Feelings from the States

It’s been now a couple of days since we left California and I thought to write some thoughts about our experiences. For the most part the trip went pretty smoothly and as planned without any bigger surprises or misfortunes. Our trip went as follows: 8 days NYC, 3 days LA, 2 days SD, 3 days LV, 3 days SF and 1 day Santa Barbara. Afterwards it can be said that New York and San Francisco were my favorites. NY was literally a city that never sleeps and full of life. I also really liked that it was very easy to travel there with the subway. No matters at what time you want to get somewhere, the subway runs. Although we had the possibility to visit very many places and attractions in the city, 8 days weren’t enough and I want to back there in the near future, most preferably during summer time to see the Central Park like it’s known. In California and especially in LA you can’t do really anything without a car. The distances are so big and there’s like no public transportation. Since there are about 20 million people living there and everybody is driving a car, it takes sometimes many hours to get from one place to another. Being used to queue free traffic, LA was not for us :) We had bad luck with the weather in San Diego as it rained for the most time we were there. Besides that, in our opinions it’s more a summer city and during winter time there’s not that much to do. The beaches are definitely wonderful in the summer and there are many golf courses around the city. So if you’re a surfer or a golfer, the city is perfect!

Las Vegas was a place from which we all had the opinion that it was nice to go there once but there’s no reason to again. The Canyons really saved our Vegas trip because they’re amazing. Next time I wanna upgrade the Canyons and book a helicopter flight :) they weren’t actually that expensive, for example in a 4 hour trip from Vegas did cost around $300/person.  After Vegas we drove through the desert to Reno and after the night continued to San Francisco. We all liked Frisco a lot. The atmosphere there was really cool and the city felt kind of cosy and homely. The only negative aspect was the fact that the public transport basically is closed after midnight so it’s better to book a hotel in the city center and not outside the center like we did.. If I’d move to USA some day, the smaller cities at the Pacific would be nice places to live in. Towns like Santa Barbara, Santa Monica and Laguna Beach all were pretty beautiful with their beaches and small mountains on the other side but they’re not the cheapest places to find a home :) 

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..