Last day in the States

Today was the last day of our USA vacation as we’re leaving tomorrow morning. The Sandman Inn kept providing positive surprises still today. The breakfast was well better than our expectations. We thought we’d get just some cereals and toast but there was everything from different fruits, lots of breads, eggs, yoghurt, muffins etc. So for once we got a really good breakfast to start the day. After checking out we drove to the Santa Barbara beach to enjoy the nice weather. It was once again sunny with about 20°C. 

After a few hours of walking we jumped again into our Jeep and drove south for a while to Montecito. We found ourselves again on the beach because there were some picnic tables and we had a little snack. During the day we drove in several stages. After the snack we drove to Oxnard, then to Malibu. We thought to find a place to eat there but it was not made for our student wallets. We had the same problem in Santa Monica too so we decided to drive to our next hotel in Los Angeles and look there for a restaurant. That proved to be an excellent decision because we found a wonderful Vietnamese restaurant. We asked our waiter to help us to choose a tasty meal and he proposed us to take some egg rolls as appetizers and a noodle soup with a lot of well-done beef. We had no clue how to eat the soup as we got also some salad and sprouts on the table. The waiter showed us how to eat and once we understood the system the food was really tasteful and also very cheap :) Tomorrow morning it’s time to leave USA and move on to Shanghai! 

Golden Gate and Pacific Coast Highway

Sunday started very early for us as we were facing a long drive from SF to Santa Barbara with a lots of interesting things to see. The alarm woke us already at 6.20 and after a considerably feeding breakfast we jumped into the car. Although our main direction was about 550km south, we started towards north first. In the first days we didn’t have the chance to really get close to the Golden Gate and we wanted to have a great look at it, so we drove about 30km right next to it. Thanks to the great weather again, we got some really nice pictures.

After the quick stop our next destination was the Pacific Coast Highway, also known as Cabrillo Hwy that runs at some points right at the Pacific coast and it’s very well known as one of the most beautiful roads to drive. There was no doubt about that. There were a lot of people like us stopping several times at various turnouts to take photos.. Despite the amazing landscape and views the ride didn’t go without any problems. Due to a mud and stone slide the road was closed after around 250km. We had seen the signs informing the passengers about that but we kept determined going and believed that there would be a detour possibility. We weren’t the only ones who believed so and among others we had to drive 80km back to reach the nearest way to the freeway heading south. So that was about 2 hours extra driving but thanks to great views it was certainly not pointless :) We also found a great restaurant on the way in which we had lunch on the terrace looking at the Pacific!

After a long day we arrived in Santa Barbara at 7pm. The last hours went pretty smoothly on the freeway and we even happened to drive close to the beach at sundown. On the way we also drove through Solvang, a small Danish village in the middle of California :) The whole architecture was just like in Denmark and most if its inhabitants are originally from Denmark.. We had no clue about our hotel in Santa Barbara, we just reserved some place the day before, but we were very positively surprised by it. It’s by far the best hotel we’ve been staying so far. The Sandman Inn is quite big with two pools and a Jacuzzi. We had reserved a small room with two queen beds but we got really big two-bedroom room. We’ll spend the day here before continuing to LA tomorrow. Hopefully the weather stays as good as today so that we could hang at beach for a while. 

Days in San Francisco

We had 2 days to travel around SF and visit the attractions. Our first mission was to get a tourist pass to drive with the public transportation without a limit. We jumped onto a CalTrain train and drove around 20 minutes to San Francisco station. We thought to be able to get the tourist passes from the train station but it wasn’t like that. We had to walk for about a mile to Market Street and buy the tickets at a Visitor Center. After getting the ticket we took a local tram called Muni which got us to Frisco’s port. We had planned to begin the tourist tour at Alcatraz so we bought the tickets for it’s tour right away. The ferry to the Rock as it is called was full of people. No wonder since the weather was awesome, over 20°C degrees and a blue sky :) In Alcatraz we were offered a 30 minutes guided tour and after that a longer audio tour through the cell house.. It certainly was one of the most interesting spots we’ve visited during the past weeks!

