Minneapolis 2

I already booked the flight from Minneapolis to LA, so took the greyhound back to Minneapolis over Saturday to Sunday
night and crushed at a friends house. We visited Downtown and later the Mall of America, a HUGE mall.

There is even a fun park in the middle :)

Chicago

Chicago was my best city experience in the USA and probably my best city experience whatsoever.
The Hostel was more confortable than most Hostels I have seen in Europe. However, it was a little bit
more expensive (32$) but for Chicago this is quite cheap (nice single room at loop is 1700$ a month!).
The infrastructure included couches, pool, ping pong, kitchen and fridge to use, laundry and a lot of free events.
I got to know more about the USA, Australia, Canada, Russia, Travelling itself...

At the Chicago loop, there are a lot of Universities. Therefore, you can meet a lot of students all around the city.
Public transportation is better than in the rest of the USA and affordable.

Also, the local people I have met were very friendly.

The following things you can see in Chicago, listened highest to lowest priority (in my opinion).
- Sears aka willis tower (Touristic but the highest skyscraper in the USA). Tip: Go shortly before sunset to see
  the view at day and night.
- The loop (Downtown) incl. Millenium Park (The Bean)
- Navy peer. See the Skyline and the huge lake.
- Jazz / Blues Club. Unique experience :) Check also for current Music festivals in town.
- Eat a Chicago pizza and Chicago Dog (Hot Dog).
- Planetarium, or better it's surroundings. Best view of the skyline in my opinion.
  Surrounding includes a very cool small beach and an open park (not as beautiful as lincoln though).
- lincoln park (and perhaps zoo). More beautiful than the usual parks...
  Lincoln Square is also the place to go out in the weekend ;)
- Library at the south border of the loop (different than the libraries I have seen in Zuerich XD :P)
  Offers e.g. free piano practice possibilities, also for tourists :)

Greyhound and stuff you probably don't wanna know...

Bus kommt an: Leute kommen rein, gewisse warten fuer den naechsten Bus, so laeuft das hier...
Sorry uebrigens fuer die fehlenden Umlaute - ein Problem war, dass mein Laptop kaputt gegangen ist.
Dank einem sehr netten und hilfreichen Kollegen in der USA konnte ich ihn einschicken, und habe
mir einen guenstigen neuen gekauft. Maybe I should also write in English, right? Did totally forget that ;P Anyway you cannot sleep very good in the Greyhound, but who needs sleep :)
It's a great way to get from city to city!

I am back online, currently in Chicago

Hallo KollegInnen,
Hallo Internet,

Sorry fuer die lange Wartezeit, aber ich musste viele Dinge erledingen und erkunden ;)
Schuld fuer die laengere Pause ist vor allem, dass die Zeit wie im flug vergangen ist.
Mit Freude blicke ich auf die naechste Woche, Chicago. Im Moment bin ich gerade an der Greyhoundstation in Minneapolis auf
meinen Bus am warten. Werde ueber Sonntag nacht fahren (9.25pm - 5.40am).
Vorfreude gibts auch schon wieder fuer die Westkuste, welche ich ja bereits besuchte...
Dazu in den anderen Posts ein wenig Kurzgeschichten ;)

ps: Bin gut angekommen (yay Sonnenaufgang :) ). Hostel sieht gut aus (hichicago.org)

