My brother and I decided to go where I spent last summer - the Outer Banks, North Carolina. It's not that I liked it that much, there just wasn't much choice left – we were arriving in America at the end of June, in the middle of the season, both without job offers. And we needed to earn money. According to our plans, we were supposed to work for ourselves and not depend on anyone. More about our money-making schemes later. And on the Outer Banks, I had quite a few acquaintances who could help me with something (or so I thought at the time). So, on June 24th, we landed in Boston. In general, landing in the States is an indescribable excitement for me and a feeling of some kind of freedom and joy. It really is. I don't even know why. Maybe because I was in love with this country back then.

A night in Boston, then two more flights – Boston to Philadelphia and Philadelphia to Norfolk. By the way, flying in the USA is sometimes cheaper than taking a bus. If you buy tickets on a site like cheaptickets.com in advance, you can save quite a bit. And one more thing – there is a rule in air travel in the USA – if you arrive on a flight from Europe and your suitcases have airline stickers, you do NOT have to pay for baggage to American airlines. It is considered a layover. But American airline managers don't always tell you about this. You have to know it. Otherwise, they will make you pay 45-50 dollars per suitcase due to your ignorance.

So, we arrived in Norfolk on the morning of June 24th. Honestly, a little tired after 30 hours without sleep and 4 planes. In Norfolk, my acquaintances met us by car and took us to the Outer Banks, to the house where I lived last year. How I loved that house back then. How many times I dreamed about it throughout the year. How many good things I had associated with that house. Sigh... a lyrical digression.

So, we arrived, unpacked our suitcases, and immediately started thinking about earning money and our money-making schemes. We decided that to bring our schemes to life, we would need a car, and we decided to buy one immediately. More on that later...

As I already said, we went to America with very bold goals to earn a decent amount of cash and then travel. Our goal was a trip to California by car at the end of the summer.