Sunday, 22 September 2013
Pafos - 14.09.2013 - 17.09.2013
Pafos - 14.09.2013
On the 14th of September i took a bus to the city called Pafos. The bus ride again was only 4 euro.
I was intending to stay at a hotel in the old town, which is on the mountain. This was quite handy, because by that from the bus stop to my hotel it was only a 2 minute walk.
So after my arrival first of all of course i checked in into my hotel. This hotel is also a restaurant and is probably one of the loveliest and cheapest places you could stay at. I think it was about 35 euro per night including breakfast.
Some people told me that this hotel was the one of the first hotels ever in this city. So a few pictures of my hotel.
After i had checked in into the hotel and unloaded all my stuff, i first of all went for a small walk around the old town. Because the old town is on the top of a small mountain, from some places you get a perfect view over the whole city.
After exploring the old town i went for a walk down to the promenade of this city. The promenade is very touristy and the prices in the restaurants are a lot higher compared to the old town. So i never reall went out for eating there.
Pafos has a lot of archealogical places to which you can go and watch. Like for example this old church, which is , according to the signs, the oldest and was the first church ever on this island.
In the evening i went back to the old town to have dinner. I was surprised that most of the restaurants close at around 7pm, probably because all the tourists only have dinner at the promanade. Luckily i could find a nice cafe though which offered cheap sandwiches and salads and stuff like that.
Petra Tou Romiou - 15.09.2013
On the 15th of September i went for a small day trip to a place called Petra Tou Romiou.
According to the greek Mythology this was the place were the greek goddess Aphrodite, the goddes of beauty and love was born. Here some pictures of this beach.
The whole beach of this place is covered with hearts made of stones carrying the initals of loving couples who have come to here. A lot of people seem to come to this place every year, because the legend says that this place still has the *magic* which brought out the goddess Aphrodite.
On this beach i met a girl from russia who told me that according to a legend, if you can find a stone on this beach with the shape of the heart you will find your true love.
Who doesn*t want to find his or her true love. So of course i started searching this beach to find such a stone.
After like 15 minutes of looking around and searching, i finally gave up and sat down in the sand. And then suddenly i saw a stone which almost had the shape of a heart. It was not perfectly shaped, but with some fantasy looked like one.
Maybe this is the true meaning behind this whole legend - if you try and look for it very hard (lets say this stone stands for the true love or that very special person you are trying to find...) you may never find it. But maybe if you stop looking for it and don*t think about it anymore suddenly you may find it or it may find you.
17.09.2013 - Tombs of the kings
On the 14th of September i took a bus to the city called Pafos. The bus ride again was only 4 euro.
I was intending to stay at a hotel in the old town, which is on the mountain. This was quite handy, because by that from the bus stop to my hotel it was only a 2 minute walk.
So after my arrival first of all of course i checked in into my hotel. This hotel is also a restaurant and is probably one of the loveliest and cheapest places you could stay at. I think it was about 35 euro per night including breakfast.
Some people told me that this hotel was the one of the first hotels ever in this city. So a few pictures of my hotel.
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| Entrance to my hotel in pafos |
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| look out of my window in that hotel |
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| the garden of the hotel |
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| view on the city Pafos from the mountain |
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| Promenade of Pafos |
Pafos has a lot of archealogical places to which you can go and watch. Like for example this old church, which is , according to the signs, the oldest and was the first church ever on this island.
In the evening i went back to the old town to have dinner. I was surprised that most of the restaurants close at around 7pm, probably because all the tourists only have dinner at the promanade. Luckily i could find a nice cafe though which offered cheap sandwiches and salads and stuff like that.
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| sunset above the city Pafos |
Petra Tou Romiou - 15.09.2013
On the 15th of September i went for a small day trip to a place called Petra Tou Romiou.
According to the greek Mythology this was the place were the greek goddess Aphrodite, the goddes of beauty and love was born. Here some pictures of this beach.
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| Petra Tou Romiou 1 |
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| Petra Tou Romiou 2 |
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| Petra Tou Romiou 3 |
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| Stone Hearts with the initials of loving couples on the Aphrodite beach |
On this beach i met a girl from russia who told me that according to a legend, if you can find a stone on this beach with the shape of the heart you will find your true love.
Who doesn*t want to find his or her true love. So of course i started searching this beach to find such a stone.
