Exchange year in Waterloo, Canada

Last days in NYC

cinosx — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:45:32 +0000

We spent two very nice and packed days here in NYC. We visited all the important places, including Ground Zero, Wall Street, Madison Square Garden and Park, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, China Town and many others. We had a great time here and just finished packing since tomorrow in the evening, we’re taking the plane back to Switzerland where we’ll arrive in the afternoon of the 12th of July.

Going to bed now, check out the new pictures on Picasa…

New York City

cinosx — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:51:19 +0000

Here’s a wrap-up of the last two days. After yet another proficient way of avoiding taking taxi’s to get from A to B which included 2 bus transfers, a Greyhound bus and yet another two bus transfers, we arrived at the airport of Fort Lauderdale, which is cheaper than Miami airport. This time, we flew with Delta, and here’s my word of advice: Never take this airline, unless you have to: The staff is unfriendly, the flights are delayed and they try to put three flights onto the same baggage claim, which ends up in a luggage jam and then you have to wait ages to get your stuff. As I said, never again!

Somehow we managed to get to our guesthouse, which is located at the North-East Corner of Central Park. Not at all top-notch, but it serves the purpose.

Yesterday, we went to Times Square and did some shopping, where we paid a visit to Toys’R'Us, which was impressive, and Nintendo World, which was even better! Lunch was at Planet Hollywood, and with the 10$ off coupon I found between some plush figures in Toys’R'Us, it was even affordable:-)

Art Deco Walk and enjoying the beach

cinosx — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 02:56:36 +0000

This weekend was very relaxing, and we appreciated to shift down the gears and delve into the “Miami Beach” vibes. With temperatures above 35 degrees centigrade and a tropical humidity, you’re not likely to run around anyways.

Up until around 4pm, we tried to avoid the direct sun since it was literally cooking us. When you get out of an air-conditioned store, it’s as if you’re walking into a wall of water bubbles. So we organised the rest of our trip, namely New York, and watched Federer win his 15th Grand Slam title, and went to the beach in the late afternoon when it was “only” 32 degrees. The beach with the white sand and the turquoise-blue water is really beautiful and invites to just lie there and relax. And that’s exactly what we did this weekend. We just had enough energy to do the Art Deco walk, a 1.2 mile walk along some famous buildings, and luckily there was a Starbucks on the way where we could get some iced drinks to cool down a bit.

After those relaxing days, we are now ready to fly to New York tomorrow and find out why everyone loves this city. Looking forward to it!

Miami Beach

cinosx — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:56:15 +0000

After another Greyhound ride from Kissimmee to Miami, where we found out that there are two Greyhound terminals and that our bus stopped at the one further away from Miami Beach, we had to take yet again two other buses to get to our hotel. It is very hot and humid here and right now, we are in our air conditioned hotel room, and later in the afternoon, we’ll go to the world famous beach…

Disney World Orlando

cinosx — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:29:59 +0000

After the night flight from Los Angeles, where we got 2 hours of sleep tops, we arrived at 6am in Orlando, the hometown of Disney. Question: If in the whole plane, there are two lights on, where are they? 100 points for you if you correctly answered “Right in front of you”. Oh yes, 6am Florida time means 3am California time, you get the idea…

Half asleep, we started looking for a way to get to our Motel in Kissimmee, a town close to Disney World. Taxi and the Charter buses were just not an option with over 50$ one way, and luckily we found a way to get there “on a budget”. It still strikes me that this way is mentioned nowhere, not on the Internet, nor at the information booths at the airport. So if you plan to get to Disney World one day, write down what I’m about to tell you: As you walk by all the taxis and “Mears” buses, at the very end you’ll find a “Lynx” station, the public transportation of Orlando. There is no information panel whatsoever, so just wait until the bus arrives. It says “111 – Disney World”, and it costs you – wait for it – 2$ to get to Disney World. Since we went to Kissimmee first, we had to change buses twice, but that was ok. In Kissimmee, our second bus transfer, we ran into a tropical rainfall and got soaked!

After we had checked in our motel, we went to Disney World, or part of it. For those who have never been there, Disney World consists of four theme parks and two water parks, and is really huge. There is even a monorail which brings you from the parking lot to the park entrance! We choose to visit the “Magic Kingdom”. After two very bad attractions, “Swiss treehouse” which is a walkthrough treehouse where Fritz, Ernst and Hans got lost, being one of them, it started to get better.

After we had accepted that the focus of the park was for the youngest ones, we had a very entertaining day, and some of the rides were really fun!

