Getting Started

We got our car, it is huge! Macchinone we would say in Italian. but it is sooooo confortable. I love american cars like this, they have comfortable seats made of leather and they are so high up on the road that someone small like me can see everything. When I drive these cars I feel like a giant.

After more than one hour to complete the documentation and another 40 minutes to get the luggage in and learn how to use the electronics in the car, everything needs a button to push to work, we were off.

Let me introduce you to my companions:

Claudio

Sabina

Antonio

Loretta

We all love electronics and as you see we are all using the phone to know where to go!

We left Newark on a absolutely beautiful October day and drove West towards Harrisburg. And of course we got lost a couple of times. We had to use the navigator because the maps were in the suitcases, buried inside the car, today we will make sure to have them but I am sure we will get lost again, it is part of the journey.

So looking for a place to eat we ended up in Lebanon, PA. A tiny, tiny little village so peaceful, clean and safe which could not have been more different from the real Lebanon.

I think I picked up Lebanon out of the map that the navigator was showing to stop for lunch because the Middel East is very much in our mind. With the demonstrations in Europe today and friends and family participating we were worried and checked the news during all day.

It is extraordinary the power of geography, Here we are in this peaceful area of Pennsylvania on a beautifual day driving towards Lebanon and on the other side of the world people are marching against the bombing of Gaza and Lebanon. Here geopolitics and politics seem not to exist.

We did not see any sign of the election, as we drove along the two roads that consitute this village we did not see in the front garden of the houses any signs. It is common in the US, especially in the small town to show one's political commitment.

But we saw signs of commemoration of the fallen soldiers from Lebanon, this is the month of commemoration of the military.

Pensilvania is still very rural and in the high street of Lebanon there were several of these installations, this is for Halloween but you can see they used part of the corn plant to do it. October is a big month for harvesting.

In Lebanon there were a few garage sales but we got there at the very end but I managed to buy a beautiful tea pot for 3 dollars! It was lunch time but there was nowhere to eat, one place was close for remodelling and the other was closes for a funeral so we went to Clinton.