After like 15 minutes of looking around and searching, i finally gave up and sat down in the sand. And then suddenly i saw a stone which almost had the shape of a heart. It was not perfectly shaped, but with some fantasy looked like one.
Maybe this is the true meaning behind this whole legend - if you try and look for it very hard (lets say this stone stands for the true love or that very special person you are trying to find...) you may never find it. But maybe if you stop looking for it and don*t think about it anymore suddenly you may find it or it may find you.
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| heart shaped stone , which i found on the beach of Aphrodite |
17.09.2013 - Tombs of the kings
Thursday, 12 September 2013
Courion - 09.09.2013
On the 9th of September i went on a nice trip to historical place called "Courion". In order to get there i took a local bus from the "old hospital" bus station in Limassol. The price for the bus was quite cheap. Like most of the busses in cyprus the one way ticket to Courion was only 1.5 euro.
The bus ride lasted about 30 minutes.
This trip was probably one of the most spectacular things which i have seen on this island. The ancient ruins of Courion are on top of a small mountain near the water. So from up there i got a wonderful view on all the whole coast. Like in the picture down below.
The admission to Courion was not expensive. For only 1.70 euro you can walk around and spend as much time there as you want. Some tourists are pissed of by these kind of prices. And say stuff like: 1.70 euro only for a bunch of stones. But common 1.70 is really not much money at all.
In my opinion if you have the money to stay in hotel in cyprus for like 200 euros per night, these 1-2 euros admission are nothing in comparision. If you spend so mu money on your holiday and cannot even afford to spend 2euros for a trip like this sounds really weird to me.
In courion they have an ancient theatre which is shown in the two pictures down below. I heard that sometimes they show plays and stuff in this ancient theatre. Though i didn*t have the chance to see on of these events, i think it might be quite a nice experience to watch some theatre or maybe music performance in this theatre.
Because i went on this tri all alone i used the timer mode of my camera to take a picture of myself.
Sometimes i asked people to take a picture of me like in the next picuture.
On the top of the mountain i found a very cute cat chilling out in the shadow. Of course i couldn*t resist of taking a picture of this lovely cat. This cat has probably the most beautiful view ever amongst all the pets in this world :) . Well, at least in case it is taking advantage of it.
If you turn around and face the opposite direction from the seaside in direction of the inland you get a view
of the inland scenery as shown in the next picture.
Of course you also get to see a lot of ancient ruins from the past as shown in the next to pictures. Unfortunately most of them seems to have been destroyed. Next to the ruins you can sometimes read some small information about what these ruins used to be in the past. But to be honest, i think if you have a tour guide who can show you around and know some deeper background information this can be quite helpful.
Unfortunately i didn*t take one. So i probably missed something by that. Nevertheless i just tried to enjoy the view.
As the great nature lover who i am, these kind of sceneries (as seen in the picture down below) really impress me a lot. I think in a place like courion you can see the true face and beauty of this island. The beaches and the whole coast with the cliffs etc looks a lot more beautiful without all the ugly hotels and high rise buildings which you usually have in the cities.
I think to go swimming down there is probably quite a nice thing. Although i didn*t do it, because i was too lazy to walk down all the way to the water. I think down there at the water was some kind of resort. I suppose if you have a car or something you might be abe to stay there over night. But yeah am not hundred percent sure because i haven*t been down there...
The bus ride lasted about 30 minutes.
This trip was probably one of the most spectacular things which i have seen on this island. The ancient ruins of Courion are on top of a small mountain near the water. So from up there i got a wonderful view on all the whole coast. Like in the picture down below.
The admission to Courion was not expensive. For only 1.70 euro you can walk around and spend as much time there as you want. Some tourists are pissed of by these kind of prices. And say stuff like: 1.70 euro only for a bunch of stones. But common 1.70 is really not much money at all.
In my opinion if you have the money to stay in hotel in cyprus for like 200 euros per night, these 1-2 euros admission are nothing in comparision. If you spend so mu money on your holiday and cannot even afford to spend 2euros for a trip like this sounds really weird to me.
In courion they have an ancient theatre which is shown in the two pictures down below. I heard that sometimes they show plays and stuff in this ancient theatre. Though i didn*t have the chance to see on of these events, i think it might be quite a nice experience to watch some theatre or maybe music performance in this theatre.
