Monday, June 14, 2010

Last days in Yankee territory

Long time no see!

My journey sadly had to come to an end. Right now I'm back home in Denmark, chilling at my parents' house. There are a few good things about being home though. It's really nice to see everybody again and I was kind of getting near bankruptcy :P

Anyways, after Vegas Hugo and I flew to Philly. We stayed there for one night before we took the bus to New York the next day (Friday June 4). Hugo got off in Newark, New Jersey to take the plane home to France but I still had almost a week left. I had a hostel for one night in Upper Westside, Manhattan. Saturday I met with a good friend from Bloomsburg and we took the ferry out to see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. The weather was nice although it was very warm and humid.

Ellis Island is where all the immigrants used to enter America but now it's been made into a museum.


It was very interesting. I learned that there's more than 800,000 people in the US with Danish descent. There was also an area with artifacts donated from families who entered the US through Ellis Island. I got really exited when I saw a display case with stuff from a Danish family. But when we got close we found out that it was empty because they were doing some cleaning and preservation. So my bad luck from Vegas continued...

However, I did find and old Danish Krone from 1918. The only thing stopping me from taking it with me was that thick glass around it ;)

After an hour or two at the island, we took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty.

We didn't have tickets to get into the statue because they were sold out when we booked the ferry but it was nice to go out there and walk around.


Sunday I had to take the train back to Manhattan where I had another hostel for two nights before meeting up with Lotte whom I was flying home with.

This hostel was located one block from Times Square and it was way better than the first one. The first one was hot as hell. The AC didn't work properly and therefore I didn't sleep at all the first night. But here everything was perfect and the bathrooms were nice too. So if anybody is going to NY, I would definitely recommend you to stay at the Big Apple Hostel! I had two cool roommates, one from Brazil and one from Belgium. So we hung out for a few days. And finally I got to walk through Central Park. It only took me 3 visits to do that :)



Lotte came Tuesday and we had to go home Thursday. We went to a stand up club Tuesday night which was quite alright. Wednesday we went to an outlet mall in New Jersey. Everything was so cheap so I went as crazy as I could baring in mind that my suitcases were already pretty full. In a few hours I got 8 t-shirts, 3 shirts, 3 pair of shorts, 1 pair of pants and a sweater. I got it all for $300. In Denmark that would probably have cost me more than $1,000 since most of it was Banana Republic, Levi's and Calvin Klein... Why don't we have outlets like that here? Anyways, I managed to fit everything into my suitcases and Thursday night we boarded the plane to London. From there we flew to Hamburg, Germany where Lotte's parents were waiting for us.

Here we are in Hamburg at what would be 7AM Bloomsburg time... I didn't sleep much on the planes but funnily enough I wasn't that tired.

The weather was warm and humid like NY but as soon as we crossed the border I was like "What is going on here!?"

It rained all the way home :(

As I said, I'm currently at my parents' house. I think I'll do another post once I get back to Aarhus. Maybe I'll take some pictures so my readers in the US can see how I live here in Denmark. But other than that I don't know how active I'll be on this blog anymore. I don't know what else to write about...

So make sure to tune in some time next week for what could be the last post!

Take care :)

Friday, June 4, 2010

Viva Las Vegas

Currently I'm in New York again for the third time :) But that is not what this post is supposed to be about...

Monday we got a car and drove from San Diego to Vegas. It was a 4-5 hour drive where Hugo and I took turns to drive. This time we had a Chrysler PT Cruiser


Actually there was quite a lot of traffic on the way to Vegas but the last two hours into Vegas the opposite lanes were just packed. But after a few hours of driving in one of the most deserted areas I've ever seen, all of a sudden there it is - VEGAS

Monday, May 31, 2010

San Francisco

After LA it was time for a little road trip to San Francisco on Wednesday and, as I mentioned in my last post, Hugo and I had rented a car to drive that little 6 hour stretch.


It was pretty cool but it was also kind of thirsty! We used almost two tanks of gas but we managed since it is so much cheaper over here than in Europe...