After Alcatraz we walked to Fisherman’s Wharf to eat some local seafood. We had high expectations but we kind of were disappointed because everything was deep-fried for some reason. It was like fast seafood.. One of the main attractions SF is well-known are the old-school cable car lines. There re 3 lines running on the roads of the city and we wanted to ride all of the from start to finish. On the first day we drove from the Wharf to the main street with the cable car. The queue was huge because the station is one of the landmarks of the city with a beautiful view at the Golden Gate Bridge and we stood there for about 45 minutes. We drove the two other lines on the second day. In the evening we went to a local pub for a couple of beers. There was one of the friendliest bartenders we’ve ever met and he really liked that we were from Finland and had found his bar. He even gave us a free big beer each on the house. We did leave the pub a bit after midnight and walked to the train station to catch a train back to our hotel. It was a surprise to see that the trains don’t run during night here.. We thought the busses would run and walked back to the city center to look for a bus but we didn’t find any. After asking a few locals for help we finally understood that the busses are neither a good option. We decided to take a cab, as we were so uncertain about the busses. Just like we the day before our taxi driver had also some problems finding the hotel. Finally, we arrived at 4.20am to the hotel after 3 hours of travelling :)

Due to the nights happenings we were quite tired on the next morning and it took a while before we got out of the hotel. We didn’t have any big plans for the day. We drove the two remaining cable car rides, ate very well at a Chinese restaurant and just walked around the city.. We headed pretty early back to the hotel as we were so tired and wanted to rest well before tomorrow’s journey back towards LA. We are probably staying the next night in Santa Barbara where to we have a pretty long drive from SF. We’re going to drive along the coastal freeway with hopefully gorgeous views at the Pacific.

450 miles in the desert and 50 miles in snow

After Las Vegas our next destination was San Francisco. The distance between the two cities is though too big for a one-day drive, so we reserved us a hotel room in Reno. It’s familiarly known as ‘The largest little city in the world’ and as poor man’s Vegas. As we didn’t have breakfast at the hotel in LV we drove a bit outside the city center to a Food4Less supermarket to crab something to eat. We all took a 3 sandwiches bag because those sandwiches were stuffed with meat, cheese and veggies. We were aware of the fact that there are literally no towns between Vegas and Reno so the possibilities to find food on the way were pretty limited. Besides the sandwiches we had some chocolate bars and lots of water. The weather was luckily very good again, the sun was shining and it was quite warm.

Although the drive was long, the fact that we’ve got 4 possible drivers makes it a lot easier. We divided the drive into three sections me being the first driver. I must admit that it’s pretty boring to drive through the desert.. On those 150 miles there were about 7 little curves in total :) so it’s just straightforward the whole time. Although the 3 villages we drove by were very little, there was a McDonald’s in one of them in which we stopped by to have some coffee.. After 8 hours in total we arrived in Reno. The first thing what happened to us there was pretty funny! First we saw some flashing light behind us, so we pulled over and the officer walked to our car.. In our opinions we didn’t do anything illegal so we were pretty amazed. The local sheriff had somehow noticed that we weren’t locals there and wanted to have a chat with us. He asked from where we were coming and where we were going. He also offered his help if we wanted to have driving directions or any other questions about Reno.. The hospitality is awesome here :) After the long drive we were quite tired and didn’t have any energy to walk around the city. We just ate at a Mexican place and went back to the hotel to watch TV and surf in the internet for the first time in 3 days..