Because i went on this tri all alone i used the timer mode of my camera to take a picture of myself.
Sometimes i asked people to take a picture of me like in the next picuture.
On the top of the mountain i found a very cute cat chilling out in the shadow. Of course i couldn*t resist of taking a picture of this lovely cat. This cat has probably the most beautiful view ever amongst all the pets in this world :) . Well, at least in case it is taking advantage of it.
If you turn around and face the opposite direction from the seaside in direction of the inland you get a view
of the inland scenery as shown in the next picture.
Of course you also get to see a lot of ancient ruins from the past as shown in the next to pictures. Unfortunately most of them seems to have been destroyed. Next to the ruins you can sometimes read some small information about what these ruins used to be in the past. But to be honest, i think if you have a tour guide who can show you around and know some deeper background information this can be quite helpful.
Unfortunately i didn*t take one. So i probably missed something by that. Nevertheless i just tried to enjoy the view.
As the great nature lover who i am, these kind of sceneries (as seen in the picture down below) really impress me a lot. I think in a place like courion you can see the true face and beauty of this island. The beaches and the whole coast with the cliffs etc looks a lot more beautiful without all the ugly hotels and high rise buildings which you usually have in the cities.
I think to go swimming down there is probably quite a nice thing. Although i didn*t do it, because i was too lazy to walk down all the way to the water. I think down there at the water was some kind of resort. I suppose if you have a car or something you might be abe to stay there over night. But yeah am not hundred percent sure because i haven*t been down there...
Troodos - 08.09.2013
On the 8th of September i went on a small trip into the mountains area of Cyprus. This trip was a bus trip, organized by the tourist information i think The trip was not really expensive. Only about 5 euros. This trip gave me a nice view on the inland of cyprus.
Target of this trip was a small mountain village called (forgot the name). On the way to the village we first visited an old church. I asked a girl on the bus to take a picture of me next to that church with some mountain scenery in the background. So now you can imagine how about the mountains in cyprus look like.
Before we started this trip i had hoped that i might perhaps be able to see down to the seaside from the top.
But this village obiously was inside a valley so unluckily i didn*t get any chances of a nice overview from up there.
In this village which we visited with that bus there was a small local festival with a small market and also some cultural programm like a traditional cypriot dance, as you can see in the photo down below.
Target of this trip was a small mountain village called (forgot the name). On the way to the village we first visited an old church. I asked a girl on the bus to take a picture of me next to that church with some mountain scenery in the background. So now you can imagine how about the mountains in cyprus look like.
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| picture taken from the area around an old church in the mountains of cyprus |
Before we started this trip i had hoped that i might perhaps be able to see down to the seaside from the top.
But this village obiously was inside a valley so unluckily i didn*t get any chances of a nice overview from up there.
In this village which we visited with that bus there was a small local festival with a small market and also some cultural programm like a traditional cypriot dance, as you can see in the photo down below.
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| traditional cypriot dance |
Limassol - 7.09.2013 - 10.09.2013
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| view from my hotel room |
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| the street to the old town |
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| lovely cafes and restaurant in the old town in limassol |
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| Sunset in Limassol |
Larnaca - 5.09.2013 - 6.09.2013
05.09.2013
In the evening of the 5th of September I arrived at the airport in larnaca. From there i took a local bus to my hotel, which was only 1.5€. I immediately checked into my room and unloaded my stuff. I first felt a bit tired from the flight - so I decided to lie down for a while. But soon I realized that i was not as tired as I thought I was. So I decided to go for a late night walk along the beachfront. All the bars seemed to be completely empty.
Only a few local people seemed to be hanging out in these beach bars. Probably this is not the time of the year where many tourists are around.
It can be a bit disappointing if you seem to be the only single tourist and the only other tourists you see are old people and couples.
06.09.2013
Today was my first day here in cyprus in this city called larnaca. I went for a small walk along the promenade. I admit i have seen prettier beaches before. All these high rise building on the beach really destroy the nice view on the waterfront. As the great nature lover i am, a beach like this doesn t impress me much. I wonder how people come here and spend like 200€ per night just to stay in a hotel at the waterfront.
If you walk along the beach you can find a nice old fortress as seen in the picture down below. Looks quite nice at the water. To get in is not expensive. I think it was maybe only 1-2 €. Which is not expensive. But i didn't go in because i tried to get a look through the main door, and by that didn't expect to see that much more if i had gone inside.
