I should have stop these counters earlier...

Dear all!! Here I am... dead? no! far... yes :(
I should have stop these counters up there much earlier. 140 days ago actually! I spent in the USA 925 days... and I have in my mind the same amount of memories. My friends, my work, my life, my trips... every day was a chance to live this stay at the fullest. Taking a step back on all this... I think I did it the way it should be!

Back in 2006, I arrived, little French guy, welcome (one week late...) by Paola, Nicola and Santiago, in that nice apartment in Summit, where I could finally stay since we were not fighting for the bathroom! Nice memories with all my roommates! Diners at night watching Desperate Housewives (yeah, okok, I switched later to Family Guy... no comment!!), cooking parties with Italian meat style, french crepes or Argentinian oniopringlespringles-)

It's only around April that I got my car... ha, my car, Chrysler Sebring Convertible Gold! A total of 3 speeding tickets... they are driving so slow over there! 1 parking ticket... they stick it on your shield as soon as you have your back turned... and one accident! A stupid bitch I bumped. She stopped her car on left lane of the higway... because of a cop car! and still... it was my fault!

All along this time, I met some people, some friends and some very good friend, some friend I will never forget. Alenjandro and Carina (and Alan for few month!!), Diego, Mariano from Argentina, Alvaro, Pamina and Cristiano, Paola and Nicola (and Margherita for few weeks) from Italy Erjola and Donald and all his family from Albania, Ana from Brazil. To all of you, thank you, thanks you so much, it will be a pleasure to meet you again, wherever it is, as soon as we can. I have pictures of all of you in my book and I feel a little nostalgic wheAlenjandrot around and just when I watch it for myself.

Oh, I was about to forget. PrincPamina. some people know what it means. I thMargheritans a lot! these American paErjolawhere the cops always got invited... these parties where I met people from all over the world! these parties where I could speak french a little bit (I kind of miss that you know!!)

Thank you to all the people who came to the US to visit me! My dad... first place since he came a dozen of times! Was nice to feel a little piece of Family in that part of the world! My mum, some friends and extended family, thanks to all of you! I was glad to show you my life there, and to make you enjoy the cheap prices of the outlets and other huge stores!!!!!

After a first prolongation of my J1 visa, a trial to get an H1 and a fail over solution to an H3 (I shouldn't say this here!!), it's 2 years and a half enjoying this life... two years I never thought I could stay that long, and 2 years I figured out it was getting harder and harder to leave. I ended up taking the decision I wanted to go back to France, that was around January 2008. We are now December 2008 and many things happened in the meantime. Before leaving, I did that trip, 10000 miles around the country, and my American life finished on a touch of love! This stay is a great story just ending, my Lily is a great story which is starting!

The end

10078 Miles

There you go, that's it ... 3 weeks are passed and the trip is over. Last step today was the check up the car, clean it up, have a lunch in Hoboken and drive Pifi and Matthieu to the airport for their flight at 9PM with Air India (hum .... :) )

I really hope you enjoyed all these comments I put on my blog, and all the pictures and it made you live a little bit with us during these 21 days where we saw so many things and we met very nice people all over the country.

But, Wait !!!

Do you think it's over?! no!, it's not, don't stop reading me, I am not done yet! You probably noticed, every night in my blog, I posted what we did and what we saw, but I never gave more details about it. In the next few weeks, I will go back in time, and step by step, I'll post some more information about the important things we did. Numbers, dates, history, events, why when where what ... You lived with us, now, I have to make you want to do the same in the USA or any other place in the world because they all have some to show, hidden somewhere!!

Day 20, (Friday, July 18th)

From: Baltimore, MD
To: Summit, NJ
Miles: 302 miles
Time in the car: 6 hours
Weather conditions: Sunny
Traffic conditions: OK
Pictures:

Day20

Today’s road:


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Events: (Times given in EST)
10:00 AM, Leaving the hotel
11:00 AM, Crossing border to Delaware
12:00 PM, Crossing border to Pennsylvania
01:30 PM, Crossing border to New Jersey
11:30 PM, Arrived at home

A special day since it’s the last one. And it was not the most resting one.

First thing we did was to visit Philadelphia and see some building around. Especially the building where the Constitution and the Declaration of independence were written and signed.

Next step was Atlantic City for a late lunch and a great walk along the beach, shoes off and feet in the water! Very nice.

On the way back home, we called Major (a class mate living in Princeton) and we passed by his place to drink a beer together. It’s been a while I didn’t see him, and even more for Pifi & Spi. And it’s will be probably a long time before I see him :S