Leaving Costa Rica, which we adored, was a heartache, but our visas could not be extended again. With Covid surging around the world, few places were open to us, but the USA was one of them and it was very easy to reach. We arrived in South Carolina at the end of May.
Living in the USA for three months opened a window onto a world which, until then, we only had mainly seen in films. We had visited several times over the years but staying for a much longer time gave us some interesting experiences.
The first thing we did was to get covid jabs. Because of all the anti-vaxers, there were lots spare for us. We just felt sorry for the poorer countries crying out for vaccines. 
Misinformation spreading about vaccines led to swathes of unvaccinated and unmasked, leading to a surge in cases. Southern states are the worst hit.
Dog Fighting and Wrestling!
Our first stop in the US, in South Carolina, was for a pet sit near Charleston. We looked after ten cats! The lady owner, a real hero, had saved most of them from being used as bait in dog fighting which is big business in parts of the US. It is completely illegal but, as for drug trades, there is a large underground community engaged in what was historically called the “king of sports”. Perpetrators are rarely identified and when caught, are mostly subject to a $5000 fine, yet that sum is nothing when the gambling for fights can attract up to $500k per fight.
The cats, saved from being used as target practice, were delightful and happily attended seminars on how to avoid abusive humans!
The cat lady is an ex-tattoo artist who kept us spellbound with tales of her adventures. Her husband is a famous wrestling referee and our pet sitting allowed them both to travel for him to referee and for her to support him. Wrestling is all good fun which explains why he is such a gentle soul. His insights into his sport were fascinating.
Shopping Shocks
Supermarket food shopping was an extraordinary experience for us, starting in South Carolina and continuing throughout our trip.
Nearly everything on the supermarket shelves seemed unhealthy. Sausage stuffed pancakes on a stick? What next!? 
What next? This is next…chocolate hummus!
This purified water included added salt! 
and this salt included sugar! We ended up going on a five day water fast to clear our systems out.
Road Trip
Inspired by road trip films, we followed an old dream and took 5 days to explore part of the South East. We discovered picturesque historic towns with real high streets as opposed to a trail of faceless shopping malls.
Our road trip started in Charleston which is a beautiful town 
with an impressive riverfront
Driving on the “Bible Belt”, churches seemed to be as ubiquitous as pubs in the UK. 
We regularly came across these “Vote Trump/Pence” signs, still standing after nine months, no doubt as a form of protest.
Savannah was the perfect place, with charming Georgian architecture and lots of beautiful green squares symmetrically planned into the town’s design.
Old Steamers still move along the Tugaloo river. 
And antique shops display curious wares
We of course felt a bit sick when we realised that many of Savannah and Charleston’s beautiful homes must have been built by slave work, owned by slave trade owners and passed down the generations.
Our next stop was at the Stone Mountain State Park which we had all to ourselves. As we started hiking, the heavens opened and we fortunately found shelter around Frontier age wooden homestead cabins, giving us a chance to learn about pioneers’ life.
The Blue Ridge Parkway road boasts many historic homes and quaint sights such as this old mill at Mabry Mill
We took a welcome break in Roanoke, where Jeff met his Russian cousin for the very first time…it felt like they had known each other for a lifetime. 
We all got on so well and were welcomed so warmly with a lovely home cooked meal and home baked bread.
We definitely felt like we were in a time warp in the tiny town of Buchanan, which probably hasn’t changed sine the 50s. Even the cinema had its kiosk out front and had the original screening advertised.
Our favourite small town en route was Staunton in Virginia. It also had the first decent baguette we found in the US (and the baker happened to be French).
A great part of our road trip was in fact spent walking in the woods, Thoreau-like, rather than driving. We spent two beautiful days in the Shenandoah National Park.
Maryland
Our road trip ended in Severna Park close to Annapolis, where we looked after this stunningly beautiful house, huge garden and its two cats for seven weeks. The home’s owners were extraordinarily generous and lovely people who quickly became friends.