And then had some breakfast at one of these cafes at the beach.
The price for this breakfast, was quite good. Only 3.5€ for a big plate with eggs, toast, hashbrowns, beans, olives and haloumi cheese. Well usually this would have been with bacon and stuff, but as I am vegetarian I asked whether they could replace some of the ingredients.
In this cafe there were some people who were drinkin some fine lookin coffees.
I am usually not that much of a coffee drinker but these coffee s really looked fantastic.
I suppose drinkin coffee seems to be a big thing here. They have many different coffees - cold and warm ones.
Also i noticed to guys on the next table playing that game "bag gammon". Well i have only seen these two guys playing this game, but maybe this game also seems to be a popular thing on this island for the local people.
After breakfast I went for a walk deeper into the city. Well "city" is maybe not the right expression. It was basically the parallel road to the beach road.
I bought some nice and new swim shorts in one of the shops =)
At noon I had/made a small nap and then , went to have something to eat. The pizza was so incredibly huge that i am still stuffed and probably will only have a salad for dinner. Today is friday. So I hope these beach bars will be a bit more busy tonight.
In the evening of the 5th of September I arrived at the airport in larnaca. From there i took a local bus to my hotel, which was only 1.5€. I immediately checked into my room and unloaded my stuff. I first felt a bit tired from the flight - so I decided to lie down for a while. But soon I realized that i was not as tired as I thought I was. So I decided to go for a late night walk along the beachfront. All the bars seemed to be completely empty.
Only a few local people seemed to be hanging out in these beach bars. Probably this is not the time of the year where many tourists are around.
It can be a bit disappointing if you seem to be the only single tourist and the only other tourists you see are old people and couples.
06.09.2013
Today was my first day here in cyprus in this city called larnaca. I went for a small walk along the promenade. I admit i have seen prettier beaches before. All these high rise building on the beach really destroy the nice view on the waterfront. As the great nature lover i am, a beach like this doesn t impress me much. I wonder how people come here and spend like 200€ per night just to stay in a hotel at the waterfront.
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| the beach of larnaca |
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| some old fortress at the beach of larnaca |
And then had some breakfast at one of these cafes at the beach.
The price for this breakfast, was quite good. Only 3.5€ for a big plate with eggs, toast, hashbrowns, beans, olives and haloumi cheese. Well usually this would have been with bacon and stuff, but as I am vegetarian I asked whether they could replace some of the ingredients.
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| Me waiting for my breakfast at "Centro Cafe" in Larnaca |
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| vegetarian "continental" breakfast at "Centro Cafe" |
In this cafe there were some people who were drinkin some fine lookin coffees.
I am usually not that much of a coffee drinker but these coffee s really looked fantastic.
I suppose drinkin coffee seems to be a big thing here. They have many different coffees - cold and warm ones.
Also i noticed to guys on the next table playing that game "bag gammon". Well i have only seen these two guys playing this game, but maybe this game also seems to be a popular thing on this island for the local people.
After breakfast I went for a walk deeper into the city. Well "city" is maybe not the right expression. It was basically the parallel road to the beach road.
I bought some nice and new swim shorts in one of the shops =)
At noon I had/made a small nap and then , went to have something to eat. The pizza was so incredibly huge that i am still stuffed and probably will only have a salad for dinner. Today is friday. So I hope these beach bars will be a bit more busy tonight.
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| you can find this if you leave the beach alone |
Wednesday, 4 September 2013
Preparing for my small trip to cyprus - 04.09.2013
So about a week ago i spontanously booked a ticket for a small trip to the island cyprus. This island seems quite interesting , of course one of the best things i suppose will be the good weather :) ,
but also in a cultural way, this island seems interesting, because one half of this island is greek and the other half turkish. So theoretically this offers the opportunity to see two completely different cultures on spot.
I first thought i didn't need a list to prepare my backpack for my small journey, but by the the big amount of things which you can take with you on a journey, i soon realized that it helps a lot to have a check list. I had the problem that i somehow didn*t know where to start. So i simply made this list, and tried to pack one thing after another.
I will post my list here, for the next time i want to travel, so i can reuse the list. I rather tend to pack less clothes into my backpack and try to wash more often instead, because this also gives me the oppurtunity to buy some new clothes if i see something nice while travelling, like for example a nice t-shirt.