At one point I got tired of driving so we pulled over to switch. By coincidence we stopped at a Danish hotel in the middle of nowhere!
Notice that it says "velkommen" in stead of "welcome"

Anyways, we finally got to our hostel around 7.30pm (which has been rated as #2 in the entire US and with good reason!). There was a board at the hostel with information about the day's events. That night there were $1 drinks all night long at a bar not far from the hostel, so we figured we might as well give it a try :P It was a pretty cool place but we paid the price in the morning! We had to get up early to turn in the car Thursday morning. Also, we had to be ready for a guided tour around the city at 10am.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Welcome to Hollywood! (Now with pictures and video)

This week we started our little tour of California. Monday we took the Greyhound to LA. Our hostel was right across from the Kodak Theatre on the Hollywood Boulevard. We got there around 2pm so we still had a lot of time to do stuff the rest of the day. The room was quite alright and the location was perfect!
 Kodak Theatre

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Swimming in the Pacific

Hello again

I know it's been a while since my last post but I have been busy chilling by the pool and going to San Diego :P Also, our internet has been kind of crappy the past few days but it seems like it's okay now.


Hugo and I landed in San Diego last Thursday. He knows some people, Chastity and Daniel, that live 30 mins north of the city in a suburb called Escondido (I found it on google streetview) and we can stay at their place as long as we like which is awesome. They have been so nice to us ever since we got here and it's just been absolute heaven!  We have the guest house to ourselves and the first couple of days we just crashed by the pool:

Then on Saturday our hosts had some guests over for dinner and of course they asked us a lot of questions. We told them about our plans and that we were gonna go to Vegas for a few days before we fly back to the east coast. Then, one of the guests runs to his car and comes back with a gift certificate for two free nights at  Harrah's and gives it to us :D I can't wait to go and I just hope that I'll be able to, if not win anything, then at least just break even because even though we stay in San Diego for free, I have almost been spending money faster than I can count them :P

Also, one of my classmates from back home, Kamilla, lives in San Diego - 3 houses from the beach. Her roommates are Danish too, as well as the neighbors so it's cool to meet someone that I can speak Danish with. Even though it feels kind of weird because I have gotten used to speaking English all the time. It's funny... after having been away for so long, I have started to think in English. But it's always nice to meet new people and we have been to Camilla's place a few times to go to bars at night but during the day we stayed at the beach!

The water is not that warm yet but we were baking pretty well in the sand so we had to cool down!

Next week we're going to LA and San Francisco which hopefully will be a good time... but how can it not? I sure could get used to living in California!

But that was it for now... see ya

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Greetings from Philly and DC!

Hi there!

Hugo and I arrived in Philly yesterday together with Lain and Dan. Hugo knows another French guy who studies at Temple here in Philly and we can stay at his house for free...

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Last week in Bloom :(

Yup, that's right! Last week in Bloomsburg coming up... I am really gonna miss all my friends here but then again, I can't wait to go traveling this amazing country. I guess that all good things must come to an end :(

This week is called Final Week but I really only have one real final and that's an easy one.

My schedule is like this:
Tuesday: Online Journalism (Present a website that I did about Peter Eastgate)

Wednesday: 8am - PR final (Group presentation of a PR campaign we did about TWLOHA)
                    7.15pm - Management final (open book, take-home, multiple choice)

Thursday: 12.30 - Sociology final (real final)

Friday: 2.45 - Intercultural Communication (Research paper + take-home final due)

Saturday: Hungover and have to be out of the apartment by 10pm...

I already did more than half of my take-home for Intercultural and right now I really should be working on my research paper instead of posting this ;)

Anyways, if I can, I'm probably going to fit in a few bar visits this week which means that I'm going to be busy during the day doing school work which again means that this might be the last update for a while...

What I can say already now is that me and Hugo have some of our plans sorted out. We have a place to stay in San Diego for free as long as we like. However, if it's possible we really wanna go to Philly and DC next week before catching a flight to San Diego... but we're still working on that. Also, we're pretty sure that we're gonna be in Vegas from May 31st to June 2nd - so let me know if anybody is there at that time too :)

Other than that we are planning to go to LA and San Francisco before hitting Vegas...

Last, but not least, I've been playing a little bit of poker on and off - taking half an hour here and there. And I'm glad to say that I've been doing quite well (no jinx!). During the first two days I played in April I was able to get stuck around $800 (8 buyins) at one point. Ever since then I haven't had a single losing day which means that the status as of right now is plus $400. I have a funny ritual every time I finish a winning session. It's the only time I allow myself to play this song - it's called "For the Love of Money" by the O'Jays and, even though it's not as loud as my stereo back home, I always play it at maximum volume when I log off the tables. So I've been hearing that tune a lot lately... may that continue to last forever.

I think that's it for now - Peace