The next morning we continued right away towards California and San Francisco. We planned on taking a detour at the Tahoe National Park but due to bad weather we skipped this plan. After the desert the day before, during the National Park leg we confronted almost one-meter high snow banks next to the freeway. The road itself was in good shape and the weather was not below 0° degrees so it wasn’t icy or frosty. The landscape looked pretty much like it is in the Alps during fall. We had to stay over 30 minutes in a queue as a truck had crashed and one lane needed to be closed from traffic. The closer we got to SF, the warmer became the weather and in Frisco it was almost 20° degrees once we got there.. It can be stated that the weather conditions have changed enormously in the past 24 hours. First a hour-long drive in the desert, couple of hours in snow on the mountains and now almost summery conditions at the verdant Pacific coast :)

In SF we had first some difficulties in finding our hotel but once we managed to find it we were pleasantly surprised. We didn’t expect it to be this good! Our room is very big and we thought we wouldn’t get any breakfast but we’ll get a really good one. Actually it’s the best breakfast what we’ve gotten at our hotels so far! After check-in we continued to SF city center to have a look at it and to find a Thai restaurant Matti found on the internet earlier. We found the restaurant easily but finding a parking spot seemed to be harder than anywhere else. We drove at least a half a hour around the blocks before we managed to find a free spot. The restaurant itself was okay, the food was cheap and tasted fine but the dishes weren’t spicy as they should’ve been.. Maybe we looked too foreign for them that they didn’t wanna spice up too much.

Grand Canyon West

One of the most awaited things on the journey were the Grand Canyons and they certainly did not let us down. On Tuesday we started early in the morning towards the Canyons since it was still a 3-4 hours drive from Vegas and we wanted to stop at Hoover Dam too on the way. After a cold and rainy Monday, the weather was again perfect! The Hoover Dam was built in 1931-1935 and last year the Memorial Bridge over the Dam was opened to ease the traffic. Both the dam and the bridge were huge and provided a spectacular view as you can see below. 

We weren’t quite sure where to go at the Canyons in beforehand. We had looked for a couple of places to choose from. We drove to the West side of the Canyons since it was located most near to Vegas. We made the final choice pretty close to the Canyons as we saw a lot of other tourists (mostly Chinese :)) driving to the Grand Canyon West which is owned by the Hualapai Tribe. The admission fee of $45 was pretty high and it did include only a shuttle bus between the two locations of Eagle Point and Guano Point. But the amazing view made us shortly forgot the fee. The viewpoints were located just on the edge of the canyons without any fences and the 90 degree drop down was right on our footsteps :) At some points it look quite scary and not all visitors dared to walk on the edge.. There was also a so-called ‘skywalk’. It was a glass walkway over the canyon edge but since it did cost an extra $30 we didn’t go there as we could see everything without paying the fee. I think it’s not necessary to write more about the Canyons as the pictures speak for themselves. 

Road trip goes Vegas

After a 3-day internet free period it’s finally possible to write a blog post. Though we were staying in the best hotel so far on our USA trip, the internet wasn’t included in the room prices and the fee was really high to be honest. But anyway, the trip to Vegas lasted from Sunday till Wednesday morning and on Tuesday we visited the Grand Canyons but more of them you’ll get in the next post. 

The Sunday morning begun with a Hawaii style breakfast 10 miles outside San Diego. Due to the long drive ahead we decided to leave SD as early as possible and not to spend any time there anymore. With a nice warming sunshine and about 15’C degrees we hit the road. It didn’t take long for the landscape to change from the green coastal region to a dry desert with some small mountains. After leaving the coast there wasn’t much settlement but somehow people had managed to build two massive outlet centers in the middle of nowhere :) The view was still nearly all the time beautiful to look at and definitely something none of us had ever seen before.  The drive went well and smoothly and after around 5 hours Las Vegas skyline rose in front of our eyes. We headed directly to the 350m high Stratosphere Tower hotel to check-in and to look for a place to eat. The hotel itself consists of over 2400 rooms in 24 levels and we were pretty lucky as we got a room from the 23rd level with a nice view south the Strip. Next to the hotel there was a cheap pizza buffet which was perfect for us :) We didn’t have any exact plans for the first evening, we just wanted to see how Vegas is. For the most part we were at our hotel’s casino. Lauri is the biggest gambler from us four but none of us really did gamble during the whole time in Vegas since the minimum odds for the table weren’t that student-friendly :) All in all we continued being bad tourists as we’re staying in the cheapest hotels, eating in cheap restaurants and giving the lowest tips. 