√ 3-T-Shirts
√ 1-Sleeping-Shirt
√ 1-Small Jeans
√ 1-Small Towel
√ 1-Big Towel
√ 7-Shorts
√ 5-pairs of socks
√ 1-Nail-Scissors
√ 1-Sun-Screen
√ 1-Deo-Stick
√ 1-Shampoo-bottle
√ 1-Regular SwimmingTrunk
√ 1-WetSuit (in case i want to go surfing)
√ 1-Razor
√ 1-Contact-Lenses-Package
√ 2 Sun-Glasses (Prescription & NonPrescription)
√ 1-Sleeping-Bag
√ 1-Photocamera
√ 3-MemoryChips for the Camera (empty !!)
√ 1-Adapter (important for the foreign outlets)
√ 1-Camera and mobile phone recharger
√ 1-Small Soap-bottle
√ 1-Toothbrush
√ 1-Small-Toothpaste
2-Swim-Shorts
√ 1-Wallet
1-Fake-Wallet (the one supposed to be stolen ;) )
Things i wear on the day of departure:
1-Long Jeans
1-Belt
1-Rain Jacket
1-T-Shirt
1-Pair of Socks
1-Pair of Shoes
but also in a cultural way, this island seems interesting, because one half of this island is greek and the other half turkish. So theoretically this offers the opportunity to see two completely different cultures on spot.
I first thought i didn't need a list to prepare my backpack for my small journey, but by the the big amount of things which you can take with you on a journey, i soon realized that it helps a lot to have a check list. I had the problem that i somehow didn*t know where to start. So i simply made this list, and tried to pack one thing after another.
I will post my list here, for the next time i want to travel, so i can reuse the list. I rather tend to pack less clothes into my backpack and try to wash more often instead, because this also gives me the oppurtunity to buy some new clothes if i see something nice while travelling, like for example a nice t-shirt.
√ 3-T-Shirts
√ 1-Sleeping-Shirt
√ 1-Small Jeans
√ 1-Small Towel
√ 1-Big Towel
√ 7-Shorts
√ 5-pairs of socks
√ 1-Nail-Scissors
√ 1-Sun-Screen
√ 1-Deo-Stick
√ 1-Shampoo-bottle
√ 1-Regular SwimmingTrunk
√ 1-WetSuit (in case i want to go surfing)
√ 1-Razor
√ 1-Contact-Lenses-Package
√ 2 Sun-Glasses (Prescription & NonPrescription)
√ 1-Sleeping-Bag
√ 1-Photocamera
√ 3-MemoryChips for the Camera (empty !!)
√ 1-Adapter (important for the foreign outlets)
√ 1-Camera and mobile phone recharger
√ 1-Small Soap-bottle
√ 1-Toothbrush
√ 1-Small-Toothpaste
2-Swim-Shorts
√ 1-Wallet
1-Fake-Wallet (the one supposed to be stolen ;) )
Things i wear on the day of departure:
1-Long Jeans
1-Belt
1-Rain Jacket
1-T-Shirt
1-Pair of Socks
1-Pair of Shoes
Friday, 5 April 2013
My Return home - 3.4.2013
In the evening of the 3rd of April at around 9 o'clock i took a flight back from New York to Frankfurt in Germany. The flight took around 8 hours in total. After the first 5 hours i had a short stop in Iceland. I could have stayed there longer if i had wanted to, but i had been away from home long enough, so just continued the flight back to germany. The rest of journey to Germany took about 3 hours.
The sky above Germany didn't look like in Iceland at all. Above Germany there was only a completely white wall of clouds. And you couldn't see anything from the plane except the clouds. From the airport in Frankfurt i took a train near to the City where i live in. On my very first day in Germany i got reminded how unreliable the German train Company "Deutsche Bahn" is. My train was supposed to start at around half past 3 from Frankfurt and arrive at about 5 o'clock at it's destination.
What actually happened is that the train was damaged and had to be replaced. So the train departed at 5 o'clock and arrived 1,5 hours later as planned. This was really annoying because i had told my parents that they can pick me up from the station at 5 o'clock. However my parents were waiting patiently. After i returned home they had a small nice welcoming table prepared for me with some cards and they even had bought me some roses! What a nice gesture!
