Slowly clearing the fugg

Managed to stay awake until 10.00pm last night and didn't wake up till 6.00am this morning so body clock adjusting quite quickly. Ten days touring down the East Coast from Toronto to New York (via Washington) is not a fair way to get an overall impression of two huge countries but three quick initial impressions of the holiday were:

Canadians are really polite
Yanks are very parochial
New York is very dirty and noisy

Toronto is a lovely little city and I was really impressed. Their Metro system was clean, efficient and CHEAP, made London Underground look really tatty and overpriced. My mother was offered a seat every time we travelled on it. CN Tower was impressive and the Rogers Stadium (The Skydome) was very good and made the new Wembly Stadium look distinctly third rate. Overall Toronto was very impressive.

When we crossed into the USE our guide told us to change any sterling we had with us at Canadian Banks before we crossed the border since US Banks didn't trust funny money and we might not be able to get British Pounds changed. More or less summed up the Yanks for me, sort of "You all come from England? What part of Texas is that in? They do know about Iraq but most other foreign countries and their geography gets a bit hazy. Went to Arlington National Cemetery and visited the Kennedy Graves, very sad and all but it didn't make me want to weep, but then if I ever visited Dianna's grave I doubt I'd be crying much there either (unless it was over how much it costs to go there, at least its free to see the Kennedy Graves). No doubt he was a great President, tragically cut down young, but he wasn't MY President.

New York was a typical big city to me. Hot, dirty, noisy. Empire State building good, Statue of Liberty bit disappointing, Maceys my daughters favourite place in the world. New York Metro system actually made the London Underground look good, although New York was cheaper. In fact that was the first thing we noticed back in the UK, prices here were the same as New York but obviously in pounds not dollars. So maybe that's the final impression of the Holiday, we came home to rip off Britain!