Clio’s alarm clock wakes us at 7.
Quick breakfast, then walk up the road to the post office, to see if Ulla has sent a letter to me here. No. Wade back in the snow, turning rapidly to slush in the sunshine.
Take photos of Clio’s house.
Then Clio drives me over to see some countryside around Waterford. It’s very English, with the low Blue Mountains foothills to the west. Waterford is rather reconstructed but attractively old with many 18th century buildings.
Boat-tailed Grackels fly up from the road-side in large numbers.
We get lost on sideroads but nevertheless get to “Jock’s” in Leesburg in good time.
The bus is 5 min late because of the snow. I take my leave reluctantly of Clio (the day we’d planned to have together is obviously going to be gloriously sunny) and go back to Washington D.C.
(Clio’s house as of today – Peter)
Buy a ticket to Trenton and am very soon on the new bus, to Philadelphia.
Using a road map Clio gave me, I follow our route, through Baltimore, and we reach Philadelphia at about 2.20 pm.
The Trenton bus has not come in when it is due to leave. Half an hour later I find out it has gone without having been announced!
The next leaves at 3.30 and takes a long time forcing its way through the rush-hour traffic on this heavily trafficated route.
Drive out through China Town, eg Race Street and 10th, where all the street name-signs are in English and Chinese!
The bridges over the Delaware River are most impressive.
We get into Trenton at about 5.30 and stop at the Penn Hotel where the Greyhound Station is. I am exhausted, so decide to take a room here. It costs only $6.30 USD but is incredibly run down ad seedy.
The furniture in my room is incredible dilapidated. The paint largely fallen off the window. The toilet across the passage indescribable. The passage itself is like a junk-room, containing broken furniture and the carpet (actually felt) worn completely away in the middle.
I have a bad sandwich in the bar, and two beers, then go up to my room to write diary, on the bedside table by three naked light-bulbs.
I the write post-cards to Ulla, Ravenscroft and Tove. Then read half the book of Easther in the bible found at the back of the chest-of-drawers (the bible had never been opened, the only new-looking thing in the room), and go to sleep at 9.30.
