We're stepping out of the bus, very impatiently - we just wanna get our bags and get the hell out of here! You know why?! Because it's the last freakin' Greyhound we're gonna set foot off in quite a while. It's NYC baby, we're back home in the crazy city we left 7 weeks ago, and we're safe with all our limbs intact and still working. Everything around us seems the same as when we left, but we've changed and it smells good, no doubt about that.
We figured we would definitely be back traveling around the states and therefore New Orleans could wait for the next time. Instead we decided to go straight home from Austin, nothing more than a 43 hour bus ride across half of the US - good plan! We could imagine millions of places that would be a lot nicer spending 2 nights and one and a half day in than the greyhound buses and stations. But this was a matter of breaking records, ladies and gentlemen. 43 hours and 2000 miles are big numbers, but if set you mind to it you can do everything - especially when home is the light at the end of tunnel!
So now here we are, back home from one hell of a trip. The vast amounts of land we've covered seem infinite. We're talking about more than 10.000 miles in total, that's 16.000 km fellows. To make it more graphical for you to understand, we've travelled through the earth's 12.000 km diameter and have then had 4.000 km to float around the skies or nearly halfway around the globe.
We've experienced many fantastic things - none bad, and the trip has been one big success (just check out the earlier posts!). Even the fact of being together 24 hours a day has been great. You should think that spending that much time together would either make you crazy and hate each other or bring you even closer... And it's been only a tiny bit of the bad side, a few arguments here and there but nothing that couldn't get solved after a short cool down and a good talk. Besides that we've had so much fun together, and we practically know exactly what the other is thinking which allows us to finish each other's sentences very easily, isn't it cute....! And then we know each other so much better now; the things worth mentioning the most would probably be Marco's desperate need of peeing very very often and Kris being completely bottomless when it comes to eating.. Very weird stuff, yes we know, but also very good to know in many many situations!
And now comes the time to end this magnificent tale on our blog, and it's probably here we should come with some wise and philosophical conclusion to give you and ourselves something interesting to think about. Well we said we have changed, maybe not a lot, but we do feel some change. We have definitely been infected with the American openness and will of course try to bring it back to DK, because that is in many ways the reason behind our great experiences. Without that we would never have had all the fun with our great CS hosts that have been so kind to have us. With that change followed another lesson of life: the less you expect the more you get! Not a bad saying, right? And it has been working throughout the whole trip. We've just tried to go with the flow and let the experiences find us instead of having too much planned out already. And that has certainly carried us away on a big and powerful wave of unforgettable experiences!
So there you have it, that must count for something...
We'll miss the road, maybe not the Greyhounds, but more the feeling of traveling. And we'll posting stuff on the blog. It's been a lot of fun sharing our wonderful road trip with you here on the blog, and we hope you've enjoyed reading it.. That was mainly the idea haha... But we are also very certain that it will be a great thing to look back on in a couple of years once we are busy with the books at the university.
No more staying tuned, it's over an out... Until the next time of course!
MK off the road.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
Liberal Texas
After Grand Canyon was a tough bus trip ahead. Both of us had a real pain in both our legs and it was near impossible to sleep! When we finally arrived to Austin, TX we met up with our host in a pancake restaurant before going back to her place. Danielle was a great host and we got to experience the whole city in her presence. The first day we chilled out a couple of hours at her apartment just to wake up.. Then she took us out to one of the famous streets in Austin, Congress St. It was so hot outside and so humid too - it felt like you really had to struggle to walk through the air. We had lunch at a great and very crowded Mexican restaurant and going back out in the Texan heat was tough with our full stomaches. But we had a walk down Congress St and saw some funny shops, including a candy shop where they had chocolate covered bacon... Special, right. But after a while we had to go back home to get out of the heat and relax in the nice and chilly apartment. In the evening we had some gourmet hot dogs and then went out in the very lively downtown 6th St. There was bars everywhere with music pumping put of almost every single one of them, and there were people everywhee too. The street was closed for cars and instead filled up with people to the edge, most of them locals actually... And Danielle explained that this wasn't even as busy as it could get! We heard some cool blues music coming out of an Irish pub and they let us in without asking for ID's - awesome! We listened the whole concert and tried some very good Texas beers. The band was great and we ended up buying their cd on our way out. We were back at Danielle's around 3.30 am and went straight to bed after a great day.
Next morning we packed our stuff and went for lunch at a local greasy burger place! And then after a short, but great stay, we had our goodbyes with Danielle and went our separate ways. Before taking the bus we went to the Barton Springs - a closed area of the Colorado river that runs through Austin, where they keep the water clean and let you swim in it. We had a quick swim, nice and refreshing, and then made our ways to the Greyhound station for our Bus to New Orleans...
Once again we've had a great stay in another American city. Even though the stay was brief we got to suck in the great things about Austin. Some would say it's a weird city with too many things going on being the only democratic and liberal city in the very Republican state of Texas, but we would easily just compare it to the atmosphere back in Denmark - they pretty much let you do whatever you want to. And who can argue with that...
Next morning we packed our stuff and went for lunch at a local greasy burger place! And then after a short, but great stay, we had our goodbyes with Danielle and went our separate ways. Before taking the bus we went to the Barton Springs - a closed area of the Colorado river that runs through Austin, where they keep the water clean and let you swim in it. We had a quick swim, nice and refreshing, and then made our ways to the Greyhound station for our Bus to New Orleans...
Once again we've had a great stay in another American city. Even though the stay was brief we got to suck in the great things about Austin. Some would say it's a weird city with too many things going on being the only democratic and liberal city in the very Republican state of Texas, but we would easily just compare it to the atmosphere back in Denmark - they pretty much let you do whatever you want to. And who can argue with that...
Sunday, May 22, 2011
2.500 billions what?!
Arriving to Flagstaff, AZ we were once again unlucky with our hiking weather. It was cold, grey and raining... But we got in the shuttle to the Grand Canyon and hoped it would be better once we arrived there. Unfortunately that was not the case at all, because when we got there it just started raining even more than before. Then it was time for a very powerful and painful shower of hail, and then some snow of course - our hiking morale had hit rock bottom! But we had arrived to the south rim of the Grand Canyon so we just had to accept the weather conditions and get going. To camp down in the canyon you had to buy a backcountry permit. We didn't have one, and they are not very easy to get a hold of. They actually recommend you book it a couple of months in advance. Just in case though we made our way to the backcountry office to see if we were lucky enough to get a permit anyways. And probably because of the bad weather we were lucky indeed to get a permit for a very exclusive and isolated campsite way down in the canyon. The hike down to the campsite was almost a 8 mile hike so we would have to get moving quickly if we didn't want to walk around in complete darkness, but we had to go to the general store to get some supplies for the hike - you are very isolated once you're in the canyon so your 'survival' depends on the supplies you pack with you.
Before we finally started the hike we had to find some shelter for a couple more rain/hail/snow showers, but when we reached the rim we had our first view of the gigantic mega hole we were about to get down in. It was amazing imagining how big the powers of water can be when it can carve a canyon big as this. The first minutes walking down, we were almost in shock and just couldn't take our eyes from the stunning views we were witnessing.
After an hour or so, the skies cleared up a bit and we were in perfect moods, very happy the way things had worked out and that we had decided to experience the canyon this way. With our high spirits the weird conversations followed and one worth mentioning is definitely the calculation of how many MK's could fit inside the canyon. Yes, very stupid, but interesting too. After roughly calculating our's and the canyon's volume the final result was that approximately 2500 billions of MK's would fit inside the Grand Canyon - amazing right! The conclusion to that calculation was that filling the canyon up to the edge with people would never be possible. Behind all this nonsense was in fact an interesting thought in both our minds; experiencing this gives you a feeling of being very insignificant in the story of the earth. We felt very small indeed.
Around 7 pm it began getting dark and we had no idea how far we were from our camp - or if we were even on the right trail. But then, in almost complete darkness, we finally arrived to the camp, which was actually a mere shelter under a pair of trees, but very cost though. Now the challenge of putting the tent up was ahead of us. First of all we were not able to see anything and second we had no idea how the tent should be put up, not exactly the best combination. But after some struggles we managed. Then there we were inside the tent in our sleeping bags enjoying our primitive dinner of beef jerky and a pretty dry roast beef sandwich with probably no people at all within many miles, besides another group there that was already sleeping.
