Under the Stars and the Stripes
Oct 19th
Again, writing in rush before departure... and this post shall be the finale of this journey. I'll go to the bus terminal in an hour and catch the bus to Newark for my return flight to Hong Kong (another 16 hours!) But according to the most recent route, the flight may again come close to the North Pole (although my seat is actually facing south), probably closer than the flight I came here. On the other hand, a CME outburst is just detected by satellites, and an aurora activity around Oct. 19 is predicted, let's see if I can catch it "in the air"!
While in New York I met astronomer Tony Hoffman, a very friendly New Yorker, and he guided me around the Museum of Natural and History; now for the next stop, Boston, I again plan to meet astronomers, the friendly staffs of the Minor Planet Center's director Tim Spahr. I met my sister's fiance Song who is studied as a Ph.D. student at Boston upon arrival at the bus terminal, and went to Harvard University in the next day. However I unexpectedly met two Chinese graduate students, among them there is Li Zeng, an old friend of mine but drop-out-of-radar for several years. I had a nice chat with all the friends, old or new, meet-before or newly-meet, and this marked a very nice Boston trip. What's more, Song and Li invited me for some Chinese meals and I temporary no need to eat hamburgers during the two days (I ate them all day long since they are probably the only affordable and easy-to-find food to me in the U.S.)
I also paid a short visit of the city. Boston downtown is very small, and I spent no more than an afternoon to explore it. But the roads are quite complex and it's easy to get lost! To make things worse my GPS cannot capture signal there.
It began to rain a few hours before I left Boston, unfortunately it's not cold enough to snow. According to the NWS reports I was already close to the snow area, but this time I missed it again. Song drove me to the railway station and I would catch the Amtrak train to Washington.
It's said that Amtrak service often suffered from heavy delay, but the train I caught didn't. The seats were large and comfortable (comparable to business class of airplane) and I sleep well. I was in a good mood when arriving Washington in twilight.
Unfortunately it was again a cold day with rain. Washington subway is relatively modern compare with New York's and Boston's, but the fare policy is not as simple as those two cities. I dropped my big bag at the hostel and only get my small bag with the city tour. You may just walk around to visit most attractions at Washington, as they are all locate around the Washington Monument. This is quite convenient.
I arrived the White House at 6:30 p.m. Where was Obama? Well, probably he was in office to avoid the cold and rainy weather, I saw no one in the open air.
The next day I got a Greyhound ride to my last stop of the American journey: Philadelphia. The first impression was not good at all, comparing to New York, Boston and Washington it appeared to be small, dirty, and the some citizens appeared to be bad-behaviour. Philadelphia has a horrible nickname, "Killadelphia", because of its high crime rate. But the Apple YHA was said to be the No.1 hostel in North America and indeed it's the best YHA I had ever visited, a detail map and guide was placed on my bed upon my arrival, so I still spend longer in the city than I expected. The narrow, old streets seem to be interested and full of historic smell, but due to the safety reason I didn't visit much of them.
So here ends my longest, farthest journey from home. But another 16-hour Arctic adventure is waiting for me -- let's see what's there!
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