Day 2 started with some rain showers! It does rain in Vegas.. Our plans for the day were just to walk around the city to see the attractions and some shows the hotels and casinos are showing each night several times. We didn’t have enough time to see everything on that one night so we made another city walk on the second evening too. With our budgets the coolest parts in Vegas were certainly these shows and the houses around Las Vegas Boulevards “The Strip”. We did watch the shows by Treasure Island, Mirage and Bellagio. Despite the Strip, the view from our hotel’s observation deck was beautiful too. Below you can find some pictures of them. Having left Vegas now, I can say that it was nice to see it but there’s no need to go back there. At least, not before having that much money that it doesn’t matter how much I’m spending.. One funny fact to mention is that I think there were more Chinese people than Americans due to Chinese New Year on January 23rd. 

Massive breakfast and the Battery Park

Our only whole day in San Diego started with a light rain which had a negative affect on our plans for the day. We had planned to spend an easy chilling day at the beach but now we had to make other plans. Breakfast was not included in our room but we thought that it’d cost only $6.75 to have a buffet style breakfast at the hotel café. We shortly realized after walking in that that price was only the starting price for a simple omelet and everything else would cost a lot more, so we decided not to eat there. After a quick internet search we found a often flattered café at the Mission Beach, called Kono’s Café. We jumped into the car and drove there. It was pretty obvious that the place is popular as the queue was long and the café full of people having breakfast. We all took a ‘Big Breakfast #1’ and it truly was big! None of us could eat it all and we kind of felt a bit sick after leaving the café after eating so much bacon, eggs, potatoes and pancakes :)

After breakfast we just drove around Mission beach and run in into a short of ladies run. We pulled over to watch it for a while before returning to the hotel to develop new plans for the day.. None of us wanted to do anything exhausting so we just hopped again into the Grand Cherokee and drove to another beach side called Ocean Beach. On the south end of the peninsula was located an old US Navy battery park which served during the WWII. It’s open for visitors today and for a cheap $5 per vehicle admission fee so it was quite cheap for us. It was interesting to see how the most western Battery Park after Pearl Harbor had operated. There’s also a Naval base in San Diego that is still active and during the visit in the battery park we saw a couple of Army planes and a few helicopters flying by. Next to the Battery Park there was also a huge cemetery honoring the men who have served USA in the world wars and in the latter wars. The time had gone quickly and after leaving the cemetery the sun already slowly going down. We wanted to catch a look at the sunset, especially as the sky was clearing up. We drove to Sunset Cliffs which is a popular spot in San Diego to watch sunsets and the view was really awesome from there, although the weather wasn’t the best possible we got some nice pictures :)

In the evening we visited a big shopping mall right next to our hotel. Our main purpose was just to find dinner there, in which we also succeeded but we also found some clothes to buy. I had to buy a pair of new jeans as the Levis 511 cost only $40 and I’ve got only one pair of jeans here with me. By the way, we ate at Panda Express that is a Chinese style food chain here. The food was good but the weird thing was that although it’s sort of Chinese they didn’t even offer chopsticks anywhere.. Now it's packing time once again and not for the last time as it's Vegas time! We've quite a long drive in front of us tomorrow as the distance from Diego to Vegas is around 330 miles so we're trying to leave Diego right after waking up  to have the possibility to spend the whole evening in Las Vegas.

