When learning about a foreign city, one can go to history museums. Or art museums. Or the more random museums, like the New York transport museum, hosted in an old unused subway station. And learn how, long ago, subway trains had nearly stylish rattan imitation seats.
Or how, even longer ago, before there were subway trains there were streetcars, jam-packed with gentlemen in hot sweaty suits and ladies with two-meter circumference of crinoline squeezing together like sardines in a can. In rush hour surely the streetcar spilled over with skirt hoops and lace and top hats. 
The most interesting detail of the Transport Museum is the advertising on the walls of old train cars. Much of it is from WWII, and the strangest references were made to the war. It is also a reminder of how the government raised its own citizens’ money to fight a war outside of US turf by issuing war bonds yielding less than the market rate of other reasonable investments.
Some lovely soul has also been fixated with turnstiles. Yes, turnstiles. There is a collection of probably every single model of turnstile used in the history of the NYC subway. And that is surprisingly many – we just do not pay attention. Someone more attentive did – and collected them all. 🙂
(NYC Transport Museum, Brooklyn, NYC, USA; April 2019)
There are photos of the Brooklyn bridge. And then there are photos of people taking photos of the Brooklyn bridge. Same goes for DUMBO beach and the Manhattan skyline. Some heavy cropping was required to weed out tourists in red and orange jackets, absolutely not suitable for being in the frame.
(Brooklyn, USA; April 2019)
Brownstone buildings, quiet streets, tiny low-fenced gardens with wisterias and greens just like in small European towns, and people playing soccer in the park. Brooklyn is more like Europe than any other American place I have visited. And yet it is just a bridge away from the most American of them all: Manhattan.
But here, among the tulips and the hipster cafés and people walking dogs, I forget I am in the USA. If only for a brief while. Brooklyn, as an old Dutch colony, even still has a Dutch slogan on its city arms.
(Brooklyn, NYC, USA; April 2019)
The view from my hotel room window. If only zeppelins were still the fashionable way to transport through the air – then I might see the observatory in its originally designed use: a docking site for zeppelins bringing travelers in and out of Manhattan. Such a courageous space-age dream was built to come true, but never put to good use.
I have only seen the coastline surrounding New York City from the air, and each time there is something new to discover. Fire Island looks like a wonderful place to visit for long walks on the beach and adventuring out in the shallows during ebb. Lucky locals.
35,000 feet above the Earth allows a new view, each time. For example how far Keflavik airport really is from Reykjavik city (above). And how icy and cold it still is in New Brunswick, when there are leaves in the trees in Denmark.
And how magnificent Mounts Katahdin and Hamlin look from the stratosphere. This is also the Northern end of the Appalachian trail. While my broken knees may never take me up on top of Katahdin, the Appalachian trail sure is on my bucket list – with a cheat start at the foot of the mountain.
(Above Iceland and North America; April 2019)
(Loviisa, Finland; April 2019)
Weird experience today: spending the night in a hotel in my home town, just 5 kms away from my own apartment.
There are hills in Denmark. Really. It is not all flat. Only, the hills are hiding here on Jutland, far away from Copenhagen and Odense and where most visitors go.
(Silkeborg, Denmark; March 2019)
This blue marble 