The next morning we woke up early around 5.30 with our bodies aching because of the last day's hike and the many rocks giving us a very 'soft' ground to sleep on during the night. Furthermore we were freezing in the cold air of the dawn. The other group was already awake. We went out to be welcomed by 2 guys and one girl at our age and an older man probably in his 60's.. They were nice and we ate breakfast with them and were even offered some of their coffee. After packing down the tent it was time for the hike back. We had decided not to go directly back to the rim, but instead first go even further down into the canyon to reach the Colorado river - the same river as the one we took a swim in in Colorado. We began hiking, and the weather was beautiful! Once again began the discussions about our insignificant size.
We had two backpacks - one big backpack with the sleeping bags, the tent, spare clothes etc. and a smaller one with the food, so we swapped bags every once in a while. The hike was killing our legs, and when we had hiked halfway down to the river (about 2 miles further down) through some of the most beautiful terrain in the world, we decided to turn around and hike to a viewpoint over the river instead. We were in a hurry, and both very exhausted, but the amazement was still fueling our legs - we got to the viewpoint - incredible... Nobody should miss out on seeing the Grand Canyon! It's fantastic! After that the trip back up to the rim was now ahead of us. We began climbing up in a fast pace, but our legs got more and more useless. The pace kept dropping, and by the end we were completely emptied of energy and both needing a really good night's sleep!
Our bodies were dead because of the exhausting 35 km (22 miles) we had hiked in steep terrain in less than 24 hours. Instead they were filled with astonishment, and the feeling of accomplishment. We took the bus back to Flagstaff, and from there we left for Austin with the Greyhound bus.
Don't stay up too late waiting for the next post!
Before we finally started the hike we had to find some shelter for a couple more rain/hail/snow showers, but when we reached the rim we had our first view of the gigantic mega hole we were about to get down in. It was amazing imagining how big the powers of water can be when it can carve a canyon big as this. The first minutes walking down, we were almost in shock and just couldn't take our eyes from the stunning views we were witnessing.
After an hour or so, the skies cleared up a bit and we were in perfect moods, very happy the way things had worked out and that we had decided to experience the canyon this way. With our high spirits the weird conversations followed and one worth mentioning is definitely the calculation of how many MK's could fit inside the canyon. Yes, very stupid, but interesting too. After roughly calculating our's and the canyon's volume the final result was that approximately 2500 billions of MK's would fit inside the Grand Canyon - amazing right! The conclusion to that calculation was that filling the canyon up to the edge with people would never be possible. Behind all this nonsense was in fact an interesting thought in both our minds; experiencing this gives you a feeling of being very insignificant in the story of the earth. We felt very small indeed.
Around 7 pm it began getting dark and we had no idea how far we were from our camp - or if we were even on the right trail. But then, in almost complete darkness, we finally arrived to the camp, which was actually a mere shelter under a pair of trees, but very cost though. Now the challenge of putting the tent up was ahead of us. First of all we were not able to see anything and second we had no idea how the tent should be put up, not exactly the best combination. But after some struggles we managed. Then there we were inside the tent in our sleeping bags enjoying our primitive dinner of beef jerky and a pretty dry roast beef sandwich with probably no people at all within many miles, besides another group there that was already sleeping.
The next morning we woke up early around 5.30 with our bodies aching because of the last day's hike and the many rocks giving us a very 'soft' ground to sleep on during the night. Furthermore we were freezing in the cold air of the dawn. The other group was already awake. We went out to be welcomed by 2 guys and one girl at our age and an older man probably in his 60's.. They were nice and we ate breakfast with them and were even offered some of their coffee. After packing down the tent it was time for the hike back. We had decided not to go directly back to the rim, but instead first go even further down into the canyon to reach the Colorado river - the same river as the one we took a swim in in Colorado. We began hiking, and the weather was beautiful! Once again began the discussions about our insignificant size.
We had two backpacks - one big backpack with the sleeping bags, the tent, spare clothes etc. and a smaller one with the food, so we swapped bags every once in a while. The hike was killing our legs, and when we had hiked halfway down to the river (about 2 miles further down) through some of the most beautiful terrain in the world, we decided to turn around and hike to a viewpoint over the river instead. We were in a hurry, and both very exhausted, but the amazement was still fueling our legs - we got to the viewpoint - incredible... Nobody should miss out on seeing the Grand Canyon! It's fantastic! After that the trip back up to the rim was now ahead of us. We began climbing up in a fast pace, but our legs got more and more useless. The pace kept dropping, and by the end we were completely emptied of energy and both needing a really good night's sleep!
Our bodies were dead because of the exhausting 35 km (22 miles) we had hiked in steep terrain in less than 24 hours. Instead they were filled with astonishment, and the feeling of accomplishment. We took the bus back to Flagstaff, and from there we left for Austin with the Greyhound bus.
Don't stay up too late waiting for the next post!
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas... Maybe next time
And now about Las Vegas!
Hmm what to say... It's a special city indeed! Awake 24/7 and founded for entertainment! Very crazy!
We arrived Monday in the evening and went to our hotel in downtown Las Vegas on Fremont St - the 4 Queens (a hotel the danish girls we met earlier had recommended). The hotel website said you had to be 21 to rent a room, but we took our chances and it worked out just fine! When we had settled in our hotel we went for a walk to the famous Strip - the street where everything happens. It was a long trip considering we had been traveling for many hours! The city is not the best city to visit not being 21 years old because of the fact that most of the bars, shows, casinos and places to go are restricted to 21 and up, but we just walked by all the weird places, casinos, people that was keeping the city awake. After walking for some hours we took the bus home to get some sleep.
The day after, we started off by buying us some tickets for an acrobatic show called "Absinthe". It was pricey, but it seemed like everything in the city was pricey, so what the hell - we felt we had to see some show! We took the bus to the strip and went to a place called Gameworks - a giant Arcade with hundreds of video gaming machines. We played some of the old classics like PAC-MAN and some racing games. Very special indeed, but fun! We had the worst lunch ever - very very bad! And then we went to the acrobatic show. It was amazing! It was comedy mixed with acrobatics - they did things you wouldn't believe humans could do. After the show we went down the strip again - we met some girls that wanted us to join their party, but we were, as mentioned before, too young, damn it... Unfortunately, but we must come to the city again another time then!So we went back home high on the show, but disappointed about the age limit!We decided to leave early and go to the Grand Canyon with a tent that Francois and Rachael from LA gave us.
Off we went the next morning!
Hmm what to say... It's a special city indeed! Awake 24/7 and founded for entertainment! Very crazy!
We arrived Monday in the evening and went to our hotel in downtown Las Vegas on Fremont St - the 4 Queens (a hotel the danish girls we met earlier had recommended). The hotel website said you had to be 21 to rent a room, but we took our chances and it worked out just fine! When we had settled in our hotel we went for a walk to the famous Strip - the street where everything happens. It was a long trip considering we had been traveling for many hours! The city is not the best city to visit not being 21 years old because of the fact that most of the bars, shows, casinos and places to go are restricted to 21 and up, but we just walked by all the weird places, casinos, people that was keeping the city awake. After walking for some hours we took the bus home to get some sleep.
The day after, we started off by buying us some tickets for an acrobatic show called "Absinthe". It was pricey, but it seemed like everything in the city was pricey, so what the hell - we felt we had to see some show! We took the bus to the strip and went to a place called Gameworks - a giant Arcade with hundreds of video gaming machines. We played some of the old classics like PAC-MAN and some racing games. Very special indeed, but fun! We had the worst lunch ever - very very bad! And then we went to the acrobatic show. It was amazing! It was comedy mixed with acrobatics - they did things you wouldn't believe humans could do. After the show we went down the strip again - we met some girls that wanted us to join their party, but we were, as mentioned before, too young, damn it... Unfortunately, but we must come to the city again another time then!So we went back home high on the show, but disappointed about the age limit!We decided to leave early and go to the Grand Canyon with a tent that Francois and Rachael from LA gave us.