Drive to San Diego via Laguna Beach

Today it was time to say goodbye to LA for 10 days and begin our road trip through California and Nevada. First stop is San Diego and on Sunday we’ll continue to Vegas and from there to San Francisco for a few days before returning to LA. I’ve heard and seen from pictures that the coastal highway from Frisco to LA is spectacular and one of the most beautiful roads to drive but I surely can recommend also the coastal highway between LA and Diego. The view was pretty breathtaking for the most part. Although according to the weather forecast it should have rained a bit today, the weather was all day long sunny and warm again. We stopped at Laguna Beach to eat breakfast in a beach side restaurant with a gorgeous view at the Pacific. Our sandwiches tasted wonderful and with that view it’s hard to top :)

The coastal region between LA and San Diego is almost fully covered with villages and cities like Laguna Beach and it’s not hard to believe why people wanna live there. Navicon’s GPS-application for iPhone is working very well and we it’s been really useful and helpful for us. Especially in LA’s concrete jungle we would’ve been completely lost and in troubles without a decent navigation. The freeways here are something extraordinary as all over LA the freeways have minimum 4 lanes and normally there are 6 lanes, so it’s always a little bit of an adventure driving here :) We had looked in beforehand for a premium outlet center north of Diego. The center consisted of around 90 outlet stores of various brands and stores where they sold mostly last season items for a much cheaper price in regular stores. Although we could’ve bought there a lot, we walked or drove away with pretty empty hands. In San Diego we found our hotel easily and right after checking in we continued to Mission Beach, located about 10 miles outside downtown, to watch the sun go down. We were maybe 15 minutes too late there and didn’t catch the best views. In the evening we went for dinner into a nice southern state style restaurant called Kansas City Barbeque where we had a meat and chicken collection for 4 people which was really tasteful and big..

Venice Beach, Beverly Hills, Hollywood

Thursday begun with a nice warming sunshine like the first day in LA too. It’s something unusual for a Finn to put on just a t-shirt in January but we’re not complaining. Today we first went to Redondo Beach, which is about 15 miles from Long Beach hotel. The weather was almost 20 degrees at 11am already and we did a small walk at the beach area there. Our main target for the morning and midday was Venice Beach where to we had still a another 15 miles drive. At the legendary beach we walked up and down the beach boulevard and stopped for lunch at a nice beach restaurant.  

 Next mission was to find our way to Beverly Hills to take a look at how the really rich people live. And well, they’ve got pretty nice houses and cars there :) We didn’t exactly know where we were driving and soon we noticed that we were at the Hollywood Hills so we continued our journey through the hills and finally arrived to the Hollywood Boulevard. We pulled over and started walking up and down the Walk of Fame. Then it was time to drive closer to the Hollywood sign and we found us driving quite small hill roads again. Drinking coffee at Starbucks’ we got the idea of going to a Kings’ game against the Calgary Flames. We drove to Staples Center to check out the ticket situation but unfortunately there weren’t any cheap tickets available anymore. We decided to skip the game and started looking for a place to eat. We found an awesome Korean ‘all you can eat’ barbeque place! The food tasted very good, the staff was super friendly and the price was also really nice.. To be able to see as much as possible in California and Nevada, we’re leaving LA for San Diego today for the weekend.

Ducks vs. Coyotes & Downtown LA

Today we spent our first complete day in Los Angeles and it didn’t go without any problems. Right after we started from our parking lot the maintenance required light went on, so we called Alamo to ask for advice. The conclusion was that we should drive to their location at the Long Beach airport so that we can get a new car. So far so good but we had to make a 40 miles detour from our planned route and it cost us almost 2 hours. But the nice part was that we got a Jeep Grand Cherokee in change which is actually really cool and it’s pretty much bigger than the Camry.. And the best part of the whole chapter is that at the LAX rental station the officer wanted us to upgrade to a SUV but it’d have cost almost $300 and now we got it for no extra price! :)

