Còig seachdainean iongantach ann an dùthaich Ami

---Part 1---

The USA was never at the top of my travel list. It had to fight to even make it on there. But as it sometimes happens, it quickly pulled me in.

On January 13th, it finally started, to Sebastian in the Wild West. I was awake at half past four in the morning due to excitement and anticipation. I had planned to leave at seven o'clock. Nothing should go wrong by then, since the flight didn't leave until one in the afternoon. Or so you think! In China, the clocks sometimes tick differently. I had to go from Hangzhou to Shanghai because the flights from there were much cheaper. But that's not really a problem. The long-distance bus from Hangzhou to Shanghai is very easy to take and you arrive directly at the airport terminal. I still don't know why everything took so long. But I arrived at the airport super late, at almost 12 o'clock noon. Inside, I already saw the airplane flying without me. As you already know from other reports, flights in China are often delayed. This time, I was extremely happy about that. Suddenly, everything was stress-free, and with a 1.5-hour delay, the airplane headed towards Seoul. There I had a few hours of layover before continuing to the USA, unfortunately not to Sebastian yet. That would have been way too easy. I arrived in Las Vegas. There I had another nine hours until my next flight. I used the time to go to the city. The first thing I saw of the land of unlimited possibilities matched its name. Many lights, a lot of shows, and somehow just how you imagine it. :D Being influenced by prejudices, I went in search of food. And when I decided on a restaurant, I checked beforehand if they had vegetarian dishes. With all the meat consumption, I could imagine that they don't. But they did. I have to say that I always found vegetarian food in the USA. Sometimes I had to search for it. But it was definitely not worse than in one of our local Franconian taverns.

In Las Vegas, I had my first veggie burger and then went sightseeing on the Strip. It's a cool feeling to be in Las Vegas and walk the streets that you've heard so much about in movies and news. But the city itself is not very impressive. But I quickly learned that we are spoiled in Germany. There are hardly any old cities that have grown over the years and have a city center. Hammelburg is usually already nicer, and it's pretty deserted there.

When my nine hours were over, I finally flew to Kansas City.

I spent the five weeks at Sebastian's campus. That's actually not allowed, but sometimes we bend the rules as they suit us. Everything went well, though. At night, we sometimes had to sneak me into the building because you're supposed to show identification. Apparently, we always did it right. We were never caught. We spent the first weekend on campus, and Sebastian showed me the area, the campus with St. Joseph, and then Kansas City. There's not much else around there. I met his friends, and it was like being a student again. Meeting in the evenings, playing games, and making plans for the weekend, it all reminded me of Bayreuth. The first 1.5 weeks went by extremely fast, and then the radius had to be expanded. On the second weekend, we went to Lesterville, Missouri. How, you don't know? We went from feeling like we were in nothing in St. Joseph to being in the absolute middle of nowhere that surrounds Lesterville. Lesterville is a community, well, they don't even call themselves a village, in an extremely rural area in Missouri. You can't get any more remote than that. We drove for six hours by car, and the last two hours went up and down hills, around curves, up the next hill, and so on. Eventually, there weren't even any country radio stations anymore. When that happens, it's already a really deserted corner. We were drawn to the community because of a bed and breakfast and a national state forest. The B&B was so incredibly cute and nicely decorated that we were almost looking forward to it more. We spent two nights there, ate a lot, went hiking, and took a bath every evening. In our room, which was already so cool, there was a bathtub for two. The owner Kathy knows how to get people to the deserted Wild West of Missouri. You will quickly recognize the pictures from that weekend. They are the landscape pictures without green, and we are both dressed warmly. You will easily recognize the cute B&B as well.

With Lesterville, my discovery journey through the USA really took off. Every weekend to a different place. After the state forest, we spontaneously flew to Florida. We found a round trip for less than 100€. We had to take advantage of it. The flight went to Orlando, and from there, we continued by rental car to St. Petersburg. That's a city on the west coast of Florida. All in all, we could only stay in Florida for three nights. But it was absolutely worth it! St. Petersburg is the city that appealed to me the most in the USA. Organic weekend market, drinking in the open street, bike paths, open-minded and young people, and just everything else that makes a city likable. Our sleeping place was also a highlight. We stayed in a small mini camper. It only had a small double bed, and between that and the door were a few small cabinets or a storage area. We booked the small camper through Air BnB. There is also a picture of us in the camper. But unfortunately, you can't see it very well. From the cute sleeping place, we started all our tours. On the evening of our arrival, we rode bikes towards the city center. In St. Petersburg, there is a legendary residential block. The entire ground floor of the block is full of bars and pubs. People also drink in the open street there, and we were able to buy a can of beer for $2. Both, drinking in public and beer at "regular" prices, were a sensation. We observed the hustle and bustle on the street while enjoying the super cheap beer. They were all kinds of people walking around that you can imagine. It was highly interesting and pretty funny. I think the policemen thought so too. Some of them were assigned to the police station or something. But most of the time, they seemed to have a lot of fun. Policemen are quite popular with slightly intoxicated American women. They were approached quite often and clearly enjoyed it. And when there was no female entertainment available, they chatted with the biker next to them. He was sitting on his motorcycle, smoking his cigar during the conversation, of course. Maybe that was the most atypical American evening there, and at the same time, there were so many fulfilled stereotypes. It was simply a pleasure for everyone to observe.

St. Petersburg, of course, has more to offer, for example, Caladesi Island. That's an island about 50 km from the city. To get there, you first drive to another island, still by car, and then you take a small ferry. The beaches of the islands are said to be among the most beautiful in the country. But they didn't impress us that much. Unfortunately, the water was too cold for swimming at 18 degrees. But there were beautiful seashells. While most tourists probably go to the island because of the beach, the inner part of the island fascinated us. The island is covered in forests and mangroves. And the forest is divided into palm trees and pine forests. Everywhere on the island, you can see traces of fires on the trees. That puzzled us at first, and it looks a bit strange. But then we learned that fires are regularly set every few years. This protects the native pines from tree species like oak. These foreign species would eventually push out the pine. We hiked through these small islands, through forests and mangroves. For both of us, the sunshine, the warm air, the blue sky, and the green of the palm trees were simply a dream. After all the pollution and the few clear days in Hangzhou, this weather combined with the air was absolutely amazing. It was so beautiful. That already sounds so good. But it gets even better. On the island, there are wild turtles. During the hike, we eagerly searched for them and looked for them at every rustle. But we know from Charlotte in the garden in Sulzthal that it's already difficult to find a turtle when you roughly know where it is. Unfortunately, we didn't see any in the forest or on the grassy areas. It would have had to walk right in front of us on the path. Shortly before the return boat ride, near the landing dock, we had a picnic. We had farmer's bread, German style, which we bought at the weekly market. (: From there, we spotted a hole, and believe it or not, it was a turtle's burrow. It was just looking out of the hole. And it gets even better. Next to the hole, there was the skeleton of a small stingray. So we left satisfied and with a stingray in our luggage back to St. Pete. In the evening, the city got even cooler. We explored different bars and breweries there. There are several breweries in St. Petersburg that brew various beers and sell them locally. So we had to explore a little bit, and at the same time, it's another point that makes the area there better.

We ended our time in Florida with the Super Bowl and a few beers. I still can't believe that the Falcons lost. I watched the game without any involvement or favorites. In the end, I really wanted them to win. Well, that's sports. The next morning, we left our camper early and headed to the airport to start the journey back home. Or at least for Sebastian, it was the journey home. I continued traveling. But I'll write about that in the next report. It's already 2.5 pages. I don't want to overwhelm anyone with words. ;)