While Sissi, 19, took a while to warm to us… 
…her buddy Mucky, 21, wanted cuddles from Day 1
The house sat on several acres of land including a wood which led down onto a white sandy beach, where the locals play volleyball every weekend, and a small harbour. 
The garden had regular visits from cardinals, hummingbirds, praying mantises and snakes but this was our favourite guest.
During this long term pet sit, we both completed this interesting Open University course, which will come in handy when we are next working for charities in developing countries. Jeff also helped to set up a 501c3 US charity to help raise funds in the US to support our community in Gondar, Ethiopia.
One of our jobs at the petsit was to sort through the mail. We had no idea how lives can be consumed by discount coupons! Our mailbox each day was filled with junk mail made up mostly of coupons. Trawling through them takes forever but ignoring them means paying way over the odds. Another surprise was to see that the mailboxes are not locked, so they must be easy to pilfer, although the the mass of coupons no doubt acts as a deterrent!
During our downtime, with our cat Mucky curled up on one of our laps, we succumbed to American television, especially the news channels. We had not realised just how split and almost toxic, politics has become. It seems that Democrats rarely watch Fox and that Republicans rarely watch CNN, so the media continue to preach to their own choirs and little changes. We so missed the BBC!
TV adverts for medicine are quite hilarious. Because of regulations, pharmaceutical companies must highlight all the side effects of their products, so TV commercials say that, to treat an ugly looking rash, the patient may suffer from epileptic fits, heart attacks and death. Shocking that anyone would go near these products after such warnings.
The owners of our home in Maryland kindly lent us their car, so we were able to easily get to shops and restaurants and take day trips to the nearby towns of Annapolis and Baltimore.
Annapolis, home to the US Navy, is gorgeous… 
…with a lovely dockside 
…and an interesting Amish market from nearby Lancaster County
In Annapolis, we had the pleasure to host Sylvie’s cousin, who is like a brother, and some of his wonderful family
And we also enjoyed the company of lovely new friends, chatting about books, travels and life…and gobbling up their delicious home baked cakes. We met up again in DC.
Washington DC
After the long pet sit in Maryland, we decided to see the museums in nearby DC.
We adored DC: its open spaces, parks, memorials and museums. The Smithsonian Gallery of Art and the Holocaust and African American museums were overwhelming.
It was a treat to walk around DC’s memorials of the Founding Fathers and honour them for establishing democracy as a guiding principle. Only in the museums did we discover the high probability, from recent DNA research, that Thomas Jefferson had children from a slave and that he recorded them as slaves themselves.
Of all the memorials, Martin Luther King’s was the most inspiring, being full of moving quotes. 
We loved learning about all of the Presidents in the National Portrait Gallery….and to discover how some revered presidents were villainous and other less well known ones rather decent.
And it was extraordinary to discover how Northern States were once all Republican and Southern States all Democrat.
DC’s National Gallery of Art was incredible – we saw our old Klein Blue friend who once stood on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. 
And outdoors, DC had beautiful parks with sculptures by Moore, Rodin and so many. We loved this wondrous Lichtenstein.
The Library of Congress Reading Room was stunning. 
Beyond the Gutenberg Bible and other treasures in the Library of Congress, we will remember this Aztec priest which could have been used by Hergé for his Tintin book, The Broken Ear
We were delighted to discover that DC has a big Ethiopian community, so we of course treated ourselves. 
Another great discovery for us was Georgian cuisine. This amber wine was disappointing despite its beauty, but the cuisine alone put Georgia on our bucket list.
It was strange to see how sidewalks in DC are deserted and it didn’t seem to be Covid related as popular places like the Air and Space and Natural History Museums were heaving. Maybe it’s just that no-one walks in the USA? We found that few people walk even between shops within the same shopping mall, and the postman just leans out of the mail truck window to deliver letters. New York City, however, was like a different country where everyone walks.
