New York in one day and the Rocky Steps in Philadelphia

In August 2017 we made it to New York: we had crossed the USA by car from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast.

Pavel and Alexandra in sunglasses posing for a photo against greenery and the skyscrapers of Manhattan — New York, August 2017

A day on foot

We had one day for the city, and we walked from morning till night — it added up to 43,000 steps, so our legs ached the next day. We spent the night already in New Jersey, in our favorite Walmart parking lot.

We started, of course, with the art museum — there was no way we could walk past it. Then we went wandering around the city: Trump Tower, typical New York buildings, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building. We had already been up to its very top floor on our previous trip to the States.

A tiny white-and-blue police car marked NYPD at the curb next to an ordinary SUV — Police car, August 2017

New York police officers drive anything at all — even little ones like these.

The wooden pedestrian walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge runs toward a stone tower with two arches, a web of cables and skyscrapers all around — Brooklyn Bridge, August 2017

Next came the Brooklyn Bridge. And then we came across a strange futuristic building that looked like an alien spaceship. Inside, it seems, is a shopping mall with boutiques.

A huge white hall with arched ribs converging toward a slit of light in the ceiling, lots of people on the light floor below — A building that looks like a spaceship, August 2017

The memorial

The Twin Towers memorials are impressive, of course. Just think: giant towers used to stand here, and now in their place there are two square holes. On the birthday of someone who died, a white rose is placed in their name.

A square pool of dark stone with water running down its walls, another square void in the center, high-rise buildings behind the trees — The memorial on the site of the Twin Towers, August 2017

A ferry past the statue

Then we sailed to Staten Island to see the Statue of Liberty. The statue itself stands on another island, but the ferry passes by it, so you can at least sail close to it. And then came Manhattan in the evening.

The city in the evening

In the evening — Broadway and the famous Charging Bull.

Alexandra holding the horn of a bronze bull on the cobblestones in the evening — Charging Bull, August 2017

Here they dump trash in bags right on the streets. A truck will come by later and take it all away, of course, but it is still strange to walk around the city in the evening among mountains of trash bags. In general, New York struck us as a dirty, in places even smelly, city.

A heap of black and white trash bags on the sidewalk of a street at night, cars driving past — A street in the evening, August 2017

We walked along Broadway in the evening all the way to Times Square, and it felt safe. Although in some less touristy neighborhoods, we think, it might be dangerous.

Times Square is the cherry on top of this city. Alexandra associates it with the States, and she really wanted to get there at night. A huge amount of neon advertising, at night it is as bright as day, and life goes on around the clock.

A square at night flooded with light from huge advertising screens on the facades of skyscrapers, a crowd below — Times Square at night, August 2017

Philadelphia

After New York we drove to Philadelphia. On the way we even came across a Lukoil gas station.

Anyone who has watched "How I Met Your Mother" will remember the episode where the characters went to lick the Liberty Bell. Here it is. More generally, it is one of the main symbols of the struggle for independence from Great Britain: its ringing summoned the city's residents to the reading of the Declaration of Independence.

An old bronze bell with a long crack hangs from a dark wooden beam in a bright hall — The Liberty Bell, Philadelphia, August 2017

The bell used to hang right here, and now it sits in a museum next door.

A brick building with a white clock tower and spire, a line of people in front of the entrance — This is where the bell used to hang, August 2017

And of course everyone has seen the movie about the boxer Rocky. These are the very steps he ran up while training before a fight — and now they are named after him. They even put up a statue of Rocky there, though it somehow doesn't look much like him.