Coffee and cigarettes
The machine steams, growls, hisses, rattles and gurgles like it’s about to explode, but it smells absolutely wonderful, like freshly brewed coffee.
After the Italian pizza maker loudly and somewhat smugly promoted his “real Italian pizza,” I couldn’t resist ordering “real Italian coffee” in the US.
I actually just wanted to make fun of him a little, so I’m a little speechless when he immediately says:
«I’ll make you one.»
1: 0 Italy.
There’s a football match on TV right now and the little bar near the trail has become a hotbed of football banter, funny banter and European passion, at least for something.
The Americans are getting in on the action and, from Zidane to Buffon and Thomas Müller, everyone ends up agreeing:
France must not win at all.
That is the European consensus (no, the international one). How easy it is to bring people together!
The pizza is fantastic, as is the coffee.
For me there is nothing better than a good cup of coffee with a cigarette. It’s that easy to make me happy.
Deli blazing
We’re wandering around upstate New York, and we’ve grudgingly embraced deli-blazing after all.
New York isn’t really designed for cheap resupply for hikers. Here, you can go from one snack bar to another: it’s fun and you don’t have to carry too much food.
In principle, you can order a sandwich or a pizza any day you feel like it.
The disadvantage: it is quite expensive.
Small shops are not cheap, of course; after all, you are in New York.
And if you want to smoke, like I’m foolishly doing again, you sometimes have to shell out $11 to $16 for a pack of cigarettes.
But tough times call for tough measures, and in the end, we let ourselves go and eat pizza, sandwiches and other delicacies, and I’m smoking like a chimney again.
Back in “Rocksylvania”
New Jersey and New York were definitely littered with more rocks than we thought.
In New York, I still sometimes felt like I was in “Rocksylvania.” And then I felt like I was on a little roller coaster again, like at the end of Virginia.
Emotionally, I’m really not at my best right now.
Just yesterday I thought: everything here is exactly the same as it was three months ago.
I miss the light, I miss the sun!
We always walk through dimly lit forests. Up and down, up and down. Walking through dark forests, camping in dark forests, waking up in dark forests.
But physically I’m in top shape!
On the other trails, at this point I was already at the end of my rope; the altitude really took its toll on me there.
Here, with all the ups and downs at a moderate altitude, I am in top shape!
And the delicatessens make it all bearable. The small tents here are very hiker friendly and often allow us to camp behind their tents for just a few dollars.
In Kent, we ended up sleeping right behind an incredibly fantastic ice cream shop. In addition to ice cream, they have everything from Harry Potter candy to chocolate crocodiles and all the licorice perversions in the world.
the cabin
At the end of Connecticut, we slept in Jenny’s cabin: a true idyll.
On a whim we decided to stay one more day because it is a magical place.
Jenny and Alan are retired and have a huge property with chickens, a cat, a dog and a sheep.
Jenny built a small cabin behind the house with her own hands (and a little help).
It is a small house with a sitting area, a table, a sofa and a staircase leading to the upper floor, where you can sleep on mattresses on the gables.
Thanks to an almost continuous window front, you almost feel like you are in the middle of nature. I have rarely slept as well as here!
Tomorrow is goodbye Connecticut, hello Massachusetts.
I can already hear the Bee Gees in my head.
Happy trails!
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