Sunday, June 10, 2007

Philadelphia City

It's a city with a lot of history. Independence of the US with the famous speech and the bell of Liberty. some neighborhoods are really nice, green, pleasant and well taken care of. However they seem to be dispatched in the middle of real Philadelphia, with its too old neighborhoods, poor, dirty. As a 1-day tourist, it looked like a 2-speed politics with the shinny historical quarters and the given up areas where so many people live miserably. Obviously it's a very quick and probably unfair judgement.















The Declaration of Independence is very much in the heart of American people. No doubt it has been a so beautiful step forward. It is up to individuals to judge where they stand nowadays compared to the ideal.




The Bell of Liberty was made in 1752. Much later it was to represent a symbol of the newly declared freedom for everybody in the US. It was cracked and reduced to silence for ever during an attemp to repair a much smaller crack. However its message still speaks a lot to the population. The bell was taken all over the country to spary the message. Even during WWII, it has been used to bring hope and courage to men.




On the other side of the Delaware River, it is the New Jersey :



At Work at California Speedway



















Snowboarding, Snowshoeing and Jaccuzzi at Mt Bachelor


Mt Bachelor is a great mount in the middle of Oregon, near Bend, with all the facilities for winter sports. We rented a house for the weekend, we were 9. There was no argument about whether it was a good idea to jump into the outdoor jaccuzzi first. Followed by a nice meal that got us ready to go to the mountain in the morning. No pictures of it though as everybody was scared to damage the camera while snowboarding. But day 2 was snowshoeing for some of us, which I enjoyed very much. Beautifully peaceful.






San Francisco

The streets of San Francisco :









Alcatraz, "the Rock", is now open for tourists. They need to book at least 1 week in advance.







The Golden Gate was completed in 1937 and transformed the local economy. People didnt need to go around the bay any more. It became a symbol of San Francisco and the US.









We took the local transportation to from 1 side of town to the other. Here we are heading to the gay quarters up the hill. SF is famous for its huge gay community. The gay quarters are known to have some fun local shops and atmosphere.






No, nothing bad happened in the gay quarters, I'm just unhappy to leave :