Hollywood

cinosx — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:18:21 +0000

After another nightmare trip with Greyhound (Simone understands now my concerns) we arrived in Hollywood, which – let’s put it that way – didn’t live up to expectations. Hollywood Boulevard is quite boring and the city is ugly, I have pity with all the stars who have to live here! And for those who were wondering about Michael Jackson’s Star on the “Walk of Fame”: It is a pity, just some burnt down candles, a bouquet of rotten flowers, all surrounded by an orange “construction site” barrier!

Luckily, there are the Universal Studios, where we spent a very entertaining day yesterday in shows such as Terminator 2, Shrek 4D, Waterworld which was breathtaking, and enjoyed the cool rides of Jurassic Park, Simpsons and many others.

Today, we’ll go there again (2 days for one) and tonight, we’ll fly to Orlando, Florida, where a day in Disney World awaits us.

San Diego

cinosx — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:21:14 +0000

After a very long drive to San Diego, we checked in the 500 West Hotel and gave back our car.

On Thursday, we crossed the border and went to Tijuana, Mexico, which was quite special since there was no border control at all! The city itself is very touristy, but Mexico-experienced Simone told me that the Mexican-flair still came over. Back in the US, after a much more throughout border control (I wonder what happens if you go to Tijuana and on the way back in you realise that you left your passport at home), we went to Coronado Island, where there is the famous “Hotel del Coronado”, known from the movie “Some like it hot”.

Yesterday, we went to Sea World, where we bought a two-day ticket since it was 10$ cheaper than the one-day pass. There are so many shows that we are returning today, to do the ones we missed.

From Grand Canyon to Phoenix

cinosx — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:05:58 +0000

Another cruising day was ahead of us today. We left the hotel at around 11am, and drove South to Phoenix. At our first gas stop which was after about 75 miles, I asked Simone if she could give me some money from her money-belt. She looked at me and said with pure desperation: “Shit, the money is under the left pillow of the right bed (the one we didn’t use). So we had to drive all the way back, where luckily the money was still there, and then drive back again.

25 miles away from Phoenix, we went to an Outlet mall, where we found a Quiksilver/Roxy factory outlet where they had prices impossible to resist – A leather belt for instance which was 5.99$ instead of 38$…

Now we are in the Lexinton Hotel which is affordable since here it is off-season (40 degrees are just too hot for normal USA-tourists I guess) and had a great dinner in the “Old Spaghetti Factory”…

Sunrise at Grand Canyon

cinosx — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:31:55 +0000

Grand Canyon Inn, Room 10, 3:30am: “Rrrring”… Time to get up. After a fresh shower, we drove up route 64 to the South Rim of the Canyon. We arrived the park gates at 4:45, but noone was there so we couldn’t pay the park fee. So we drove by the gates and to the Mather point, where we waited for the sun to rise and almost froze. At 5:15, the sky got lighter and a glowing ball enlightened the immense Grand Canyon. It definitely deserves its name.
After breakfast in the warm car, we drove to Yavapai point, where we got another nice view of the Canyon. At 8am, we went to the Visitors Centre to get some information about the Bright Angel Trail.
With some more information about the trail, we headed to a supermarket and bought lunch and enough to drink to be able to attack the hike. We started walking down the trail at around 9am, and arrived at the second stop 2 hours later. The trail would have continued, but it is not recommended to go further on a one-day trip since the conditions are very bad. The temperature was around 40 degrees, it is at 2100m and there are only few places in the shadows. After lunch down in the middle of the Canyon, we started our way back up. They say that one needs about twice the time to get back up, but we were even faster back at the top than we were down. The highlight on our way back up was a family of mountain goats which was right next to the trail, lying on the rocks…

Lucky to have finished this unforgettable hike, we took the free shuttle bus to Hermits Rest, another nice lookout point, and on our way back we got out at yet another lookout point where we could see the river.

After dinner, we drove back to our hotel, and were positively surprised that on the way out, they didn’t check the park permits and so we had Grand Canyon for free. Good deal!

Driving to the Grand Canyon

cinosx — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:30:53 +0000

With almot empty pockets (no don’t worry, it wasn’t that bad!), we left Las Vegas today and drove to the Grand Canyon, or better the “Grand Canyon Inn”, a hotel that is 25 miles South of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It was a very boring 5-hour drive, the scenery didn’t change a lot.
We arrived at around 4pm at the hotel, and went to the Flintstones Camping which was just on the other side of the street and did some laundry. Meanwhile, we played “Ms. PacMan”, where Simone improved a lot.
Now it is 9pm and we’re going to bed since tomorrow, we want to see the sunrise at the Canyon and therefore have to get up at 3:30am!