Off we went the next morning!
Friday, May 20, 2011
The grand finale of California
Hey readers! We've got some great stories for you about our last week or so!
When we returned from our surf trip to San Diego in the chocolate van the house was empty. Rachael, Francois and the kids had left on a camping trip With their Church community.
We used Thursday, Friday and Saturday on surfing, a bit more surfing and just hanging around on the beaches and the house. Sunday morning - around 4 o'clock AM we woke up and left for LA National Park - the weather was rainy, and we were gonna hike 5 miles (8 km), crossing a river 7 times to get to the Bridge of Nowhere, from where we were supposed to bungee jump!
We arrived at the parking lot where the hike should begin with high expectations even though the weather was bad. Many of the people who were supposed to jump had cancelled, so our group was small - 8 persons (cancelations was not an option for us!). By the time we got to the bridge we were all soaked! It was freezing and very windy.. We began our jump school - they taught us about the cords, the jumping technics and so on; soon we were ready for the actual jumping...
We both had to do 3 jumps - the swan dive, the backwards plunge and one jump of our own choice. Kris was the first to do his jumps - suddenly there he was on the edge of the bridge ready to jump off. First the swan dive, then the backwards plunge and then he chose the elevator drop as the last jump; a backwards jump falling down with your legs first - and almost touching the bridge bouncing up again - a rush through the veins! After Kris it was Marco's turn. One jump, another jump and then the third: the classical ankle dive as you see it in the movies. Even though he slipped a bit on the last jump, it was amazing..! It just didn't look that good, but who cares.
After we had did our jumps, it felt like they had passed in a flash; we were in and out of the bungee gear before we could know it! And the cold that was killing us was replaced by pure adrenaline rushing through our bodies - with a little help from some hot Gatorade (a surprisingly good drink!). It was very much one of the coolest experiences ever! We can't wait to try it again, next time we'll do it at the world's highest bungee jump site: off a bridge in South Africa with more than a 200 m drop! We did video shoot some of the jumps, but the videos take to much space to put on the webalbum.
Then we had our 5 mile hike back to the car and drove off as soon as we got there. Coming out of the canyon, both of us almost fell asleep, so before any accidents we stopped and got some lunch and a little rest.
Back at the house we were completely exhausted and went straight to bed for a 3 hour nap. In the evening Francois, Rachael and the kids came back from their trip. We told them about our surf trip and the bungee jumping and they were happy to know we had had a great time, and glad to see that the house was in good condition.
Monday morning we had our goodbyes with Rachael and the kids and then Francois gave us a ride to the Greyhound station where the bus was going to take us to Las Vegas. Considering we had stayed at their house for almost three weeks and had a lot of fun with them it was pretty emotional saying goodbye to them! We are gonna miss the kids, Rachael and Francois and who knows; maybe the next time we'll visit them in South Africa or have the pleasure of having them stay at our place in Denmark! We nearly didn't want to leave California, but new adventures were awaiting - the never sleeping city Las Vegas, the astonishing views of Grand Canyon and the upcoming trip to Austin and New Orleans!
Stay tuned for new experiences we want to share with the world!
P.S. Check the new pics on the picasa album 2.
When we returned from our surf trip to San Diego in the chocolate van the house was empty. Rachael, Francois and the kids had left on a camping trip With their Church community.
We used Thursday, Friday and Saturday on surfing, a bit more surfing and just hanging around on the beaches and the house. Sunday morning - around 4 o'clock AM we woke up and left for LA National Park - the weather was rainy, and we were gonna hike 5 miles (8 km), crossing a river 7 times to get to the Bridge of Nowhere, from where we were supposed to bungee jump!
We arrived at the parking lot where the hike should begin with high expectations even though the weather was bad. Many of the people who were supposed to jump had cancelled, so our group was small - 8 persons (cancelations was not an option for us!). By the time we got to the bridge we were all soaked! It was freezing and very windy.. We began our jump school - they taught us about the cords, the jumping technics and so on; soon we were ready for the actual jumping...
We both had to do 3 jumps - the swan dive, the backwards plunge and one jump of our own choice. Kris was the first to do his jumps - suddenly there he was on the edge of the bridge ready to jump off. First the swan dive, then the backwards plunge and then he chose the elevator drop as the last jump; a backwards jump falling down with your legs first - and almost touching the bridge bouncing up again - a rush through the veins! After Kris it was Marco's turn. One jump, another jump and then the third: the classical ankle dive as you see it in the movies. Even though he slipped a bit on the last jump, it was amazing..! It just didn't look that good, but who cares.
After we had did our jumps, it felt like they had passed in a flash; we were in and out of the bungee gear before we could know it! And the cold that was killing us was replaced by pure adrenaline rushing through our bodies - with a little help from some hot Gatorade (a surprisingly good drink!). It was very much one of the coolest experiences ever! We can't wait to try it again, next time we'll do it at the world's highest bungee jump site: off a bridge in South Africa with more than a 200 m drop! We did video shoot some of the jumps, but the videos take to much space to put on the webalbum.
Then we had our 5 mile hike back to the car and drove off as soon as we got there. Coming out of the canyon, both of us almost fell asleep, so before any accidents we stopped and got some lunch and a little rest.
Back at the house we were completely exhausted and went straight to bed for a 3 hour nap. In the evening Francois, Rachael and the kids came back from their trip. We told them about our surf trip and the bungee jumping and they were happy to know we had had a great time, and glad to see that the house was in good condition.
Monday morning we had our goodbyes with Rachael and the kids and then Francois gave us a ride to the Greyhound station where the bus was going to take us to Las Vegas. Considering we had stayed at their house for almost three weeks and had a lot of fun with them it was pretty emotional saying goodbye to them! We are gonna miss the kids, Rachael and Francois and who knows; maybe the next time we'll visit them in South Africa or have the pleasure of having them stay at our place in Denmark! We nearly didn't want to leave California, but new adventures were awaiting - the never sleeping city Las Vegas, the astonishing views of Grand Canyon and the upcoming trip to Austin and New Orleans!
Stay tuned for new experiences we want to share with the world!
P.S. Check the new pics on the picasa album 2.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Surfing the coast of California - a roadtrip within a roadtrip!
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Living the life: the Californian style!
Coming back home from that awesome experience we set out to pick Amine and Laura up at Venice Beach to go to the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park. The park had some crazy rides with an endless amount of loops and other wild things - and we tried them all, including a roller coaster shooting you backwards up a humongous ramp with 160 km/h. After that we followed the girls back to Venice and had some nice Chinese food for dinner. Then we took a stroll down the Venice Beach Boardwalk with some very special characters filling the street. And then back home to Long Beach for a well deserved sleep after a long day with lots of excitement.
Catch you on the flip side!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Infinite hills, great people, and cool experiences
Again sorry for the late posts on the blog - we are so busy with so many things, that we can't really find the time to post anything. Once again we're back on the road, approximately halfway through our trip and on our way to Los Angeles to get famous where we are gonna stay at Marco's family friends' place - and where we are gonna get famous and have great time in the California Sun. We have a little pain sitting in front of us - an annoying Chinese guy constantly snuffling his nose and moving around ALL the time. He is clearly not as experienced a Greyhound Rider as we are!
To help you get the chronology right remember to read the post about Yosemite, got it.
San Francisco turned out to be a super cool city. Expensive though, hilly - yes, but also clean, cool shops, good food, nice people, beautiful buildings, plenty of lovely parks, great museums and fun attractions.
Unfortunately we couldn't find a CS host to stay with so we had no choice but to pull out the greens and find a hostel to sleep in. Our Danish friends, Laura and Amine, were staying at a pretty cheap one, so we decided to get a dorm room at the same hostel.
After a short bus ride from Merced we arrived in San Francisco around 9 pm, found the hostel and got ourselves settled in our room. And of cousre, staying in the same room there were to other Danish girls. We shared our traveling tales and after that we met up with Laura and Amine, got some dinner and went to bed, very excited of what to come on our first day in San Francisco.
