The next morning we had to get up in practically an emergency mode))

...hostel checkout...and there's Central Park...Americans RUN IN THE MORNING!!!! HAVE YOU EVER SEEN PEOPLE IN RUSSIA WHO WOULD BOTHER TO GET UP AT 6:00 AM JUST TO GO FOR A RUN???

We were with some girls who had come to America in 2007 for the second time... They helped us navigate the subway, we rode with them to Greyhound and... Bought those ill-fated tickets to Alabama, the city of Daphne... During that first trip of mine to America, I didn't yet suspect that Greyhound makes a million stops along the way, that Alabama is a village in the middle of nowhere, and that flying is 1000 times more comfortable...

I (Yulia), my friend (Ksyukha), and a girl from our city (Anya) traveled to Alabama for almost a day and a half... On the way, we met a guy from Russia who was heading to Texas... the bus was buzzing))))).... Later, we felt so sorry for that guy, because in our day and a half of travel we cursed everyone and everything, and Texas is even further than Alabama, friends!!!

Daphne greeted us with heat, high humidity, and rain... The town is located on the Gulf of Mexico coast... small and unremarkable... That was when I finally saw the real America... Quiet... Single-story... The memory of those houses still remains... Huge... Old... Beautiful... Built in some unclear style, looking like the White House but in miniature... Magnolias... Our employer didn't meet us (even though we definitely called him an hour before arrival) BUT! The workday at McDonald's was over and everyone had gone home... 3 Russian girls were completely unwanted by anyone... We took a taxi and a guy (can I write it like this??? 'African American' is such a long word) took us to the hotel... I must say that we paid a crazy amount of money for that taxi (as we found out later)... I think it was a Holiday Inn... Huge beds and a normal shower—that was all we students needed, not having seen normal living conditions since the moment the plane took off in Russia... The girls at the reception were stunned when they found out we were from Russia... It was like a zoo—they were examining us so carefully...