Hey everyone,
It’s time for a new blog-entry since a lot has happened in the past 2 weeks. I got done with my exams, got to New York and am about to start biking tomorrow!

After my last exam on friday, I had a lot of things to do and the most important one was packing my stuff and bike. Although I had a detailed list of all the things I needed, you probably always forget something – I’m optimistic though.

My dad helped me with packing my bike for the flight and did a great job! After all I had about 30kg luggage plus a 22kg bike – quite a lot to be carrying across the States on a bike but I’m sure it’ll be fine.

Luckily I didn’t have any problems with my luggage and despite my one-night layover in Iceland, everything arrived at JFK on time.

In Iceland, I had the chance to hang out with 2 of my friends I met on my exchange semester in Barcelona last year, Vili and Petur. Unfortunately I only spent one night there but I’m sure one of these days I’ll come back.

After a 6 hour flight I arrived at JFK in New York and my biggest concern was how to get through the customs with all my baggage and into the city. It’s a good thing people in the US are friendly and quickly I found someone who helped me carry my stuff into Terminal 7 infront of Starbucks. That was the designated meeting point I had set up with Maria, another good friend from my exchange semester. She’s from Montreal and had decided to come over to NYC to see me and to explore the city with me. We had travelled a lot together in Europe and therefore I was really excited to see her again.

It was definitely a good thing she came to the airport to help me carry all my stuff in the subway and into the city! I probably couldn’t have done it by myself. In NYC I’m staying at yet another friend from my exchange semester, Austin. It really is great to have friends from all around the world! Unfortunately he has to work the whole day and since I’m not staying over the weekend we don’t get to hang out a lot.

The last couple of days, Maria and I have been doing all the sightseeing and I haven’t walked that much in a while – I haven’t biked one kilometer yet and my legs are already tired 😉 . NYC is a great city and I’ll definitely be back one day. I’m not going to go into details here since it would take forever and most people know everything about New York and its tourist attractions.

Now a couple of things about the trip:
I have the first week figured out and will (hopefully) arrive in Washington DC next Wednesday, August 7th. I’m going to stay with people I found on the warmshowers.org website – it’s an organization like couchsurfing just for touring bikers. Bikers open their home/backyard to other cyclists. It’s a great way to meet people, share stories and also to reduce costs for the trip.

There are also sad news: I found out that there is no way to leave Manhattan on one of the Southern bridges by bicycle to get to New Jersey so I cannot start from the Brooklyn Bridge. I will start from Central Park instead and although I was really looking forward to be biking from bridge to bridge I’ll get over it.

Oh yea, and my bike was a little bit damaged on the flight but I found a nearby bike store and they fixed it in just 2 minutes.

I’m ready for one last day with friends in New York and cannot wait for tomorrow morning and actually starting this bike-trip!

I’ll keep you guys updated via facebook and will post a new blogentry within the next week! I’ll also upload all the pictures in higher quality somewhere else so whoever is interested can browse through them.

Thanks so much for all the support, likes and donations so far. Considering I haven’t started biking yet, 230€ is really good and I appreciate every €. Also I have decided to write in English only as It is easier for me and I think everyone will be able to understand it.

Take care,

Freddy