Friday morning, together with the girls, we set out to experience the city. We walked up and down the endless amount of hills - including the hill with 'The crookedest street'. And then we took a stroll down by the water and chilled out in a nearby park with very soft grass! After that we continued strolling along and just tried to suck in the San Francisco atmosphere. Eventually we wounded up at the hostel and relaxed in our rooms a bit. Then the four of us took the tram down to the famous homosexual area called Castro. Gay people all over - we felt a little bit misplaced, but it was an exciting area, very hip, with a lot of interesting shops and bars (with nothing but men in them...)
Walking back to the center we found a nice Thai restaurant, just what we needed! We filled our stomaches with a great dinner and went back to the hostel playing cards till we split up and went to bed.
The next morning we got up late, and with nothing particularly to do, we just went out on our own, and walked towards Chinatown. It was very much like the Chinatown in New York but because of the hills and the more narrow streets it just seemed more charming. Feeling very free and very privileged being able to be on this trip we kept walking for a couple of hours, just talking and looking around us. We found a candy shop with licorice in it! Mmm... And that gave us the energy we needed to do something a bit more cultural. So we went to the SF MOMA (museum of modern art) and saw a bunch of cool and interesting stuff - amazing painters from all over the world - even a danish artist was featured! When our cultural appetite was fulfilled and we had seen all the stuff in the museum we walked back to the hostel. We chilled out, went for a walk, came back home and nearly went to bed land ... When it was dinnertime we went to eat some Italian food with Laura and Amine - expensive, but very delicious! We decided to go watch a movie. We came to the cinema with no idea about what movie to see, and found out that the only interesting movie started 10 minutes ago. We hurried to the theater and saw the movie "Hanna", a good action packed movie, with a very special plot line. Afterwards we went home to the hostel and agrreed to bike around the city the next day.
Sunday morning we got up early, had some breakfast, sneaked our stuff into the girls' room and checked out! We arranged to meet up with the girls later at the place they were going to rent their bikes, and left for the pier to get our rental bikes. Within the first five minutes we crossed paths with a hill steep as hell - probably the goddamn steepest in the entire city. And after getting to the top we were desperately in need of a breathing break! But that was a great warm up and then we just kept speeding up and down the many hills. We came all the way from the eastern to the western part of town. In a nice neighborhood we got this burger - but not just any burger man, it was up there with the top 3 best burgers we have ever had! With the good weather still following us across the country we kept biking around. Eventually we reached The Golden Gate Park - a huge beautiful park - and took a little break to act silly and try to do some tricks with our bikes.. We kind of learned how to stall with them.. Kris not so much though! We even rode down some off road paths... But you know, we were just wannabes, but still fun. Then we met up with the girls and went to the botanical garden inside the park. It was very nice there and we chilled around talking and enjoying the vast spectrum of interesting kinds of plants and trees. Then we were suddenly in a hurry if we wanted to get to The Golden Gate Bridge before returning our bikes back, so we hurried out of the park towards the bridge. Nearing the bridge we rode this beautiful road in the middle of the woods, and then suddenly on the left side you could glimpse water between the trees, then the trees were gone and there was a fantastic view of beaches and the mighty Pacific. We felt so amazed, and just now realized that we had crossed the US from East to West and had gone from one ocean to another - the Atlantic to the Pacific. Finally we reached the bridge and could enjoy a great view of the entire bay on one side and the Pacific on the other. Unfortunately we didn't have the time to cross the bridge. We'll do that on the next roadtrip, in a car! Instead we split up to go return the bikes. Not knowing how far the ride would be, we rode as fast as we could - downhill... It was so much fun and we reached the shop in no time, but pretty exhausted. We met up with the girls again, and after a long day on the bikes we were so hungry, so we went looking for a place to eat. We found this Chinese restaurant, and being Easter everyone had lamb, and we enjoyed it very very much! Coming back to the hostel we were pretty nervous about going in and getting caught in staying in the girls' room, but everything went smooth and no angry Indian guy came knocking on the door to kick us out.
The following morning we were ready to go to Alcatraz with Laura and Amine. It seemed our luck with the weather had finally run out and we came out in the rainy street with the famous San Francisco fog. But when we came down to the pier and got on the boat headed to Alcatraz island the skies cleared up and the blue sunny sky was back in business. Therefore we didn't really get to experience the bad weather. The Alcatraz, Island also known as the Rock, is a stunningly beautiful island - like a mediterranean looking cliff island. It has a fantastic view around the whole bay, but most of all it contains an amazing history that stretches at least over a 100 years. The island started out as a military fort, became a military prison before becoming what it is really known for - a high security prison housing some of the most famous and dangerous criminals like Al Capone and Robert Stroud, thereafter native Americans occupied the island for over a year as a protest and now it is a National Park allowing people like us to come see it.
Included in the ticket for the ferry was a 45 minutes long audio tour, where we were told about all the stories from earlier Alcatraz history. It was really cool to learn about the history and experience the famous prison featured in many movies from the inside. Afterwards we went to get some lunch and then traveled to the world's biggest independent record store. It was enormous and they had all kinds of music including several Danish artists. The store was located in the hippie area of San Francisco - a nice area with plenty of weird shops with all kinds of stuff! After finishing our walk through the record store we went to a Middle Eastern inspired restaurant in the same area. We had some delicious food and after dinner we had a few drinks and a Hookah - they didn't ask for our ID so that was just great! The time was pretty late, so we went home and directly to bed. Great night with nice people and cool experiences.
We had a great time in San Francisco and really enjoyed our stay there! We were so happy to be able to hang out with the two wonderful girls, Laura and Amine! We hope the best for the rest of their trip and maybe to see them in LA and of course see them back in DK.
We hope everyone is all right - we are.. We are having the time of our life!
Stay tuned!
To help you get the chronology right remember to read the post about Yosemite, got it.
San Francisco turned out to be a super cool city. Expensive though, hilly - yes, but also clean, cool shops, good food, nice people, beautiful buildings, plenty of lovely parks, great museums and fun attractions.
Unfortunately we couldn't find a CS host to stay with so we had no choice but to pull out the greens and find a hostel to sleep in. Our Danish friends, Laura and Amine, were staying at a pretty cheap one, so we decided to get a dorm room at the same hostel.
After a short bus ride from Merced we arrived in San Francisco around 9 pm, found the hostel and got ourselves settled in our room. And of cousre, staying in the same room there were to other Danish girls. We shared our traveling tales and after that we met up with Laura and Amine, got some dinner and went to bed, very excited of what to come on our first day in San Francisco.
Friday morning, together with the girls, we set out to experience the city. We walked up and down the endless amount of hills - including the hill with 'The crookedest street'. And then we took a stroll down by the water and chilled out in a nearby park with very soft grass! After that we continued strolling along and just tried to suck in the San Francisco atmosphere. Eventually we wounded up at the hostel and relaxed in our rooms a bit. Then the four of us took the tram down to the famous homosexual area called Castro. Gay people all over - we felt a little bit misplaced, but it was an exciting area, very hip, with a lot of interesting shops and bars (with nothing but men in them...)
Walking back to the center we found a nice Thai restaurant, just what we needed! We filled our stomaches with a great dinner and went back to the hostel playing cards till we split up and went to bed.
The next morning we got up late, and with nothing particularly to do, we just went out on our own, and walked towards Chinatown. It was very much like the Chinatown in New York but because of the hills and the more narrow streets it just seemed more charming. Feeling very free and very privileged being able to be on this trip we kept walking for a couple of hours, just talking and looking around us. We found a candy shop with licorice in it! Mmm... And that gave us the energy we needed to do something a bit more cultural. So we went to the SF MOMA (museum of modern art) and saw a bunch of cool and interesting stuff - amazing painters from all over the world - even a danish artist was featured! When our cultural appetite was fulfilled and we had seen all the stuff in the museum we walked back to the hostel. We chilled out, went for a walk, came back home and nearly went to bed land ... When it was dinnertime we went to eat some Italian food with Laura and Amine - expensive, but very delicious! We decided to go watch a movie. We came to the cinema with no idea about what movie to see, and found out that the only interesting movie started 10 minutes ago. We hurried to the theater and saw the movie "Hanna", a good action packed movie, with a very special plot line. Afterwards we went home to the hostel and agrreed to bike around the city the next day.