What can i say in the end of this long journey? I have learned a lot, met a lot of different people, seen many different places in the world. This has changed some of my opinions and attitudes about different things and helped me a lot to understand the world and the people who live in it better. I don't regret a single day or moment during my time traveling. I can reccommend to everyone to travel like me. If everyone was travelling like this, many people in this world would be a lot more open minded, which would be very good for us as we live together in a society.
After having seen half the world I got a bit curious to explore my own country. If you have been away for so long, you learn to appreciate things in your home country which in the past seemed to be self-evident. Yes but there are also other places in the world which i would still be curious to see, like for example India, Africa or South America! If i ever visit one of theses places (which is quite likely) i will put a link here on this blog. Cheers
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| airplane of the IcelandAir company |
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| Iceland as seen from the Airplane |
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| Iceland as seen from the Airplane 2 |
The sky above Germany didn't look like in Iceland at all. Above Germany there was only a completely white wall of clouds. And you couldn't see anything from the plane except the clouds. From the airport in Frankfurt i took a train near to the City where i live in. On my very first day in Germany i got reminded how unreliable the German train Company "Deutsche Bahn" is. My train was supposed to start at around half past 3 from Frankfurt and arrive at about 5 o'clock at it's destination.
What actually happened is that the train was damaged and had to be replaced. So the train departed at 5 o'clock and arrived 1,5 hours later as planned. This was really annoying because i had told my parents that they can pick me up from the station at 5 o'clock. However my parents were waiting patiently. After i returned home they had a small nice welcoming table prepared for me with some cards and they even had bought me some roses! What a nice gesture!
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| welcoming table at home :) |
After having seen half the world I got a bit curious to explore my own country. If you have been away for so long, you learn to appreciate things in your home country which in the past seemed to be self-evident. Yes but there are also other places in the world which i would still be curious to see, like for example India, Africa or South America! If i ever visit one of theses places (which is quite likely) i will put a link here on this blog. Cheers
New York City - 30.03. - 03.04.
After my arrival in New York on the 30th of March 2013 i had a hard time to find the hostel, in which i would stay for the last 4 days of my long lasting journey. The hostel was somwhere out of Manhatten in the district of "Queens" very close to a highway. On the internet page of this hostel there was no description at all how to get there the easiest way by public transportation. So i had to figure it out somehow on my own. First after i arrived in the city, i bought a 7 day ticket for the city. Then i tried to take a subway to the closest possible location on the map (relative to the hostel).
Arriving at this subway station which seemed to be not too far away, i tried to find out whether there is was a bus to make the last distance, which was left between me and the hostel. I asked around everwhere for like 1 hour. Noone could help me, not even the people who worked for the the subway. Then i decided to go to the Dunkin Donuts around the corner, which had free wifi, and look for buses on the internet. But this was not very successful either. So i don't know... after 2 or 3 hours of trying to find a bus, i finally gave up and decided to walk to the hostel. This took me another 1-2 hours. I had arrived at 11 o'clock in the morning in New York, and at the time when i got to this hostel it was already 5pm!!
After checking in into the hostel i first of all took a shower. Then i decided to go to town to some of the famous locations which you should see as a tourist. The first place which i decided to go to is the "Times Square". On this day the time Square was overfull, because (i didn't know at this point) it was the easter weekend. If you travel too long you don't seem to think about these events.
On my last day in New York i went to the Times Square again and took another picture, because we had quite nice weather that day, with lots of sunshine :). If you compare it to the pictures of my first day in NY you see that it's a lot emptier.
On my second day in New York i decided to see some more "have to" sights in the city. One of them is the 9/11 memorial. To get there was a horrible torture. First of all i had to wait at least for 1 hour in a queue, in order to get into an airport-like security control. I cannot tell whether it was 1 or 2 hours, but it was really annoying. So after a very long time of waiting i was finally allowed to enter the memorial area. The memorial consists of two square shaped pools which are supposibly exactly at the location where the old world trade centre twin towers used to stand.
Not far from the memorial you can see how they already build up the new World Trade centre. It's interesting to see how fast this whole thing progressed! The terrorists were like, " ha ha you fu**in' captialism asses, we kicked down one of the most important buildings of the financial district in New York!!" And approximately 10 years later this is the answer of the capitalsm people: They simply built a new one which is even nicer and taller then the old world trade centre. As you can see on the picture the building is not yet 100% complete. But almost. Until the completion of the new World Trade Centre the Empire State Building is offically the tallest building in town.
