An evening in Vermont and New Hampshire

The Holiday Inn, White River Junction is one of those great US hotels, where everything is clean, fresh and convenient. The room is large and has everything you need if your stay was one night or many. Though, as you can see we are now in the mountains and have rain.
Vermont seems strange after some days in New York, strange because of its British styles. So the hotel has got a ground floor. Every where else I've been in the States the floor we would call ground is called first, not here.This runs even to the light switches on the lamps which are push-button, unlike the strange turning switches common elsewhere. We spent a few moments settling into the hotel and then went out.

White River Junction itself is a artists town, with loads of museums and galleries. Again unlike the rest of the US the town is laid out like a town, houses nestling together a traditional main street. What a difference to go 5 miles and cross the River into New Hampshire - here we are back to Malls, large roads with a wide variety of stores on either side. If you can see through the rain we were welcome in New Hampshire!
Still, while noting the difference between countries, I like large stores, so we made our stop at JCPenny this store we first encountered in Astoria, Oregon two years ago, when both Drew and I shopped for non-work clothes and have really liked them since we had them. We had opted to visit JCPenny in New Hampshire as, like Oregon, New Hampshire has no sales tax (the VAT equivalent) hence it is cheaper to buy things here than in most US states. I bought two pairs of trousers (sorry - Pants) and six shirts, Drew bought himself four t-shirts. A job well done.
We next went to CVS Pharmacy, also in Lebanon, New Hampshire, since first coming to the states I and my family have always visited pharmacies to stock up on tablets. This avoids going to a supermarket in the UK and being told you can't buy more than 16 Aspirin per shop. (If you take three a day four times a day, this will last you just over a day, imagine having to get up and go to the shop). Whereas in the US you can buy packs of 500 or 1000 off the shelf with no qualms. I'm also on a mission to buy some stain remover for my sister - sorry Janet, while this CVS stocked the product that part of the shelf was empty, but be assured this won't be our last pharmacy :-)

We then went to Weathervane's for food. After all last night's meat, we felt a seafood restaurant was appropriate tonight! Wethervane's is a small chain of 17 New England seafood restaurants developed on the back of an original restaurant in Kittery, Maine which was founded in 1969.
I, as the picture shows, had a lovely bucket of Steamers a form of clam local to the New England coast, and really tasty this was served with drawn butter, though given that I am not a fan of butter I didn't dip them but eat them as they came. Drew had a plate of onion hearts, deep fried which he enjoyed.
In the spirit of fish eating we both went for Haddock, Drew for fried haddock in batter with mashed potatoes and coleslaw - if he had known this was going to be two large pieces of Haddock I think he would have opted for the child portion! I had broiled (grilled in UK English) Haddock, this was. slightly oddly but pleasantly, topped with Ritzcracker crumbs, giving it a bit of a crunch, I had that with a plain baked potato (plain at my request, I prefer my baked spud as it comes not with sour cream or butter.
The waiter at the restaurant was a Maths student at a Romanian University, working in the US for the summer as part of an exchange arrangement. He spotted that our accent was from the UK and not English, though he didn't guess Wales. I would have guessed his accent was French rather than Romanian. But it was interesting to be in such an American place as Weathervane's with Romanian staff.
No dessert tonight, so it was back to the hotel and bed at 10.30.