Sunday morning we got up early, had some breakfast, sneaked our stuff into the girls' room and checked out! We arranged to meet up with the girls later at the place they were going to rent their bikes, and left for the pier to get our rental bikes. Within the first five minutes we crossed paths with a hill steep as hell - probably the goddamn steepest in the entire city. And after getting to the top we were desperately in need of a breathing break! But that was a great warm up and then we just kept speeding up and down the many hills. We came all the way from the eastern to the western part of town. In a nice neighborhood we got this burger - but not just any burger man, it was up there with the top 3 best burgers we have ever had! With the good weather still following us across the country we kept biking around. Eventually we reached The Golden Gate Park - a huge beautiful park - and took a little break to act silly and try to do some tricks with our bikes.. We kind of learned how to stall with them.. Kris not so much though! We even rode down some off road paths... But you know, we were just wannabes, but still fun. Then we met up with the girls and went to the botanical garden inside the park. It was very nice there and we chilled around talking and enjoying the vast spectrum of interesting kinds of plants and trees. Then we were suddenly in a hurry if we wanted to get to The Golden Gate Bridge before returning our bikes back, so we hurried out of the park towards the bridge. Nearing the bridge we rode this beautiful road in the middle of the woods, and then suddenly on the left side you could glimpse water between the trees, then the trees were gone and there was a fantastic view of beaches and the mighty Pacific. We felt so amazed, and just now realized that we had crossed the US from East to West and had gone from one ocean to another - the Atlantic to the Pacific. Finally we reached the bridge and could enjoy a great view of the entire bay on one side and the Pacific on the other. Unfortunately we didn't have the time to cross the bridge. We'll do that on the next roadtrip, in a car! Instead we split up to go return the bikes. Not knowing how far the ride would be, we rode as fast as we could - downhill... It was so much fun and we reached the shop in no time, but pretty exhausted. We met up with the girls again, and after a long day on the bikes we were so hungry, so we went looking for a place to eat. We found this Chinese restaurant, and being Easter everyone had lamb, and we enjoyed it very very much! Coming back to the hostel we were pretty nervous about going in and getting caught in staying in the girls' room, but everything went smooth and no angry Indian guy came knocking on the door to kick us out.
The following morning we were ready to go to Alcatraz with Laura and Amine. It seemed our luck with the weather had finally run out and we came out in the rainy street with the famous San Francisco fog. But when we came down to the pier and got on the boat headed to Alcatraz island the skies cleared up and the blue sunny sky was back in business. Therefore we didn't really get to experience the bad weather. The Alcatraz, Island also known as the Rock, is a stunningly beautiful island - like a mediterranean looking cliff island. It has a fantastic view around the whole bay, but most of all it contains an amazing history that stretches at least over a 100 years. The island started out as a military fort, became a military prison before becoming what it is really known for - a high security prison housing some of the most famous and dangerous criminals like Al Capone and Robert Stroud, thereafter native Americans occupied the island for over a year as a protest and now it is a National Park allowing people like us to come see it.
Included in the ticket for the ferry was a 45 minutes long audio tour, where we were told about all the stories from earlier Alcatraz history. It was really cool to learn about the history and experience the famous prison featured in many movies from the inside. Afterwards we went to get some lunch and then traveled to the world's biggest independent record store. It was enormous and they had all kinds of music including several Danish artists. The store was located in the hippie area of San Francisco - a nice area with plenty of weird shops with all kinds of stuff! After finishing our walk through the record store we went to a Middle Eastern inspired restaurant in the same area. We had some delicious food and after dinner we had a few drinks and a Hookah - they didn't ask for our ID so that was just great! The time was pretty late, so we went home and directly to bed. Great night with nice people and cool experiences.
We had a great time in San Francisco and really enjoyed our stay there! We were so happy to be able to hang out with the two wonderful girls, Laura and Amine! We hope the best for the rest of their trip and maybe to see them in LA and of course see them back in DK.
We hope everyone is all right - we are.. We are having the time of our life!
Stay tuned!
Up and down the Yosemite falls!
Our stay in Merced was wonderful even though it was the shortest stay so far on the trip. Our host, Max, and his roommates were very nice people and Marco got to speak some Italian - two of the guys were originally from Italy. We arrived Wednesday afternoon and got some good homemade burgers with Max, his roommate Marco, Marco' s little 3 year old son and two other German couch surfers.
After a well deserved sleep (36 hours in the bus is exhausting!) we were off to the Yosemite National Park with a bus from Merced. It was a bit rainy, but it didn't matter and with a little help from our raincoats we were just fine. We had missed the early bus so our time in the park was fairly sparse. This didn't scare us from taking one of the long hikes to the top of the highest waterfall in North America - the Yosemite Falls.
We started out by filling our backback with food and water and thereafter began the hike.
The trail was long, steep and the rain and snow made it quite slippery, but we steadily climbed the falls. It was so beautiful! Mountains all around us, Sequoias, cliffs, waterfalls, lakes and very few people. Even though the pictures do not give the whole impression of what it was like by far, we managed to take some good photos - check out the Picasa link! We had a few snack breaks on the trip and made it to the top in 2-3 hours or so. The time was way more than expected, and if we wouldn't catch the last bus we'd get stuck in the Park! Therefore we decided to run down the mountain... Again a steep, long, slippery run and as we ran past all the people stared at us like we were crazy. The sun was beginning to peak through the skies so the trip down was even more beautiful than the trip up - and way more fun. We came to the bottom in an impressive time of 1 hour witch gave us plenty of time to catch the bus! We managed to film some of the run down with the camera (it is on the Picasa web album, but we should warn you of the quality...).
So to sum up we did a trip that was meant to take 6-8 hours in 4 hours! This didn't hinder us to see all the beautiful nature arround us. But we just experienced a glimpse of the park and the Yosemite is definitely worth coming back to in the future!
We came back to Max's place exhausted and had a goodnight beer before going to bed.
The next day was dedicated to the road once again. - we left for San Francisco witch turned out to be a wonderful, but very expensive place to stay!
Thanks for a wonderful stay Max, and thanks for being able to host our Danish friends the coming days!
After a well deserved sleep (36 hours in the bus is exhausting!) we were off to the Yosemite National Park with a bus from Merced. It was a bit rainy, but it didn't matter and with a little help from our raincoats we were just fine. We had missed the early bus so our time in the park was fairly sparse. This didn't scare us from taking one of the long hikes to the top of the highest waterfall in North America - the Yosemite Falls.
We started out by filling our backback with food and water and thereafter began the hike.
The trail was long, steep and the rain and snow made it quite slippery, but we steadily climbed the falls. It was so beautiful! Mountains all around us, Sequoias, cliffs, waterfalls, lakes and very few people. Even though the pictures do not give the whole impression of what it was like by far, we managed to take some good photos - check out the Picasa link! We had a few snack breaks on the trip and made it to the top in 2-3 hours or so. The time was way more than expected, and if we wouldn't catch the last bus we'd get stuck in the Park! Therefore we decided to run down the mountain... Again a steep, long, slippery run and as we ran past all the people stared at us like we were crazy. The sun was beginning to peak through the skies so the trip down was even more beautiful than the trip up - and way more fun. We came to the bottom in an impressive time of 1 hour witch gave us plenty of time to catch the bus! We managed to film some of the run down with the camera (it is on the Picasa web album, but we should warn you of the quality...).
So to sum up we did a trip that was meant to take 6-8 hours in 4 hours! This didn't hinder us to see all the beautiful nature arround us. But we just experienced a glimpse of the park and the Yosemite is definitely worth coming back to in the future!
We came back to Max's place exhausted and had a goodnight beer before going to bed.
The next day was dedicated to the road once again. - we left for San Francisco witch turned out to be a wonderful, but very expensive place to stay!