Right after my visit of the 9/11 memorial i decided to take the ferry to Staten Island (which is for free :D ) , from which you can see the Statue of Liberty, as people told me. From this ferry you also have a very nice view on the Skyline of New York. At the time when i got to the ferry it was already about 5 o'clock pm i guess. This shows how long i had to wait just in order to see this 9/11 memorial.
The Statue of Liberty as you might see on the picture, in reality, looks a bit smaller than i would have imagined it from the movies. The yellow ferry which you can see on the picture looks exactly like the ferry i was standing on while taking the picture. A ferry like this can probably easily transport about 1000 people at once.
On my 3rd day in New York i decided to go to the Bronx with 2 people from my hostel. First of all took the subway to the Yankee stadium, because we wanted to see the stadium, as noone of us had ever seen a baseball stadium before. When we arrived at the stadium we were really surprised because there were thousands of people. The reason for that was, that on this day it was the first game of the year / of the new season. Some people in front of the Stadium tried to sell us tickets for 150$ each. Because we were not nuts we went to the ticket office and asked whether they still had tickets. Tickets usually cost around 30$ as we found out. Unfortunately all the tickets were sold out at this time. This explained why people were trying to sell their tickets for 150$. However ... 150$ is way too expensive, so we decided to do something else.
After our visit of the Yankee Stadium we decided to go to the botanic garden, which is also located in the Bronx. After we had arrived their we saw that an antry ticket to the garden was 25$. This really pissed me off, because i had travelled all around the world and been to many botanic gardens. And never ever did i have to pay a single cent to get in.
So after our unsucessful try to go to the botanic garden we returned to Manhatten. There we decided to go for a little walk in China Town and Little Italy. My two mates were from Italy and they assured me that Little Italy doesn't look like Italy at all. It's all tourist crap. However from the street where we walked in we could see the Empire State building :).
The next thing we tried to do, is to get to the Empire State Building to see how much it costs to go to the top of the building. I think it was something between 40$ and 50 dollars and we were all to proud to spend the money to go up there. On top of that you have to keep in mind: If you go to the top in order to see the city, you will se the city -but without the Empire State building!
The next thing which we did was a georgeous idea of one of my mates. You probably know that TV series "How i met your mother". So the idea was to go to that Irish Pub of the TV series. The pub was quite easy to find. It's called "Mc Gee's Irish Pub". Of course this is not the Irish pub where the recorded all the Episodes - this pub only exists in a hollywood studio... But the Irish pub of the series and many of the stories were orignally inspired by this pub. So this is the real, original Mc Gees Irish pub :) .
After our visit of Mc Gee's we headed over to a skybar. We didn't have to pay any admission to get up there, which was a great thing :) ! From the top of this skybar we could see almost the whole city, including the Empire state building.
On my 4th day in New York i decided to see some more last sights, like for example Central Statoin and the Central Park of New York. I am not 100% sure but i think the Central the park is the same park where they made some of the scences of "Alone in New York" in the past. I really loved this movie as a child , so i had to go to this park. From the park i also had a nice view on the Skyline of NY. I bet the Park looks a lot more beautiful in summer, when the trees have leaves and so on. However, i was lucky with the weather.
I didn't have that much time this day to see more of the city, because on my first day i had bought a ticket for one of theses broadway musicals at the Times Square. The musical i had chosen is called "Wicked". I chose this, because i had never seen it before. So it was a nice surprise :). The name of the theatre as far as i remember was "Gershwin Theatre".
On my last day in New York, the 3rd of April, i went to the Bronx Zoo with my two room mates from the hostel, which was for free that day, because it's for free every wednesday of the week :).
So this visit was quite nice, especially because it was for free. I didn't have much else to do anyway, and this was a nice idea, because my flight was in the evening at 8:40 pm, so i had time almost the whole day. Well in the end i couldn't stay as long as i had expected because to get to the Zoo from the hostel was around 1,5 hours! So i had to calculate some time to get back to the hostel, and then from there to the airport, wich probably also took 1 to 1,5 hours...
