NEW YORK CITY WASHINGTON, D.C. Pavel Janata

WAY TO N.Y.C Altogether I spent in the USA tvelwe days (July 14 – 26). I was in New York City for seven days and we spent the rest of our stay in USA in Washington, D.C. The flight to New York took about seven hours. We landed at J. F. Kennedy Airport (JFK). Immediately after arriving in the USA, everyone is called for the immigration control. There is the interview and the identity verification. Of course, for tourists like us, it was just a long waiting in the queue and then only one-minute check. The airport is relatively far from the city center, so we used the Air Train to transport. It is an overground metro line connecting the airport and the center.

New York / Manhattan The first feelings of New York weren’t entirely positive. The reason was our fatigue and especially the bad weather New York welcomed us with. We had a hotel in Manhattan, so I first felt like being in a skyscraper jungle because of the huge buildings and thousands of tourists. I have to say that the next few days New York captured me by its atmosphere and I quickly became accustomed to it. There are plenty of these different and amazing things in New York, from food to friendly people. New York never sleeps! You can go in the streets any time and they will always be illuminated. I’ve also quickly got used to dividing Manhattan into streets and avenues. Thanks to this you can’t get lost in such a big city. We were using the subway for our transportation. There are many groups, minorities and immigrants in New York, all of them are taken for normal. There aren’t too many historical monuments but there are hundreds of skyscrapers and buildings with interesting architecture, for example the Empire State Building, the World Trade Centre, the Chrysler Building, the Trump Tower etc. It is very expensive to live in Manhattan. The most expensive is probably food, even though there are some places (street foodcarts) where you can eat cheaply. On the other hand the food is great. Most food companies are fast food. There is especially huge selection of all goods (food, clothing, etc.)

New York / Interesting Places I visited a lot of well-known places I had known only from movies. For example, the Empire State Building (I visited it at night), Central Park, Science Museum, the One World Trade Centre (former WTC Twins) including Ground Zero (Memorial September 11 / 9 / 2001), Intrepid Museum (located on an aircraft carrier), Wall Street (the seat of the American Stock Exchange), Brooklyn Bridge, Chinatown, Little Italy. I’ve never been to the Statue of Liberty due to the large number of tourists. Instead we tried the Staten Island ferry, which is free and it sails directly around it. The Statue of Liberty is perfectly visible from it (like all Manhattan).

Washington, D.C. The way there was complicated. There was a problem at the airport in New York City so we flew to the next City of Baltimore and from there to Washington by Uber. It took about four hours. Washington differed a lot from New York. There was too heat, there weren’t skyscrapers and it isn’t definitelly an interesting city. Except for the White House, the Capitol, the Washington's Monument, the Lincoln Statues and museums, there is nothing to see. For me Washington was quite artificial. But it is definitely a cleaner and quieter city than N.Y.C. We transported either uber (which works great in the US) or by subway. We also met Hynek Kmonicek in the Czech Ambassador's House. This meeting was very interesting and improved my overall impression of Washington.

My stay in the USA is sure to be one of the best My stay in the USA is sure to be one of the best. At the same time, however, one of the most tiring. If I had the chance to go there again, I would not hesitate a second. It's a great experience! .