere vlucht = 3 uur wachten in de luchthaven (ik had mijn eerste drie uren in de USA net iets anders voorgesteld of toch niet: we worden voortdurend guys genoemd, een man begon tegen me te spreken (ik wist al gauw heel wat over hem dat hij van Kansas was bijvoorbeeld), hij wist ook te vertellen dat belgen zeer vriendelijk zijn, wenste ons een goede trip and "God, bless you". Uiteindelijk had onze tweede vlucht nog heel wat vertraging, waardoor we rond 23 uur arriveerden, en verwelkomt werden door Cathy and Claudia. Spijtig genoeg had mijn bagage een andere vlucht genomen, naar Littlerock, maar deze zal binnen de 48 uur in New Hampshire worden afgeleverd waar we morgen naartoe rijden (geen idee hoe lang het rijden is vandaag was het 3 uur naar Connecticut), tijdens dit stukje rijden zagen we al heel wat typische dingenm: american flags, american trucks, ...

TTYL, Kurt

first post in the USA

2006-08-04T00:09:00.000-07:00

Hey iedereen daar aan het thuisfront

We zijn er eindelijk. Moe en uitgeput zijn ze aangekomen in Conecticut. Deze morgen zijn ze om zes uur thuis vertrokken naar het vliegveld. Het inchecken en naar de gate gaan ging zonder problemen. Maar toen gebeurde het ... ons vliegtuig had om een onbekende rede 1uur vertraging. Niet echt een probleem zou je denken. Maar het is dus wel een probleem als je maar 1 en een half uur de tijd hebt om de volgende vlucht te halen. Uiteindelijk hadden we een 50 tal minuten om over te stappen. Door de strenge veiligheidsmaatregelen en de vEEEEl te grote luchthaven mistten we onze vlucht. We kregen een vlucht om 7 uur (bij jullie was het toen 1uur s'nachts) We liepen en lagen dus vier uur en Atlanta. Toen werd er meegedeeld dat We 40 Minuten vertraging hadden. Uiteindelijk werd dat twee uur.
Bij de aankomst werden we opgepikt door Cathy. En zijn we naar conecticut gereden. Daar ik nu om 3uur s'nachts nog snel iets voor jullie te typen. Maar nu ga ik SLAAAAAAAAPEN

Counting Down

2006-08-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

Onze teller staat al op 11 uur 20 minuten, ik begin wat zenuwachtig te worden, begin van heel wat mensen afscheid te nemen, dit vind ik wel lastig, maar ik weet welke leuke tijden me te wachten staan die me waarschijnlijk heel men leven zullen bijblijven, dus ik blijf toch uitkijken naar ons vertrek.

Ik wou graag iedereen die hier een bezoekje brengt bedanken en vooral Drientje en de Phillip voor hun leuke reactie op het vorige tekstje.

En ik zou graag iedereen alvast willen bedanken die deze reis mogelijk hebben gemaakt: eerst en vooral mijn ouders voor de mentale (en financiële steun), de rest van mijn familie (broer, zus, bomma en bompa, mijn tante (door wie ik op dit idee ben gekomen, zij maakte vroeger namelijk een gelijkaardige reis), ...)
en vooral Vincent (en zijn ouders om hem zo vrij te laten om hem met mij op dit avontuur te laten vertrekken).

Ik weet nog dat ik reeds in het eerste middelbaar met dit idee in mijn hoofd zat, ik weet het een gek idee, zeker voor een twaalfjarige, ... In het derde middelbaar maakte ik een fietstocht met Jimmy, David en Vincent. Toen vertelde ik voor het eerst over een dergerlijke tocht naar de Verenigde Staten, wanneer we waren afgestudeerd. Ze waren allen enthousiast (Vincent bekeek het nuchter en zei dat hij het nog niet wist of het zou uitkomen en of hij de toestemming zou krijgen), maar David was ervan overtuigd om meer te gaan, dit bleef ook het plan, totdat David melde dat hij toch niet zou meegaan (in augustus 2005), ik vond dit uiteraard zeer spijtig, maar begreep hem wel (molletje dit is natuurlijk allang vergeten e). Gelukkig was er Vincent nog, met hem bracht ik reeds in het derde een opdracht voor de klas voor Engels, waar voor het eerst een dergelijke tour ter sprake kwam. Waarschijnlijk dacht toen heel de klas dat er toch nooit iets van in huis zou komen, maar in 6WeWi maakten we nog steeds spreekbeurten over de States, dit idee is nooit verdwenen, het is steeds één van m'n vele dromen gebleven, maar wel een belangrijke! Dus alvast bedankt Vincent, ik hoop dat we vanaf morgen samen de tijd van ons leven beleven.

Aan iedereen de groeten, ik mis jullie nu al, Kurt.

"Everyone dreams, ... , few get the opportunity to live them!"

Blog

2006-07-29T16:44:00.000-07:00

Sinds vandaag wordt er op de site www.ustour.be naar deze blog verwezen, zodat misschien iemand dit toch eens te lezen krijgt! :-) Ik merkte ook dat ik ineens van het Engels naar het Nederlands ben overgeschakeld, wel ik zal steeds schrijven in de taal waarvoor ik in de "mood" ben. Waarschijnlijk nog een zoveelste meeting met Vincent, maandag of dinsdag, om nog de laatste dingentjes af te spreken (vb. documenten van de Home Land Security invullen. En dan wordt het vliegen geblazen, want we stijgen donderdag om 10u40 op, en landen in NYC om 24u (6 PM lokale tijd), dat we meer dan 13 uur onderweg zijn, komt doordat we een tussenlanding hebben in Atlanta. Als je ons iets te zeggen hebt kan je dit steeds via comments, onder de blogs of via de contactpagina van onze site. We hopen van jullie iets te horen tijdens onze reis, want gedurende een maand durende tocht zal het toch eens deugd doen om iets vanuit het thuisfront te ontvangen.

TTYL, Kurt.

Getting ready

2006-07-28T07:24:00.000-07:00

Ons vertrek begint dicht bij te komen, volgende week donderdag is het zo ver!
Ik heb gisteren mijn praktisch rijexamen afgelegd (nog steeds niet bekomen van mijn zenuwen), maar ik was gelukkig geslaagd, zodat ik deze maandag mijn rijbewijs heb. Wel spijtig dat dat geen gevolgen heeft voor deze reis, want als 18-jarige kan je namelijk geen auto huren in de States.
Vandaag ben ik dollars in de bank gaan afhalen, wel lastig dat de biljetten allen dezelfde grootte hebben en niet allemaal een verschillende kleur, dit geld zal even wennen worden.
Ik zal stillentjes aan beginnen inpakken, "New York, here we come!"

TTYL (talk to you later), Kurt.

Preparing our trip

2006-07-12T18:21:00.000-07:00

Hey,

It's the 13th of July, and we're stil booking hotel and youth hostel nights for our journey through the United States next month.
Our departure is the 3th of August, we'll be away from home one month, cause we'll be flying back the 2nd of September. We'l visit New Hampshire, New York, LA, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Yosemite, San Fransisco, ... and a lot of other places that are probably less well-known, cause I forgot to mention them in my little list of places.
We'll try to post something on this blog as often as possible, and we hope a lot of you can follow our trip, thanks to the internet.

Greetings, Kurt.