Arriving at this subway station which seemed to be not too far away, i tried to find out whether there is was a bus to make the last distance, which was left between me and the hostel. I asked around everwhere for like 1 hour. Noone could help me, not even the people who worked for the the subway. Then i decided to go to the Dunkin Donuts around the corner, which had free wifi, and look for buses on the internet. But this was not very successful either. So i don't know... after 2 or 3 hours of trying to find a bus, i finally gave up and decided to walk to the hostel. This took me another 1-2 hours. I had arrived at 11 o'clock in the morning in New York, and at the time when i got to this hostel it was already 5pm!!
After checking in into the hostel i first of all took a shower. Then i decided to go to town to some of the famous locations which you should see as a tourist. The first place which i decided to go to is the "Times Square". On this day the time Square was overfull, because (i didn't know at this point) it was the easter weekend. If you travel too long you don't seem to think about these events.
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| The Times Square on my first evening in New York |
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| The Times Square on my first evening in New York |
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| The Times Square on my last day in New York |
On my second day in New York i decided to see some more "have to" sights in the city. One of them is the 9/11 memorial. To get there was a horrible torture. First of all i had to wait at least for 1 hour in a queue, in order to get into an airport-like security control. I cannot tell whether it was 1 or 2 hours, but it was really annoying. So after a very long time of waiting i was finally allowed to enter the memorial area. The memorial consists of two square shaped pools which are supposibly exactly at the location where the old world trade centre twin towers used to stand.
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| the 9/11 memorial |
Not far from the memorial you can see how they already build up the new World Trade centre. It's interesting to see how fast this whole thing progressed! The terrorists were like, " ha ha you fu**in' captialism asses, we kicked down one of the most important buildings of the financial district in New York!!" And approximately 10 years later this is the answer of the capitalsm people: They simply built a new one which is even nicer and taller then the old world trade centre. As you can see on the picture the building is not yet 100% complete. But almost. Until the completion of the new World Trade Centre the Empire State Building is offically the tallest building in town.
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| the new World Trade Centre (still under construction) |
Right after my visit of the 9/11 memorial i decided to take the ferry to Staten Island (which is for free :D ) , from which you can see the Statue of Liberty, as people told me. From this ferry you also have a very nice view on the Skyline of New York. At the time when i got to the ferry it was already about 5 o'clock pm i guess. This shows how long i had to wait just in order to see this 9/11 memorial.
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| Skyline of New York as seen from the Staten Island ferry |
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| The Statue of Liberty |
After our visit of the Yankee Stadium we decided to go to the botanic garden, which is also located in the Bronx. After we had arrived their we saw that an antry ticket to the garden was 25$. This really pissed me off, because i had travelled all around the world and been to many botanic gardens. And never ever did i have to pay a single cent to get in.
So after our unsucessful try to go to the botanic garden we returned to Manhatten. There we decided to go for a little walk in China Town and Little Italy. My two mates were from Italy and they assured me that Little Italy doesn't look like Italy at all. It's all tourist crap. However from the street where we walked in we could see the Empire State building :).
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| street with Empire State Building in New York |
The next thing which we did was a georgeous idea of one of my mates. You probably know that TV series "How i met your mother". So the idea was to go to that Irish Pub of the TV series. The pub was quite easy to find. It's called "Mc Gee's Irish Pub". Of course this is not the Irish pub where the recorded all the Episodes - this pub only exists in a hollywood studio... But the Irish pub of the series and many of the stories were orignally inspired by this pub. So this is the real, original Mc Gees Irish pub :) .
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| me and one of my mates in the Mc Gee's pub from "How I met your mother" |
After our visit of Mc Gee's we headed over to a skybar. We didn't have to pay any admission to get up there, which was a great thing :) ! From the top of this skybar we could see almost the whole city, including the Empire state building.
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| New York City as seen from the rooftop of a Skybar at night |
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| The Central Park in New York |
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| Advertising Sign for the Wicket Musical |
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| Infront of the musical Theatre |
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| Elphaba the witch in the Musical Wicked |
So this visit was quite nice, especially because it was for free. I didn't have much else to do anyway, and this was a nice idea, because my flight was in the evening at 8:40 pm, so i had time almost the whole day. Well in the end i couldn't stay as long as i had expected because to get to the Zoo from the hostel was around 1,5 hours! So i had to calculate some time to get back to the hostel, and then from there to the airport, wich probably also took 1 to 1,5 hours...
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| Entrance Gate of the Bronx Zoo |
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| Grizzly Bear in the Bronx Zoo |
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