After the little coincidence we headed towards downtown LA. The distances here are quite big and from our Long Beach hotel it’s a over 40 mile drive to downtown. We just drove there for a while and found a really awesome location at a small hill where the view at the LA skyline was spectacular. After a Taco Bell lunch we continued to Anaheim. After the one-hour drive we went to a big shopping mall to spend some time before the game. At a sunglass store we met a really friendly salesman who wanted to discus with us a lot. We talked about hockey and Finland since he was a big Kings fan by himself. He also gave us some hints for Las Vegas.. In the evening it was hockey time! The game was truly a really good hockey game and the Ducks won 6-2. The only bad thing was that the Honda Center wasn’t even close to being sold out, instead it was quite empty and the atmosphere wasn’t very intensive. But we went to watch good hockey and we got it :)

I'll upload some photos in the near future when we hopefully have a faster internet connection. It's kind of impossible to upload them here due to the very poor connection..

Time to continue to LA

Today it was time to leave NYC and move on to LA. One week is certainly not enough for seeing everything you'd wanna see in New York although we did see a lot of the attractions and don't feel like we would have missed something really important. One thing we all agreed was that next time we'll come during summer. The city was beautiful during winter time too, but for example the Central Park during summer is something I wanna see in the future! So this wasn't the last time in NYC for sure.. Right after today’s breakfast we ordered a cab to pick up us at the hotel to drive us to JFK for the flight to LA International Airport. We thought we’d get a free lunch or at least a snack on the plane but nothing! All you could eat was some light snacks which cost a lot, too much in our minds :) So we were starving when we got to LA and right after getting our rental car we headed to eat at Jack in the Box’s. Getting no food at the plane was not the only negative aspect about American Airlines. At first we were forced to pay $25 each for the bags since they apparently weren't included in the tickets. I'd be happy to say I don't have to fly on AA again but we're flying to Shanghai with AA. So let's give the another shot to give a better impression..

At Alamo’s the clerk strongly was in the opinion that we wouldn’t manage to load our bags into the Chevy Impala or a similar vehicle and wanted us to upgrade to a SUV. Otherwise we’d taken that but the price was way too high for us and he wasn’t in a negotiation mood and we were pretty sure that we’ll get the luggage into the trunk.. And we were right :) It was quite a puzzle and the Impala wasn’t big enough but the trunk of a Toyota Camry was just the right size! The car has not only a big trunk but it’s big in every way and we’re very pleased with it.

We had some concerns about the traffic here but the way from LAX to Days Inn at Long Beach went well, despite the problems in finding the hotel but finally we managed in that too.. In the evening we went for a drive around the suburbs here to take a first look at LA. Have to say that I just don’t get it how it’s possible to have that many fast food restaurants like it is here. There’s on every corner at least a couple of them.. But now it’s time to get some sleep and tomorrow it’s NHL time as we’re going to watch Ducks vs. Coyotes at the Honda Center in Anaheim!  

Last day in NYC

Today was our last day in NYC as we’re flying to LA tomorrow morning. After breakfast we thought it’s a good moment to do some laundry because there’s a laundromat just one block away from the hotel. After that we headed to Manhattan to visit some last places we’ve wanted to go to. First we walked to Madison Square Park to eat at the well-known Shake Shack, a outdoor burger place. Gotta say that there were the best burgers so far :9  After two very cold days it was much warmer today, mostly because of the mild wind and thanks to a blue sky with a warming sunshine. We aimed to buy stamps for some postcards from the postal office at the Rockefeller Center but due to Martin Luther King all governmental bureaus were closed so no postcards to Finland yet.. Maybe we manage to send those tomorrow at JFK.

After some donuts and coffees at Dunkin Donut’s we went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral which is a huge but typical and beautiful catholic church. Because it was the last day here, we walked all over Times Square and the surrounding blocks to have a final look at the Midtown area. We also stopped by at Madame Tussauds to check out the celebrity wax figures.. Now we’re packing our stuff for tomorrow’s flight and wondering which car we’ll get for our time in California and Nevada.

