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The United States of America (1): The East

There are 50 stars on an American flag. Each one stands for one of the 50 states in the United States of America.

The state of Florida is the number one holiday destination in the U.S.A. both for Americans and tourists from all over the world.

On a visit to South Beach you can find all those things usually associated with the «American way of life», from flashy cars to fast food.

Along the seemingly endless, sandy beaches of the Florida coast, there are no more empty lots, but buildings keep going up. The mansions of the super rich are squeezed in between Miami beach hotels and downtown skyscrapers. Miami is much more than just hotels and a beach; it is a busy harbor with links to the Caribbean as weIl as to Central- and South America.

South of Miami, the Florida peninsula ends in a cham of small islands called the Florida Keys. Warmed by the waters coming from the Gulf of Mexico and passing into the Atlantic, these tiny islands are the perfect destination for a vacation. Warm shallow waters and tropical temperatures all year long give vacationers the illusion of an endless summer.

The Continental United States stretch across the entire center of the North American Continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

The coastal plain along the East coast runs north from Florida up to Cape Cod bordered on one side by the Appalachian mountains with the waters of the Atlantic Ocean on the other.

On the Georgia coast the mouth of the Savannah river reaches deep inland, forming a safe, natural harbor. In its early days this harbor was used mainly for shipping cotton to the mills in the northern states and to England.

At the time when fortunes were made with cotton, plantation owners came to the town of Savannah in the winter to arrange shipping of their cotton crop. They built grand mansions, which still serve as symbols of the «Old South».

A short break in the shade of the old oak trees, hung with Spanish moss, makes the extreme, humid heat of the summer months bearable.

From the old town of Savannah, it's only a short drive out to the Coast. There we find ourselves in a silent world of marshes, islands, and inland waterways, which are only accessible by boat. At low tide the oyster-beds are visible above the waterline. The shrimp boats are still at the dock, but our captain has something even better to show us. Blue Crabs! Once upon a time there were so many Blue Crabs, you could catch them with your bare hands. Now they are an endangered species.

Well, these two at least were lucky.

Despite the sometimes heavy shipping traffic, dolphins still live in these waters. In the early morning hours you can watch them play in the shallow water.

In the summer of 1607 three small English ships sailed along the Mid-Atlantic coast searching for a safe harbor.

The Spaniards and Portuguese had founded the first settlements on the North American continent. Now the English wanted to follow suit.

They discovered a spot, where they could sail right up to the land, then built a fort and called the settlement Jamestown after their king.

Today archeologists are excavating the remnants of the original fort.

The colonists feared attacks from the Spaniards, who had actually settled much farther south. In the end it was not the Spaniards who defeated them. It was their inability to live off the land. 440 of the 500 original colonists died, but their disaster did not deter others. They came to America in ever increasing numbers.

A statue of the Indian princess Pocahontas stands on Jamestown island, but her people, the native tribes who lived along the coast, were driven inland by the new settlers.

They found refuge in the inaccessible ranges of the Appalachian mountains. To this day many parts of the wooded valleys and peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains remain an uninhabited wilderness.

lt's at the foot of the mountains, in the green rolling hills of the Piedmont, where people live and farm.

The Piedmont is divided from the coastal plain by the Fall line. Along the Fall line rivers drop sharply forming waterfalls and rapids.

Beyond this point, the mountains were not accessible by river travel. Since there were no roads through the wilderness for a long time, the Appalachians formed a natural barrier, that prevented colonists from moving west.

While the mountains remained a frontier, towns were built along the coast, people prospered, and history was made.

In July 1781, during the Revolutionary War, General Lafayette returned to Williamsburg, Virginia, with his defeated troops. They brought along their wounded, as weIl as a captured British officer and two deserters.

The American army fought on and won the war.

The 13 colonies that had signed the Declaration of Independence, became the first states of the United States of America.

Washington in the District of Columbia was built to be the new capital and seat of government.

Political power is divided between congress, the Supreme Court and the President of the United States, who lives in the White House. A visit to the White House is always a special occasion and an honor for the guest, as in this case, the President of Romania.

The policies decided on behind these weIl protected walls move nations and are closely watched by members of the press.

A good part of a journalist's job is waiting, but everyone springs into action when the politicians are finally ready to give their statements to the press.

Every detail is newsworthy. How long was the meeting? What is the mood? Are they giving a statement together or alone? In front of the White House every word counts.

Washington D.C. is the capital of the United States and yet is only one of 5 large cities along the Atlantic Coast: they are Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston.

