5 States 5 Weekends: Part 3

After going up to Rhode Island and Maine in the last 2 weekends it was time to go a little further so I went north to Vermont with some friends and stayed the night up there. Vermont is known as the Green Mountain state and is even named for Les Monts Verts (the French for Green Mountains). It’s also the prettiest New England state in my humble opinion.

We stayed in Burlington and went to the Ben and Jerry’s factory (it’d be rude not to), Citizen’s Cider, Lake Champlain Chocolates and we also watched a beautiful sunset over Lake Champlain. This was only my second visit to Vermont but I love the beautiful mountains and the laid back hippy vibe of the locals and I’ll definitely be back.

The highlight of the weekend was definitely the sunset over Lake Champlain but we also went to the house of Ethan Allen (a Revolutionary War person) and saw a well full of snakes that was like something out of Indiana Jones. The guide was like “I should warn people about that”. You’re not wrong, friend. I hope you like the photos from my trip!

Sunset over Lake Champlain

Another sunset photo

Exterior of the Ethan Allen house

Interior of the Ethan Allen house

Some of the snakes at the well of doom (there were also tons in the well but my phone camera didn’t love the darkness)

Tasting at Lake Champlain Chocolates

Lake Champlain during the day, looking towards New York State

5 States 5 Weekends: Part 2

After spending a day in beautiful Maine last week I decided to go to Rhode Island for the day today. In case you missed the last post which you can find here, I’ve challenged myself to visit 5 states in 5 weeks to make my spring a little more interesting. I was lucky in that it was a beautiful day because the weather has been terrible for most of the week. 

5 States 5 Weekends: Part 1

Lately I’ve been really boring so I decided to set myself a challenge to give me something to do in my spare time. After considering a number of possibilities like seeing how long it would take me to eat my own body weight in chocolate I decided that most of my ideas were ridiculous and that the challenge shouldn’t involve eating, education or exercise. I came up with the idea of going to a different state every weekend for 5 weeks. First step was Maine.

Canada!

This week I find myself in Canada, staying in Toronto. It’s my first time in Canada and I’ve really liked being here. I’ll post some of my impressions on Canada next week but here are some of my photos from the last few days. Hope you like them!

View from the ridiculously high CN Tower!

If you go to the top level of the Tower you can look down on skyscrapers!

The glass floor of the observation deck. If you don’t like heights it’s maybe best to avoid!

The most Canadian graffiti in the world?

I walked along the waterfront for a few miles to get a skyline view.

One million dollar gold coin in the Royal Ontario Museum.

Calm Before the Storm

I’m on the Amtrak train back to Boston as I write this (thanks for the free WiFi guys) and figured I’d share some photos of sunrise I took in Portland, ME, this morning before I left. If for no other reason than we have 12-18 inches of snow coming tomorrow in a big storm and I need to convince myself that it’s still worth living in New England. Hope you like them!

Leave to Remaine

The other day I looked at my Facebook memories and realised that I used to be a lot less boring than I am now. I’ve done roadtrips across the entire US and explored countries on my own but lately I haven’t spent a night away from home in ages.

Determined to rectify this sad situation I decided to book a weekend on my own up in Maine at late notice. I booked round trip tickets on the Amtrak Downeaster to Portland, a 110 mile, 2.5 hour trip from home (Amtrak isn’t known for its speed). I was a little worried that it would be freezing and terrible especially as they got a foot of snow 2 days before my trip but it wasn’t too cold in the end.

There’s a number of inhabited small islands in the waters surrounding Portland and they have a daily mailboat service. For just 16 dollars I booked a 3 hour trip on the boat and got some great views of coastal Maine. It was cold as hell out on the water and I was the only one dumb enough to be up on deck but I love being by the sea. Hope you like the photos from my trip!

Floody Hell!

We had a big storm here on Friday that did a lot of damage to the state and some people still don’t have power.

“The Most British Thing Ever!”

As a British person living in the US I frequently do things that amuse my coworkers and friends and cause them to say “that’s the most British thing ever!” Here I compile a few of the most recent and ridiculous examples.

Icy What the Problem Is

You may have seen in the media that it’s unusually cold in the Northeastern United States at the moment (I mean it’s cold in other places too like Canada but you expect it to be colder than a polar bears arse in Canada).

Happy New Year!

It’s that time of year again, welcome to 2018 and Happy New Year to you all! I don’t do resolutions because honestly I don’t really believe in them. I have, however, come up with some things that I want to work on this year and I thought that if they were public I’d have to at least make some effort or else people would think (know) that I’m a quitter. Here they are then…