Philly was kind of the real big start. From hereon of my biking/hiking trip really stared. I sold my ticket to the first lady I offert it to and started my long ride to a host I found in Newark (between Philadelphia and Baltimore). She was Belgian and was very exited to host me. As was I since our county is already rediculously small and still I bumped into to another Belgian.
It was very clear to me why she moved to this enormous property (4 soccer fields big in size) 15 years ago. It was "cheap" ( 300 k), absolutely beautiful, nice and quiet.. A place to come to peace. She lives there with an American 26 year old guy that could be the twin brother of Chris McCandless (Into the wild). Both for the looks as well as for his personality. Together they want to start a commune, have a sustainable garden farm and some animals.
Anyways these nice people hosted me for 3 nights, showed me around and gave me a small job where I made 30 dollars just for 2 hours of work. Also did "Chris" taught me how to dumpster dive. So there we went to a supermarket at night and just opened their dumpster. INCREDIBLE how much food they throw away. We found 40 energy bars of Kellogs, 10 cases of tomatoes, lots of other vegetables that were not bad at all, sealed popcornbags and so on.. Crazy! We had free food for a week! You would have paid at least over 100 euros for these groceries this supermarket threw away just like that.
A bag full of bars, a new bike (I traded with them for my old one) with a wooden basket attached to the front of my bike, very big and better tires and a lot of wisedom from "Chris" was the result of staying with them. Thanks again guys! ;)
Further down to Baltimore (the city everyone I talked to feared as hell) was not so bad at all.. I felt safer here then in Philly to be honest. Sure you've got areas but just don't be stupid :) don't go out at 2 in the morning going for a nice bike ride, I mean to me that is just comon sense right? In Baltimore I stayed 1 night on the couch of a few college students. I can confirm, any movie you have ever seen about college and what happens in their houses is very much reality :p haha! No details, feel free to use your imagination ;)
The trip to DC was hell! Newark - Baltimore was 108 km (in 6th gear since I only have 1 gear) and Baltimore - DC 77 km the next day, I must admit it was tough. 1 suggestion: go to Pizzahut 30-45 min after the buffet is closed and ask for a pizza of 5 dollars. In my case the manager just let me eat the rest of the pizzas on the buffet for free! Haha damn was I a happy man! Anyway I made it to DC and stayed (currently still am) with a friend of Jordyn's (NY host). That guy is Sheldon! :D I swear to God it's his brother :p haha! As in the series 'The big bang theory' they play this game Dungeons and Dragons. Well he goes out to play it with his friends :p he even is the dungeon master! Haha so funny.. He has an enormous collection of comic books, fantasy games on his Xbox and Wii and he goes to a shop to play board games. But don't get me wrong, he is a very nice guy with a heart of gold. I am not trying to make fun of him, but you must admit it is a bit funny..
I will be staying in DC until Sunday. Plenty of stuff to do here so I decided to be a tourist and go visit museums. Haha! Oh god did I make a fool out of myself. For starters, everyone was wearing shorts while I was wearing pants (I was sweating like a pig) on the first day. The second day I was wearing shorts while everyone was wearing pants and man that wind was cold :p. Guess my weather app wasn't really working with me. As if this was not enough I tried something new and went into an art museum. Nothing really fancy but than I saw this really nice object on the wall. I was looking for the name of the designer and had almost asked a guide. Hahaha until I realised it was not part of the art :D it was the stupid heating system!!! Hahahahaha thank God I didn't ask..
Ok guys wish me luck with a smile, next stops are Fredericksburg and Richmond.
Talk to you soon!
Greets,
Lenn
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