NFL Weekend and Brooklyn tours

On Saturday we started our day in Lower Manhattan at the Wall Street where we visited the Museum of American Finance. It was very interesting and illustrated properly the early years if the world’s number one stock exchange, NYSE, as well as the development phases and crashes. After the tour there we navigated towards WTC memorial place. On our way we stopped by at Tiffany’s to take a look at jewelry that expensive we’ve never seen before. The most expensive necklace we saw was worth of over 50k.

Although we’ve already been nearly a week in NYC, we haven’t walked through Chinatown yet so now it was certainly time to fix that! We found a pretty big and popular Chinese restaurant where you could take whatever you liked from the lines. The only problem thereby was there weren’t any signs about what they offered so we weren’t quite sure about the items we were eating :) But for the most part everything tasted good.. After lunch we headed to SoHo through Little Italy. In Soho we found a sports bar to watch the day’s NHL game.

For the evening we planned to drive to Brooklyn cause we haven’t had the opportunity to go there before. After a short walk there we found a small restaurant where we ate some really delicious burgers. With full stomachs we continued to a bar to watch the NFL game Patriots vs. Broncos.

On Sunday we had a pretty low-speed start for the day and it was almost 12 o’clock before we walked out from through our hotel’s doors. First we drove again to Brooklyn to eat and we found a great Italian place. The weather was sunny and we wanted to take some nice photos of Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan. We also planned to walk over the bridge back to Manhattan but we chose to take subway since it was very cold due to the heavy wind.. At Lower Manhattan we went into the skyscraper museum where was a small exhibition of the world’s biggest skyscrapers.

In the early evening we visited world biggest photo & audio store B&H which certainly was enormous. After lunch we decided to end our evening at the cinema and watched the new Mission Impossible 4 before heading back to the hotel. 

NBC and Radio City Music Hall tours

After 3 days with sunny and warm weather, the next couple of days weren’t that awesome. On Thursday it rained for the most part and although according to the forecast it should have been quite warm, it wasn’t. The weather was chilly and rainy the whole day so we looked for inside destinations to visit. First we decided to take part in NBC Studio Tour to see how the legendary TV broadcast station has been founded and developed in the past century and to see a bit how the shows are filmed and made today. After that we continued to the famous Radio City Music Hall. The tour took us across the theater to see various interesting places and we also met one of the Rockettes :)

Since it’s election time in Finland at the moment and we didn’t wanna miss our chance to have an effect on the coming president, we headed to United Nation into the Finnish embassy to vote. Olli’s cousin Johanna is working there at the moment and she gave us some hints where to go here in NYC. She proposed us a nice pub in the neighborhood so we went there to hang around and watch the Knicks’s game.

Thursday’s weather wasn’t much better, it was very windy and cold but luckily it didn’t rain. We started our morning with a long subway ride from Queens to Bronx to see something else than than just Manhattan. At some point during the ride we noticed that among the ca. 50 people in the subway car we were the only white people there. We arrived in Bronx at the Yankee Stadium and went for a walk around the stadium and the neighborhood. But we shortly noticed that it was too windy to really enjoy walking around there so we aimed back to the subway. The weather felt so cold that we didn’t wanna spend much time outdoors hence we visited some locations included in the NY Pass. We visited the Guggenheim museum and I’ve to say that I don’t understand modern art.

The target after lunchtime was the Madison Square Garden which unfortunately is not open for the guided tours around the arena due to some massive renovations at the moment. Before MSG we also visited Bloomingdale’s shopping center which is covered with all the luxury brands existing and we almost felt like being not brave enough to touch anything there. :) In the early evening we walked to Empire State Building for the New York Skyride which is a helicopter ride through the skyline in a motion simulated movie theater. The concept is really cool but it was a bit disappointing since the film was quite bad and not that sharp. After 5 pretty exhausting days, we were feeling tired so we decided to head back to the hotel pretty early to rest for the two last days here in New York before West Coast road trip.