That's exactly what we did. For a whole month, we were booking tickets and deciding what to visit in each city; in short, preparations were in full swing.
It wasn't without a lump in our throats that we said goodbye to our Virginia Beach, to all the people we met and befriended, and headed to Washington (that's where our flight to San Francisco was departing from). We actually missed our bus from Norfolk (a city near Virginia Beach) because saying goodbye to the city or just wanting to hang out didn't let us get to sleep on time. As a result, after sleeping for an hour or two, we were woken up by a loud knock on the door from a Russian guy who had agreed to drive us to the bus station. Throwing our last unpacked things and some food into our suitcases, we bolted out of the house and took off. We arrived at the bus station five minutes late, but that was enough for the Greyhound bus, which rarely left on time, to pull away right from under our noses. After paying our "taxi driver" extra, we caught up with it in Hampton, the neighboring city.
We spent two days in Washington, the capital of the USA. To our surprise, the weather was warmer, or maybe we were just lucky, because Virginia saw us off with rain despite such a southern climate all summer.
What can I say about Washington? It might be a stretch, but if you compare it to Russia, Washington is like Saint Petersburg: a capital city, but with a less hectic atmosphere, beautiful architecture, and a more measured pace of life. And New York reminds me of Moscow with its scale, noise, fun, and traffic. If they say that a person prefers either Moscow or Saint Petersburg, I can say the same about Washington and New York. I liked the American capital more.
We didn't make it to the museums (we ran out of time), although most of them are free in Washington. But we managed to walk around plenty, saw the Capitol, the Washington Monument, and the White House itself! And we just strolled through the cozy streets of the capital.
By the evening of the second day, we headed to the train station with all our suitcases (and their number exceeded the number of people), stood there blankly in front of the terminal for a bit, but still managed to handle such a "difficult" task as buying a train ticket and went to the airport in Baltimore. We sat there hungry and freezing all night. All that was left of our food was an open jar of peanut butter and some tea bags. I went up to different cafes every time and asked for "some boiling water" with a pitiful look. In the same waiting area, there were scales to check if your suitcase was overweight. We couldn't think of anything better than to weigh ourselves instead :)