Thanks for a wonderful stay Max, and thanks for being able to host our Danish friends the coming days!
Monday, April 18, 2011
Repeating ourselves to make a point!
I'm sorry to say it, but this is amazing! The view is phenomenal and we are in the seventh heaven! Having the time of our lives! Everybody ought to experience this!! Check out some pictures of "white river national Forrest"! It's like being in another world. Every turn the bus makes changes the scenery completely and it's just incredible how the scenery baffles you!
Try it!
Try it!
The Great Danes at Devyn's, Denver, Colorado
We are now posting this, witnessing a fantastic nature scenery, nearly alien to us at an altitude more than 2500 m - and we're still in the valley. We're on our way to the Yosemite National Park in California, 36 hours from here, arrghh!
We're very sorry about not having posted anything these last couple of days. It's just been crazy, and we've been busy having the time of our lives with our wonderful, crazy, funny host Devyn and her great housemates Robert, Isaac, Julia and Joe!!
We arrived in Denver Friday night around 8 pm after more than 35 hours in the lovely Greyhounds. The 12 hour delay was mostly because of an overnight blizzard covering nearly all of Nebraska. So as you know, we were stuck in Omaha the entire night till 9 am. But who would imagine that we would meet two Danish girls, Laura and Amine, in that terminal in Omaha, NB. Well we did, and ended up exchanging contact info, good stories and conversations. They were headed to Vegas but when we finally arrived to Denver the next bus to Vegas would not be leaving until the next day. So we hooked them up with the other CS host that accepted our request, Tayler - very sweet of us, right :) So after the four of us had a good dinner, we met up with Tayler, had a few beers and left the girls in good care. Taylor seemed like a very nice girl, with great friends as well, and the plan was to stay with her Sunday, but unfortunately that didn't work out, but we'll save that experience for the next time.
Arriving at Devyn's we were completely exhausted and after a quick introduction we went straight to the couches and were completely unaware of the amazing experience awaiting us this weekend.
In the morning we woke up well rested, and were quickly introduced to some of Devyn's housemates, Isaac and Julia - very good people. Of course, also musicians - we don't know why everyone we stay with have some musical talent, we must just be drawed to them. Anyways they played a little duet for us, very nice guys, beautiful! Then Devyn cooked us a very nice breakfast with pancakes and strawberries. You should think there was a lot of people around already, nope though, still two more housemates to go. First Robert, a crazy, funny and great guy - and a trumpet player in a cool folk jazzy blues band. After getting to know them and just chatting in their backyard in the wonderful weather, we took a walk around the city. The highlight was definitely us being very cool in the park jumping of some 8-stepped stairs (check the very pro pics, when we get the chance to post them)
When we came back to the house we got ready for a little trip. Julia was recording an album and needed Devyn to take some pictures of her for the artwork. So together with Devyn, Julia and Robert we drove out to the mountains at a little river. Whilst they did the pictures, we went for a little hike with Robert. It was so beautiful and you could just feel the wild life around you. When we got back to the girls we all jumped in the very very cold river - refreshing indeed! The water was glacier water from the mountains...
Sandwich break, be right back...
The scenery in the area is just amazing, but our small compact camera from the last millennium can't really catch the view... Hopefully we'll get a hold of Devyn's much better pictures!
When we went back to Denver city, Devyn and her roommates decided to throw a house party - the party starts at midnight (said with a real british accent.)
So firstly we made dinner for all the roommates - pasta with tomato sauce and a good salat with Marianne Johansen's famous vinegar-oil dressing.
They loved it, and afterwards we began partying. At first we went to a bar where some of their friends were playing music. It was cool and when the concert was over Devyn announced to the whole bar, that everyone was welcome at their house for the after party - the house was full of all kinds of people. (that house is not small!)
It was cool, and we got to meet a lot of new people! Marco went down to Robert's room to cuddle with him... Robert was pretty wasted and had no idea of what was going on and who was getting in the bed with him. So when Marco got down on the madras Robert woke up and whispered, pretty angrily: "What the fuck... Who the fuck??" and Marco was like: "It's just me Robert, I'm so tired. Can I crash here with you?" and before they both fell asleep Robert said: "Yeah all right, sure. Cool man, good night..." Boom... and they went dreaming away, whilst Kris and the rest of the party rocked on till 4 in the morning.
Next morning (yesterday) we had Mexican breakfast with a great fresh homemade spicy salsa - Robert made it. It was delicious. Because of the hangovers we didn't do much that day - just chillin' with the roommates. By the evening we skated down to the liquor store with Isaac and got some beer. At home Isaac made a great cajun dinner, we drank some beer playing a lot of Danish drinking games - a lot of fun! All Americans are making fun of Kris's British accent and that was, with Marco and Robert's cuddling, the giant topic of conversation.. And laughter! Our English is getting better and better, and we are becoming more and more confident about the foreign language, and more and more confused speaking Danish.
Now we're heading to Merced, California, a little town just outside the famous national park Yosemite! From there we're going on a hike before going to San Francisco. The bus trip takes us through Las Vegas and Los Angeles before heading to Yosemite so it's quite a big detour - we are fortunately getting quite good at entertaining each other so those 36 hours of bus driving is quickly done! And the scenery is as mentioned AMAZING!
Stay tuned, and look out for upcoming pictures on the PicasaWeb - they'll be uploaded as soon as we get a WIFI connection!
Thanks for following our adventure,
Lots of love from two Danes in a completely different breath-taking world
We're very sorry about not having posted anything these last couple of days. It's just been crazy, and we've been busy having the time of our lives with our wonderful, crazy, funny host Devyn and her great housemates Robert, Isaac, Julia and Joe!!
We arrived in Denver Friday night around 8 pm after more than 35 hours in the lovely Greyhounds. The 12 hour delay was mostly because of an overnight blizzard covering nearly all of Nebraska. So as you know, we were stuck in Omaha the entire night till 9 am. But who would imagine that we would meet two Danish girls, Laura and Amine, in that terminal in Omaha, NB. Well we did, and ended up exchanging contact info, good stories and conversations. They were headed to Vegas but when we finally arrived to Denver the next bus to Vegas would not be leaving until the next day. So we hooked them up with the other CS host that accepted our request, Tayler - very sweet of us, right :) So after the four of us had a good dinner, we met up with Tayler, had a few beers and left the girls in good care. Taylor seemed like a very nice girl, with great friends as well, and the plan was to stay with her Sunday, but unfortunately that didn't work out, but we'll save that experience for the next time.
Arriving at Devyn's we were completely exhausted and after a quick introduction we went straight to the couches and were completely unaware of the amazing experience awaiting us this weekend.
In the morning we woke up well rested, and were quickly introduced to some of Devyn's housemates, Isaac and Julia - very good people. Of course, also musicians - we don't know why everyone we stay with have some musical talent, we must just be drawed to them. Anyways they played a little duet for us, very nice guys, beautiful! Then Devyn cooked us a very nice breakfast with pancakes and strawberries. You should think there was a lot of people around already, nope though, still two more housemates to go. First Robert, a crazy, funny and great guy - and a trumpet player in a cool folk jazzy blues band. After getting to know them and just chatting in their backyard in the wonderful weather, we took a walk around the city. The highlight was definitely us being very cool in the park jumping of some 8-stepped stairs (check the very pro pics, when we get the chance to post them)
When we came back to the house we got ready for a little trip. Julia was recording an album and needed Devyn to take some pictures of her for the artwork. So together with Devyn, Julia and Robert we drove out to the mountains at a little river. Whilst they did the pictures, we went for a little hike with Robert. It was so beautiful and you could just feel the wild life around you. When we got back to the girls we all jumped in the very very cold river - refreshing indeed! The water was glacier water from the mountains...
Sandwich break, be right back...
The scenery in the area is just amazing, but our small compact camera from the last millennium can't really catch the view... Hopefully we'll get a hold of Devyn's much better pictures!
When we went back to Denver city, Devyn and her roommates decided to throw a house party - the party starts at midnight (said with a real british accent.)
So firstly we made dinner for all the roommates - pasta with tomato sauce and a good salat with Marianne Johansen's famous vinegar-oil dressing.