Their metropolitan areas are the most densely populated in the entire United States.

One of these cities has risen above all others in importance, New York.

Founded on an island in the Hudson river, New York City has grown far beyond its original borders. The Bronx, Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn are all part of the city, but the heart of New York beats in Manhattan.

New York is a mega-metropolis attracting people from all over the world.

Once dirty and dangerous, sometimes loud and ugly, but always exciting and alive, New York City really ist «the city that never sleeps».

Life follows a completely different beat in Boston, the northern most of the big cities on the East coast.

At the time of the sailing ships, trading in tobacco, cotton, Indigo and molasses made the City's merchants rich.

The fastest sailing ships were built in the shipyards around Boston. The first steamboats set off from there. Boston was and is the symbol of Yankee ingenuity and perseverance.

lt is more than 200 years since the citizens of Boston assembled in front of the Old State House to demonstrate against the taxes levied by the British.

Yet in spite of the Boston Tea Party and early opposition to British rule, Boston remains the most traditional, the most «english» of all American cities.

Fall is maybe the best of the seasons in New England. It means that across the James River from Boston, in the colleges and schools of Cambridge the Fall term has started.

The Pilgrim Fathers, the founders of New England, set great store by all the virtues. Education was one of them. The first college they founded was Harvard, which makes it the oldest of the prestigious Ivy-League colleges on the East coast.

The Ivy-League colleges are a group of universities with high standards in teaching and learning, and are attended by students from all over the world. Students here look no different from students anywhere else, but living up to Harvard's high expectations, sometimes seems to be quite a burden especially for a freshman.

On the other hand, a lecture held outdoors on one of the last warm Fall days is certainly something to enjoy.

Fall also means football. No college or high school is complete without a football team and anyone can play. A football team needs both, the tough guys on the defense and the fast runners on the offense.

Fall in America is called an Indian Summer. It's the time of year when the changing leaves surround the picturesque New England villages and towns with color.

The white clapboard houses, unchanged over the years, symbolize the conservative side of the American dream. Life here is worlds apart from the «Big City».

The one thing you absolutely need in the Fall is a big pumpkin, as big as you can possibly carry.

You need it to make pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving and it's an absolute must for Halloween. Shopping for pumpkins, leaves changing color, and the last of the wild geese heading south means winter is just around the corner.

We have arrived in Maine, the northernmost state and also the one farthest east.

When the first sunlight touches the coast of Maine, day begins for the U.S.A.

The coastline is a jumble of large granite boulders broken by the glaciers of the ice age.

The distance between the Florida Keys and the Coast of Maine is about two thousand miles.

Quite a long way, but it is only the beginning of getting to know a country the size of the United States, which stretches across an entire continent.

Vocabulary List Wortschatz-Liste

(im Text jeweils unterstrichen)

to associate in Verbindung bringen zu

peninsula Halbinsel

destination(s) Ziel

vacation Ferien

vacationer(s) Urlauber

coastal plain Küstenebene

marsh(es) Sumpf

accessible zugänglich, erreichbar

inaccessible unzugänglich

low tide Ebbe

oyster-bed(s) Austernbank

endangered gefährdet

specie(s) Art

Early America Frühe Geschichte

to follow suit gleichtun, dem Beispiel folgen

archeologist(s) Archäologe

to excavate ausgraben

remnant(s) Überreste

settlement(s) Siedlung(en)

settler(s) Siedler

colonist(s) Kolonist, Siedler

native tribe(s) Ureinwohner

refuge Schutz, Schutzgebiet

natural barrier natürliche Grenze

frontier(s) Grenze

(i. d. Fall: Grenze der Besiedelung)

to prosper gedeihen, gut ergehen

to defeat besiegen

defeat(s) Niederlage

The State Der Staat

capital Hauptstadt

occasion(s) Ereignis

policy(ies) Politik, politische Richtung

politician (s) Politiker

newsworthy schlagzeilenträchtig

New England Neuengland

to attract anziehen

molasses Zuckersyrup

shipyard(s) Werft(en)

ingenuity Scharfsinn, Erfindungsgabe

perseverance Ausdauer, Beharrlichkeit

to assemble versammeln

to levy taxes Steuern erheben

fall term Herbstsemester

to set store by darauf Wert legen

virtue(s) Tugend

prestigious renommiert

expectation(s) Erwartung

burden Last

freshman Erstsemester

picturesque malerisch

clapboard houses Holzhäuser

pumpkin Kürbis

jumble Durcheinander

boulder(s) Felsbrocken

glacier(s) Gletscher

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