USA 1982 a trip coast to coast by Greyhound, revisitedby heart 41 years later

It was the first big and long journey outside Europe, lasting six weeks from May,1 to June,15 in the company of Rossella my ex at the time who unfortunately passed away ten years ago. We arrived in New York city in the evening and I will never forget the view of New York lit up from the Brooklyn Bridge. We stayed on Broadway in a former prison cell, rather claustrophobic but cheap and central. We went around Manhattan, long walks among the skyscrapers and in Central Park and then transfers by subway to discover more distant areas and arrive in Little Italy, at the Stock Exchange where I participated in a test with a computer never seen before and as a bank's clerk I made a good impression. We took the ferry to visit the Statue of Liberty and went up to the head. We went to see three musicals on Broadway: Hair, Jesus Christ Superstare and Oh Calcutta in which the actors acted and danced naked on stage and made comical sexual jokes. We went to the Village and visited the Metropolitan Museum and also a spectacular giant screen that showed the most beautiful places in the country almost in 3rd dimension. The second stop was Washington D.C where we visited the various impressive monuments dedicated to Lincoln and Jefferson, as well as the Capitol and various museums, all free and very interesting, including that of folklore with artifacts dedicated to American Indians decimated by the newcomers. We also stopped by Arlington Cemetery and paid our respects to the simple graves of the two Kennedy brothers. Third stop Knoxville in Tennessee which at that time hosted the Expo, so we attended many musical and ballet performances for which the Americans are true masters. Fourth stop Nashville the city of country music, we visited an old theater in the center of the Grand Ole Opry and then we saw the copy of the Parthenon downtown, very kitsch, but the most beautiful attraction was a visit to Liberty Land a large musical park where we witnessed other music and dance performances. Fifth stop in San Antonio,Texas of which I only remember being sick after having tasted very spicy vegetables in a Mexican restaurant. Fifth stop Flagstaff a pleasant town from which we started to visit the famous and spectacular Grand Canyon which we admired at the upper edges and then further down to Indian Gardens where you can see the Colorado River. We made friends with a waitress from the village canteen who invited us to a party where I was very successful quoting the words "crazy banana" several times. We also visited the Painted Desert, the Meteor Crater, a crater formed by the fall of a meteorite of which the remains are in the center and then the Petrified National Forest, tree trunks transformed into hard stone for a physical and chemist phenomenon. We made friends with two Israelis and a guy from Trieste, our home city and we rented a car to visit California, but first we went to see Death Valley, truly impressive with a visit to Zabrinsky Point made famous by an Antonioni film and then to Las Vegas which at the time had only a few large hotels along the Strip, the very long avenue which today is entirely occupied by these mammoth themed hotels. Instead, there was the Down Town with the first and most famous hotels with sumptuous colors and lots of neon lights. We visited a wedding chapel where you could get married for only one hundred dollars, photos and witnesses included. We visited a forest of giant sequoias, then the beautiful Yosemite National Park, a beautiful valley crossed by a river and with high mountains around which waterfalls fall. The Captain and the Half Dome are the most famous where climbing without ropes began with free climbing. And finally the most beautiful American city: San Francisco with its hills and wooden houses of various shapes, its famous red Golden Gate bridge, with its park and beach with surfers, a beautiful Chinatown, the tram that runs through various hills before reaching the sea, the Trieste Caffè, the Transpyramid, a beautiful pyramid-shaped skyscraper and the famous Citylights bookshop by Ferlinghetti, friend and publisher of the gay poet Allen Gingsberg made famous by his book of poems "the Scream" and one of the exponents of the beat generation together with Kerouac author of the roman "On the road". After the visit of the famous Ashbury Heights street for hippies during the 70's and their shops and hangouts We then traveled along the beautiful peaceful coastal road looking for the famous Big Sur which seemed to us to be only a campsite in the mountains where the hippies took refuge, including Kerouac and where famous concerts were held, I think above all jazz, we visited a beautiful stretch of coast for a fee the Seven Miles Drive with rocky and sandy beaches and beautiful flower gardens. We passed through Monterrey to see its pier and marina with seals and the place celebrated by the American writer John Steinbeck Then the beautiful Carmel of which Clint Eastwood was mayor for many years and the white Santa Barbara where there is an important presidential summer residence and finally Los Angeles, a city as vast as an Italian medium size region, with many highways inside and routes of hours to reach its many famous places celebrated by cinema such as Hollywood and its Boulevard with movie stars but also many prostitutes, Beverly Hills with its rich villas, Santa Monica with its huge pier that houses restaurants, Venice beach which deserves a visit especially on the weekend since street artists and exhibitionists come to perform here, without forgetting the open-air gym where the modern fitness gym was practically born, the canals of the billionaire who thought of building a new Venice, not to forget the beach and the exclusive villas of Bel Air We went to visit Disneyland, Universal Studios where we witnessed the replication of famous movie scenes such as the shark or an earthquake, then in Long Beach we visited the Queen Mary Ship transformed into a hotel and the Colossus the highest roller coaster where I risked a heart attack and finally the beautiful San Diego, the city that hosts the US Navy and Sealand, a large aquatic zoo where we attended various shows with seals, trained killer whales and even pearl fishers. Back in Los Angeles we took the plane to New York and after a few last visits, including one to a former colleague of mine who became director of the American bank branch, we returned home satisfied after a month and a half of seeing so many beautiful attractions and places. Eight years later I returned to the US with my daughter's mother flying from London via the Arctic to LA where we rented a car and traveled to the same places as my previous trip plus the beautiful Monument Valley, Lake Page, Zion National Park, the Canyon de Chelley and the castle of the American tycoon Hearst inside the California road from San Francisco to LA.

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