New York
Jeff’s cousin was an extraordinarily kind host, putting us up in her beautiful upper east side apartment, introducing us to her lovely friends, laying out the finest spreads NY has to offer and giving us the best driving tours around the city and ending them with the usual frenetic search for parking spots. A real taste of NY life!
This was our fifth trip to NY, yet we still saw tons of new places, like the swankily developed DUMBO (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass) with a view under the arches of the Empire State Building
We had never been to Brooklyn before. So big and diverse: the shtetl like Williamsburg, the smart Park Slope and the very hip Bushwick. 
We also tracked down an ancestral home in Brownsville, a far cry from the houses of Savannah and Charleston.
We of course made our mandatory visit to Zabar’s for its blintzes and more… 
…and to our regular Ukranian foodie haunt, Veselka. Thanks cuz for the cap!
We were stunned by the Vermeer paintings in our first ever trip to The Frick Collection 
And stunned too by NY’s bagel artistry and taste!
Before leaving the USA, we met up with our beautiful family in New Jersey 
…and beautiful cousins in Long Island too.
…and, in White Plains, we also made lovely new friends (family of an old friend)… 
…who welcomed us so warmly with a delicious meal.
Next
We arrived back in Europe this week to spend time with family – we haven’t seen our sons in nearly 18 months! We will also have overdue health check ups before hopefully getting back on the road in the Autumn.
11 comments. Leave new
Wonderful trip…does Europe include the UK?
Ha ha! It does in our hearts. I hope to make a guest appearance back on the courts very soon…probably late September. Hopefully, you will see the impact of my intensive tennis training abroad 🙂
Hi Jeff
As usual so interesting to read.
Are any of the cousins you met also related to me?
best wishes,
Delighted that you enjoyed so much.
Geoffrey
Just Stan! I have reached out to another possible cousin from Belarus found via Myheritage DNA. If he replies, I will put him in touch with Stan.
We should be back in the UK around late September and we’ll be in touch to meet up if restrictions then allow us to do so…you never know.
Hope to see you both soon
Love, Jeff and Sylvie
Thank you so much Jeff and Sylvie for sharing with us your wonderful blog and journey.
Loved every bit of the detailed writing and photos are amazing!
Aaah, thanks Karuna. We so look forward to spending more happy times together with you, wherever it is in the world.
Glad to know that you got a little taste of North American life… so different from the European lifestyle, especially in the South! Your road trip included 1/3 of my drive from Montreal to Florida and the areas I travel through every year. Just reading the names triggered driving directions in my head (“take exit for I-95 S at Roanoke”), a trip I have not made in 18 months. Hopefully, the Canadian border will re-open soon and I will be able to travel south. It’s a shame that you were so close to Montreal and were unable to get across the border. New York / White Plains is just a 6 hour drive away. So close and yet, so far… I would have loved to have you here and to spend some quality time together! Maybe next time around? With Covid spreading rapidly around the world, maybe now is a good time to get back to the UK and reconnect with family and friends, take a deep breath and relax before your next foray into our wonderful world. Stay safe and keep posting your wonderful adventures. All my love to you and the boys!
Dear Iona, Now that we know 1/3 of your route, we can definitely join you one day on your trip and to see you in either Miami or Montreal or both! We also have a good friend in Toronto and (Jeff’s) family too, so Canada is definitely on our list. Hopefully, it will all happen soon. We miss you! xx
thanks for sharing – different to costa rica – variety is the spice o0f life.
Brilliant finale to your trip – we love New York and know it like London.
Our grandsons live on upper West Side close to Central Park – and I have cousins who live on swanky 5th Avenue!
Keep safe and hope to see you sometime. 😷
Hi Reeva and Frank
Too swanky for us…we would like “swells” walking up the Avenue…but had we known, we would have popped in for a cup of tea.
Hope to see you when we are back in a few weeks time.
Love, Jeff and Sylvie