They loved it, and afterwards we began partying. At first we went to a bar where some of their friends were playing music. It was cool and when the concert was over Devyn announced to the whole bar, that everyone was welcome at their house for the after party - the house was full of all kinds of people. (that house is not small!)
It was cool, and we got to meet a lot of new people! Marco went down to Robert's room to cuddle with him... Robert was pretty wasted and had no idea of what was going on and who was getting in the bed with him. So when Marco got down on the madras Robert woke up and whispered, pretty angrily: "What the fuck... Who the fuck??" and Marco was like: "It's just me Robert, I'm so tired. Can I crash here with you?" and before they both fell asleep Robert said: "Yeah all right, sure. Cool man, good night..." Boom... and they went dreaming away, whilst Kris and the rest of the party rocked on till 4 in the morning.
Next morning (yesterday) we had Mexican breakfast with a great fresh homemade spicy salsa - Robert made it. It was delicious. Because of the hangovers we didn't do much that day - just chillin' with the roommates. By the evening we skated down to the liquor store with Isaac and got some beer. At home Isaac made a great cajun dinner, we drank some beer playing a lot of Danish drinking games - a lot of fun! All Americans are making fun of Kris's British accent and that was, with Marco and Robert's cuddling, the giant topic of conversation.. And laughter! Our English is getting better and better, and we are becoming more and more confident about the foreign language, and more and more confused speaking Danish.
Now we're heading to Merced, California, a little town just outside the famous national park Yosemite! From there we're going on a hike before going to San Francisco. The bus trip takes us through Las Vegas and Los Angeles before heading to Yosemite so it's quite a big detour - we are fortunately getting quite good at entertaining each other so those 36 hours of bus driving is quickly done! And the scenery is as mentioned AMAZING!
Stay tuned, and look out for upcoming pictures on the PicasaWeb - they'll be uploaded as soon as we get a WIFI connection!
Thanks for following our adventure,
Lots of love from two Danes in a completely different breath-taking world
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Ah.. Gigantic bummer!
Just when everything seemed to be going very smooth, we came out of the bus here in Omaha, NB, and are now sti ked indefinitely.. Apparently, there's a huge snowstorm not to far away from here, and they won't let us go any further. So as it stands now, we can be leaving any time within the next 10 hours - hopefully..
That's just nice man... But on the bright side we get to charge the phones and the iPad ;)
Good night guys.
That's just nice man... But on the bright side we get to charge the phones and the iPad ;)
Good night guys.
Road trippin' once again
This morning we left Chicago - looking back it's been a wonderful time in Chicago.
The days went by very fast, that must be because we have been having a good time!
Now we are heading to Denver and will be arriving tomorrow morning.
Once again - stay tuned!
PS. Farmor tjek sidste indlæg!
The days went by very fast, that must be because we have been having a good time!
Now we are heading to Denver and will be arriving tomorrow morning.
Once again - stay tuned!
PS. Farmor tjek sidste indlæg!
Danish text...
Tillykke med Fødselsdagen farmor! Håber i har det godt i DK!
Hils farfar - håber du havde en god dag.
KH
Kristoffer
Hils farfar - håber du havde en god dag.
KH
Kristoffer
Chicago - architecture, art and jazz
Our stay in Chicago is now coming to an end..
We've been way more cultural than in Nashville and it's been a lovely city to experience.
Yesterday was dedicated to culture alone - at first we went to the Chicago Cultural Center to have a look at the brochures and stuff there. Coincidentally there was a jazz-band playing at our arrival - it was a free concert and one of the main reasons we went to the center was to hear about concerts around the town. The band was great - a trombone, a saxophone, a drum kit and the bass. They're name was the Ullmann/Swell 4tet.
Afterwards we went to the Millennium park - a gigantic park with lots of modern sculptures of many different kinds. The Cloud Gate (aka. The Bean) was amazing - a big bean-shaped metal sculpture, polished to reflect the light. It was in front of The Art Institute of Chicago.
We went to the museum with an expectation of it to be a fairly short visit, but the museum was enormous - never seen anything like it! It took us about 3 hours to walk through the museum and we didn't even see the whole museum (we did not walk slowly!)! We saw everything from Egyptian art to Impressionistic and modern art including Monet, Picasso, Chagall and many many more...
We were starving by the end and hurried to a famous pizzeria (pizzeria UNO). We ordered the famous deep-dish pizza and it was delicious! Yummy! After the dinner we walked around on the beach, the pier and then home. To get some well deserved sleep!
Today we went to the old town - it was a very nice area to walk around, very calm with lots of old beautiful houses. From there we continued to the free Lincoln Park Zoo. It was all right, but nothing special and most of the animals were just sleeping.. Instead we went to The Conservatory and saw a lot of funky plants and flowers (check out the very 'not gay' pictures...).
Outside the Conservatory we walked into a H. C. Andersen statue, and suddenly we didn't feel so far away from good old DK. After that we had a great double cheeseburger in the park, and started walking south towards downtown and The Willis Tower. This tower is the USA's tallest building, and one of the tallest in the world and we thought we had to get up there. It was a nice experience, especially because of the so called ledges - glass boxes mounted on the outer wall of the building, which allowed you to look directly down on the street from more than 500 m high - pretty scary!
Eventually we came back home, cooked a nice dinner and made some great sandwiches for the very long bus trip we have in front of us tomorrow.
Stay tuned for our arrival to Denver, of course at a new CS host, this time a girl, Devyn. Looking forward for a new great stay and new good people to meet.
P.S. Check out the new pictures at the picasaweb link and our brand new feature: word of the day (in Danish).
We've been way more cultural than in Nashville and it's been a lovely city to experience.
Yesterday was dedicated to culture alone - at first we went to the Chicago Cultural Center to have a look at the brochures and stuff there. Coincidentally there was a jazz-band playing at our arrival - it was a free concert and one of the main reasons we went to the center was to hear about concerts around the town. The band was great - a trombone, a saxophone, a drum kit and the bass. They're name was the Ullmann/Swell 4tet.
Afterwards we went to the Millennium park - a gigantic park with lots of modern sculptures of many different kinds. The Cloud Gate (aka. The Bean) was amazing - a big bean-shaped metal sculpture, polished to reflect the light. It was in front of The Art Institute of Chicago.
We went to the museum with an expectation of it to be a fairly short visit, but the museum was enormous - never seen anything like it! It took us about 3 hours to walk through the museum and we didn't even see the whole museum (we did not walk slowly!)! We saw everything from Egyptian art to Impressionistic and modern art including Monet, Picasso, Chagall and many many more...
We were starving by the end and hurried to a famous pizzeria (pizzeria UNO). We ordered the famous deep-dish pizza and it was delicious! Yummy! After the dinner we walked around on the beach, the pier and then home. To get some well deserved sleep!
Today we went to the old town - it was a very nice area to walk around, very calm with lots of old beautiful houses. From there we continued to the free Lincoln Park Zoo. It was all right, but nothing special and most of the animals were just sleeping.. Instead we went to The Conservatory and saw a lot of funky plants and flowers (check out the very 'not gay' pictures...).
Outside the Conservatory we walked into a H. C. Andersen statue, and suddenly we didn't feel so far away from good old DK. After that we had a great double cheeseburger in the park, and started walking south towards downtown and The Willis Tower. This tower is the USA's tallest building, and one of the tallest in the world and we thought we had to get up there. It was a nice experience, especially because of the so called ledges - glass boxes mounted on the outer wall of the building, which allowed you to look directly down on the street from more than 500 m high - pretty scary!
Eventually we came back home, cooked a nice dinner and made some great sandwiches for the very long bus trip we have in front of us tomorrow.
Stay tuned for our arrival to Denver, of course at a new CS host, this time a girl, Devyn. Looking forward for a new great stay and new good people to meet.
P.S. Check out the new pictures at the picasaweb link and our brand new feature: word of the day (in Danish).
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
The windy city...
After a pretty smooth ride in the bus with lots of sleeping, we arrived to downtown Chicago today around noon. With food on our mind we went into the first decent looking place and got ourselves a very nice meal - finally with some veggies haha.. After all the junk we've been eating this lunch helped our stomachs back on track!