Minneapolis and Epic Meal Time

Minneapolis was great! In my opinion, I could see more of the "real USA" which in my opinion differs most from our culture (Switzerland) in the following way (If you get bored you can skip this list ;P)
- Go by car rather than public transport (e.g. drive in for food or even for a bank visit :) ) btw. gas is cheaper here (not always in california though).
- Eat in a restaurant. The same Food is not much more expensive in the low to mid budget restaurants than in the
  supermarket. Btw. the food is greate here ;) especially meat is cheap and of high quality (steaks, rips, seafood near cost)
- In addition, it seems to me that the variety of authentic food is much larger here.
  You get really good chinese, japanese (sushi), mexican, indian and of course american food here.
  We have even eaten perugian food here. Instead of cooking seafood, it is put into "lime juice"
  and served with it. The resulting "tiger milk" can be drinken e.g. as shot against hangovers we learned :)
  If you add wodka it gets a panther shot :)
- Eat leftovers, use the microwave. The portions in most restaurants are HUGE. Therefore, leftovers
  are taken at home much more often.
- Most houses are built "cheaper" e.g. have less isolation. The reason for this is claimed to be the
  shorter duration for which the buildings are built (not more than 10 years). Nevertheless some people will
  stay longer but building different will cost you much more...
  You need much more energy to heat such buildings of course.
  Especially in Minneapolis where it will get cold (less than -20 Celsius).
  However, this is accepted as normal here but takes all "take care for the environement" actions and
  events seen around in a different light XD

I stayed in an appartement of a really kind friends.
It continued to write a little bit on my blog, go shopping (laptop since the other broke),
send the broken one to Asus repair in California... In the evening,
eating and drinking was the plan. For instance, a nice all you can eat restaurant serving premium meat of all kinds
on my birthday (post event for las vegas ;) ). And all kinds of different food.

In addition, I looked at the Downtown of Minneapolis and it's history of mills, a huge fitnesscenter,
and visited a lovely small town called Stillwater to see the typical "small america village."

Finally, I got a chance to visit the company where my friend works wich produces mills. Was impressive!

Then I took the Greyhound, all alone, to a hostel in the middle of Chicago!

Vegas

VEGAS BABYYYYY!!!!! SCNR

Well what can you say about Vegas - it keeps what it promises, and What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas :P
OK,OK, some minor details

You wanna check out this clubs: Rockhouse, Excess, The Bank, Chateaux.
But you do not need to search for them,
there are clubs everywhere ;) just party :)

Walking around is also greate but if you wanna do clubbing buy a ticket in
your hotel in advance (eg desk) to save waiting time.

Btw. Be sure to have a nice pair of "business" shoes for the clubs XD

We saw Avicii live in the club excess - Party was awesome.

I played a small Poker Tournament and won ;)

We also checked out the Death Valley near Vegas.

*Die passende Musik \ The adequate Music - Johnny Cash I walk the line *

 

3 Friends of mine then went home after Vegas. Was great fun and I guess there were glad to have survived me driving all through California ;P
So my mate and I headed towards Minneapolis, Minnesota, to visit his father who is working there.

LA

BIG City, BIG STREETS - what 5 on top of each other XD? - LA

The plan: Saturday. Go out in Hollywood. Take a cab or bus. bus.

What we did: Missing the bus, order a cab, wait.
wait. missing the second bus? yeah as the cab should arrive soon.
Well, it did not :)

Anyway we walked to the nearest club (there was one XD)
The security guy asked us if we are sure we wanna go there XD
"You guys know you are in the hood right?"
Nah, we didnt but we decided to go and it was an amazing experience.
It's difficult to describe such a situation, you gotta be there.
Later, we had some funny talks, got to known locals who have
also missed their bus and even could dance a bit.

Later in LA, we went to SeaWorld (in San Diego), the Long Beach,
Santa Monica Beach, an awesome steakhouse, Hollywood and then went off to Vegas.

 

It's a small world after all

If there is one place of pure entertainement and child memories repassing, it is the Disneyland
in Anaheim (South of LA). I was first sceptically going there but it was more than forth it ;)
Some things can even seem scary :)
The guys really did an amazing job. Off to LA

It's a small world after all

Nature

Finally we did visit the "real" national park and campsites (without pool XD).
Short story: It was awesome.
The USA is truly an amazing country to travel and see nature.
We have camped near Santa Cruz, well it was actually pretty cold XD
Later we camped near Kings Canyon and Sequoia. Was amazing (see pic).
It was really warm. We got "volunteer" places which are usually reserved (campsite was
almost empty - the labour weekend was over). And we got a little warning about
the rattle snakes which are pretty common in this region...
We also did visit both parks. Then we went off for something completely different...