Steve & Mary-Anne's Weblog

We made it in one piece! The journey went reasonably smoothly, although we didn’t get any breakfast because someone on board the aircraft fell sick, and had to be taken care of in the galley.
Our first impression of Switzerland was “everything’s small!” The roads are narrow, the cars are small, and the houses (our house, at least) are small. Mary-Anne also realised that she had had an idealised picture of European quality when over in the US. She had always compared American things, saying “That would be much better in Europe”. On arrival in Europe, she realised that her idealised picture is not the truth; the Europeans are just as sloppy as the Americans.
I am now too tired to write more. I’ve been awake for 32 hours, in an attempt to switch to Swiss time in one go, beating the jetlag. I hope it works…

… to paraphrase a well-known saying.
We’re all packed up and ready to head for the airport. I don’t really want to leave 🙁 .

But how is that all going to fit? Take a look…

Today, we finally managed to visit Bruce and Eileen Gordon and their family. We met Bruce at the National House Church Conference during our visit last year. It was great to meet them, see where they live and hear some more of their story. We look forward to our next visit!

We drove a slightly roundabout route from Danbury to the Burkhard’s, taking us through picturesque countryside around Derby, where we stopped for lunch at Apollo Pizza, which we can recommend: good food, generous portions, reasonable prices and friendly service. We also drove through New Haven, home of Yale University.

We also stopped on the Atlantic coast so that I could rightly claim to have stood on the eastern and western shores of the US in one trip. The contrast with Lake Erie is interesting, and slightly paradoxical: here, we stood on Long Island Sound, looking across the water to Long Island, which makes it feel like a large lake; at Lake Erie, we could not see the opposite shore, so it felt like the ocean!

We drove around New York, not wanting to get caught in the rushhour traffic. Even at this distance (about 18 miles from Manhattan), the traffic was dense. From looking at the map, the skyscrapers in the photo are probably in Manhattan.
We had planned to drive to Christiane and Pete’s, but it turned out to be too far for me to drive. Mary-Anne is not insured to drive the car, thanks to Alamo refusing to honour the contract with Sunny Cars, their agent in Switzerland.

Having seen the satellite photographs showing the east coast of the US to be a mass of streetlights, I was expecting the region to be one huge sheet of concrete. Reality is nothing like it; since landing in Boston, I have seen more trees than anywhere else I have ever visited. In the northeast, the highways are lined with forests; wherever you drive, hour after hour of forest slides past the car window. There are also plenty of trees in the cities, exept directly in the downtown areas. I was very positively surprised.

Ben spent much of Saturday at Capclave, a science fiction conference in the area. He is becoming a well-known writer, and moderated one discussion and took part in another. While he was there, we went to Great Falls on the Potomac River with Esther, Noah and Aviva. It was a beautiful day, sunny, blue sky and about 24° (Celcius!); it was wonderful to see the sun again after a week of almost unbroken cloud cover, and walk around in a short-sleeved shirt (even though I am still regretting that, because the mosquitoes discovered how good I taste). In the evening, we ate at an Afghan restaurant, then spent more time discussing two subjects you’re supposed to avoid: theology and politics 😉 .
Continue reading “The Famous Benjamin Rosenbaum, and Great Falls”

Ben and Mary-Anne discussed various theological and philosophical issues on Friday evening, with occasional comments from me. On the way back from the park, Mary-Anne got Ben more riled than I have ever heard before. They both have very strong opinions, and are willing to defend them vociferously! (They did make peace afterwards, though.)

Today, we drove from Hagerstown to Falls Church, near Washington. If you’re looking for driving directions in the Washington area, don’t use Map24! The directions were useless, telling us, for example, to take the exit 9B towards Shady Grove Road. Shady Grove Road is exit 8. And if you take either exit, you end up somewhere in the Washington area with no relation to where we were headed.
We finally found Falls Church, and Ben and Esther’s house, 90 minutes later than we expected because of the wrong turns we took. Aviva was somewhat apprehensive when she first saw us, because she did not remember us. We told her that she was not being very friendly, to which she replied “I’m not unfriendly, I’m rude!”. She soon warmed to us, though, and enthusiastically showed us how good she is on the monkey bars, and served me endless amounts of tea and cake from her imaginary kitchen.

I think I have to rename our blog to “Steve and Mary-Anne’s Culinary Weblog”. We drove from Pittsburgh to Hagerstown, Maryland, and the main event today was eating in the Schmankerl-Stube. Mary-Anne spotted the advert in the local guide in our hotel room, and we decided we had to try it. It is a real piece of Bavaria on the east coast of the USA! The whole place is true Bavarian style, including the waitress. The food was excellent; they import their bread from a German baker in Toronto, and sausages from a butcher near Chicago. I ate Münchner Geschnetzeltes, and Mary-Anne chose the restaurant’s specialty, Schmankerltopf, both with excellent Spätzle! Dessert was a home-made Apple Strudel, which tasted good, but the pastry was a little soft from being warmed in the microwave.
Continue reading “The Schmankerl-Stube”