Then we just walked around the city with our heavy backpacks hanging on our shoulders. It's a cool city with a lotta culture and a nice atmosphere going on, and we're excited to check it out these next couple of days.
Eventually we started heading towards our host Paul's place and decided that walking down there would be nice - bad call considering the backpacks we had to carry along, and we probably walked more than 10 km in total... But after getting to Paul's house we got some Mexican dinner. When we came back we were once again introduced to a musical experience listening to Paul's band Rite Fruit practice in his garage - when saying garage, it's not at all how you would imagine a garage.. It's more a homemade studio, with carpets all over the walls, and cool lights and lamps hanging around creating a really cozy place to sit and chill, and just listen. Of course, this band is gonna start record their first album these next months, so we'll have another record to look forward listening to!
Stay tuned for more coming up about The Windy City.
... and check out some of the new pics in the picasa album
Then we just walked around the city with our heavy backpacks hanging on our shoulders. It's a cool city with a lotta culture and a nice atmosphere going on, and we're excited to check it out these next couple of days.
Eventually we started heading towards our host Paul's place and decided that walking down there would be nice - bad call considering the backpacks we had to carry along, and we probably walked more than 10 km in total... But after getting to Paul's house we got some Mexican dinner. When we came back we were once again introduced to a musical experience listening to Paul's band Rite Fruit practice in his garage - when saying garage, it's not at all how you would imagine a garage.. It's more a homemade studio, with carpets all over the walls, and cool lights and lamps hanging around creating a really cozy place to sit and chill, and just listen. Of course, this band is gonna start record their first album these next months, so we'll have another record to look forward listening to!
Stay tuned for more coming up about The Windy City.
... and check out some of the new pics in the picasa album
Monday, April 11, 2011
Back on the road
We just departed from Nashville and are now heading to Chicago, where we'll be arriving tomorrow around noon. The bus is fortunately one of the newer ones with more leg space, better seats and free Wifi, so we can sit and update you right now.
Nashville was a great experience and it was not easy to leave. Thanks to Oscar and his friends for giving us a hell of a time. Now Paul is gonna be our next CS host, and hopefully another nice stay awaits us!
As always, stay tuned and be ready for some new stories!
Nashville was a great experience and it was not easy to leave. Thanks to Oscar and his friends for giving us a hell of a time. Now Paul is gonna be our next CS host, and hopefully another nice stay awaits us!
As always, stay tuned and be ready for some new stories!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
New site on the blog
From now on - instead of uploading all our stuff to the main site we'll upload the pictures to a separate site.
Find the site in the menu to the right!
another extra new feature on the blog is a link to our picasa album - this album will have the newest pictures (without comments) and will be easier to browse through.
the link is found in the right menubar and by clicking the link underneath.
Road trip pictures!
Find the site in the menu to the right!
another extra new feature on the blog is a link to our picasa album - this album will have the newest pictures (without comments) and will be easier to browse through.
the link is found in the right menubar and by clicking the link underneath.
Road trip pictures!
New Pleasure, yeah!
So yesterday Oscar's roommate Chris gave us a lift to Downtown Nashville. We strolled down Broadway hearing live music coming out of almost everyone of the socalled Honkytonks.. Got some breakfast at a Deli, and moved on to the Country Music Hall of Fame. It was pretty cool, saw Elvis' Golden Cadillac Limousine, one of Johnny Cash's many black suits and his black guitar and a bunch of stuff belonging to all the famous country musicians. Then we went north and dared each other to roll down the state Capitol hill. People must have thought we were crazy, but it was fun... after acting silly we continued to the Farmer's Market, got some delicious fruits, had a nice lunch and bought Oscar his missing strainer haha...
Coming home, we got some beers (yes, the fake ID worked man!) and came back to Oscar's air conditioned place, after walking around all day in the Southern Spring heat. Then we witnessed a great rehearsal in the living room with Oscar's band New Pleasure. They're a punk rock trio with Oscar on the bass, Chet on guitar and vocals and Steve on the drums, and they sounded fucking good. During the rehearsals three girls, also couch surfers, arrived.. So it was a full house with a lot of good people around. At night Oscar invited us to New Pleasure's show at a little venue called The End. Oscar sneaked us in as the band crew carrying his bass and amp, so they didn't ask for ID's and we got a stamp allowing us to drink without any problems, yeah! Three bands played before Oscar's band. They sounded good, but when New Pleasure came on stage, our mooths shifted a couple of gears up and the atmosphere became awesome! We didn't have the camera with us so we haven't got any footage to show you.. Too bad, for you and for us, but the experience will definitely stay imprinted in our minds for a long time! Afterwards we went to an after party at Chet's house. It was cool and after several hours having a great time we went back to Oscar's place to sleep - well needed! Great night indeed!
Today we woke up quite late, very hung over and have basically been hanging around in Oscar's house allmost all day, avoiding the heat and just listening to the vinyls - including New Pleasure's EP several times. But we still managed to visit Studio B were Oscar works (normally it's not just possible to visit it, but we had contacts!) - a studio were some of the best country singers have recorded their music. Kris played on the piano Elvis Presley recorded some of his tracks on but wasn't allow to buy! We have some pictures, but they still need to be uploaded from the camera - we'll get to that one of the next couple of days! For dinner we went to a place called Prince's Hot Chicken - we got half a chicken each with medium hotness - thank god we didn't choose X hot! With our noses dribbling and mouths burning we fought our way through the meal! Delicious, but hot and spicy!
Stay tuned for new pics and new tales about our trip!
PS. please leave a comment on the blog!
Cheers!
Friday, April 8, 2011
25 hours & 995 miles later
After our first bus trip we arrived to Nashville, exhausted but still excited and hungry for adventures. Shortly after, our host Oscar picked us up and took us to have a bite at the local diner. After returning to Oscar's place and taking a much appreciated shower we just sat chatting together with his roommate Chris and listened to some great tunes until we finally crashed on the couch.
Tomorrow Oscar has invited us for one of his concerts - that's gonna be cool.
Keep updated for more pictures and news on our trip.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Finally on the road
We're finally on the road, sitting on a bus between Philly and Nashville.
So far the trip has been great and everything has gone smooth (except Marco forgetting his only ID - passport...... It will be shipped asap by his super dad ;D)
A long night awaits us before arrival at Oscar's tomorow afternoon.
Stay cool!
So far the trip has been great and everything has gone smooth (except Marco forgetting his only ID - passport...... It will be shipped asap by his super dad ;D)
A long night awaits us before arrival at Oscar's tomorow afternoon.
Stay cool!
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Thursday, March 31, 2011
This monday, Marco had his fingerprints made for his green card, today two officers from the USCIS came to pick him up by his house in Brooklyn - and he's now taken into custody indefinitely..
Since this morning no one has reached contact with him yet, and the reasons for the imprisonment remains unknown...
The trip is therefore undoubtedly in danger..
As always stay tuned for further updates!
All Clear!
Spite several complications - including fingerprints and a driver's license - we are now ready for take-off. Departure is set to April 6 where first stop will be Nashville, Tennessee. Here Oscar will be our first Couchsurfing host ever, hopefully a great experience awaits us.
Minor plannings still need to be worked out, like what to bring, what not to bring, where to depart from... and when?! And what to do in the long hours in the bus. The rest remains unknown to you and us but will be figured out on the road!
Stay tuned for coming updates!
In the meantime check out our BRAND NEW homemade tag - straight from the street!
Minor plannings still need to be worked out, like what to bring, what not to bring, where to depart from... and when?! And what to do in the long hours in the bus. The rest remains unknown to you and us but will be figured out on the road!
Stay tuned for coming updates!
In the meantime check out our BRAND NEW homemade tag - straight from the street!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
The planning.
This is the blog of Marco and Kristoffer's Roadtrip through USA by bus, which will find place from the start of april to the end of may.
The planning of the trip is under procession.
The first Couchsurfing-requests are being worked out, the route is nearly in it's place and the expectations are high.
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