San Francisco - 26.02.-11.03.

On the 25th of February i took a night bus to San Francisco. I arrived there in the early morning of the 26th at around 8 o'clock i guess. I was really tired from the bus ride, so i went to sleep for some hours, especially, because i still felt a bit sick. I woke up again in the afternoon. I went down into the lounge, where i played some pool, with some Australian people from the hostel. In the evening, we went to a greek restaurant, where i had some nice pasta noodles.

On the next day, the 27th, i decided to make a small trip through town to the famous Golden Gate Bridge. I walked to the middle of the bridge and took loads of photos as you can see down below.

Golden Gate Bridge

Me at the Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco is really a beautiful city. I really like it. There are many small shops, stores, cafes and bars. Bars where you can for example hear live music and so on. The hostel i stayed in is in a street called "Broadway". Here i have two pictures, which i took while walking along Broadway.

photo taken out of Broadway

crossing a street in Broadway

I stayed in San Francisco for probably almost 2 weeks, which is why i didn't write everything down exactly, and i cannot remember in detail either everything i have done. But one thing i can certainly remember is the day, we went to the Red Woods, which are not far in the north of San Francisco. Some of these trees are more than 1000 years. On the foto down below i am standing infront of one of the oldest which is probably about 1300 years old!

me infront of a 1300 old red wood tree

Someone once told me that if you see an old and big gree you should give it a hug, because then the the tree would live longer. So i decided to give this approx. 1300 old tree a hug, as seen on the next photo ;).

me huggin the approx. 1300 year old "Parson Jones"

I saw some more big trees. The following foto shows  how the tree looks like if you look up to the top from the the ground , standing right next to it.

tree as seen from the ground

Officially you are not allowed to touch or get closer than 2 to 3 meters to the oldest trees. But there were some big old trees were they didn't have any signs which forbade this. So i hugged another tree, which i found on the way :) .

me hugging another red wood tree

Some of these trees were emty inside, because a fire had burned out the inside of the tree. As someone told us this doesn't really affect the tree, because the inside of the tree is dead material anyway. The only thing which really is alive is the outside of the tree: the bark and so on. This seems to be the reason why most of these trees, which had a hole inside were still alive and growing leaves. Some trees, and the holes inside the tree were so big, that at least 5 persons would fit inside as you can see on the next picture!

some of my mates standing inside of a red wood tree

me right after leaving the red wood tree - looking confused

In order to get to the red wood trees i had taken a tour bus, which, on the way back, drove along the west coast of the states. So on the way back we stopped at some nice cliffs. Where some of my mates took this picture of me.

me on the West Coast of the USA on the way back from the Red Woods

During my last days in San Francisco i went to the so called "Haight Street" in San Francisco, which is officaly some kind of Hippie Street. The Street looks very colorful and there are many small and nice shops in this street. On of these shops was selling all kind of different T-Shirts with funny printings on the front. I let my mate take a picture infront of this T-Shirt wall.

The Haight Street in San Francisco

Me infront of the T-Shirt Wall in a shop in Haight Street

After our visit of Haight street we went to the Park in San Francisco, which was really nice, because people were playing drums there. In the Park we ate a burrito which we had bought in a small Mexican Shop in Haight Street. This Burrito was the best and biggest Burrito, which i had ever had - and also the cheapest! It was actually also the first one i ever had. Quite a good combination.

Las Vegas & Birthday - 24.02.2013

In the night of the 23rd of February we arrived in Las Vegas. We had come all the way from the Antelope canyon from Arizona that day. For the next two nights we would stay in a hotel/casino, which looks like a castle. The name of the hotel was Excalibur. For the 2 nights with 3 people we payed around 100$ for the room, so about 33$ per person for 2 nights, which is quite cheap.

the Excalibur Castle

On the 24th of February, which is my birthday, i woke up in this hotel room. I took a shower. Then we went to a shopping centre in town. I stayed at the shopping centre for 1 or 2 ours and then decided to go back to the hotel, while the others wanted to go shopping for a bit longer. Back in the hotel i started searching for something to eat. So i walked around and into other hotels, like for example the MGM hotel/Casino.

Las Vegas at day, on the left the "New York! New York!- Hotel" on the left the MGM hotel

I couldn't really find anything useful in theses hotels. Everything was so expensive and i didn't find anything vegetarian for myself. So i decided to go back to the Excalibur hotel. There i was lucky, because i found a nice all you can eat buffet, for around 30$, were i could eat and drink as much as i wanted from dawn until dusk. I decided to buy a ticket for a whole day, and then started eating.

After i was finished i met with the others. We relaxed a bit in the hotel room. Then i went back to the buffet to have dinner. After that we all went for a small walk through Las Vegas, which was quite fun with all the lights.

"New York! New York!- Hotel and MGM at night

a street of Las Vegas at night

After this walk through town we went back to the hotel, were we decided to play some games in the casino. First i tried to play Roulette, but i lost 20$ in the first round. So i stopped, and tried to play Black Jack instead. There i won 15$ back.
I sould have stopped at this point because i was only with 5$ in minus. However i also wanted to win these last 5$ back.  Okay instead i ended up with 45$ minus. So the minimum amount to play was 10$. I borought a 5$ chip from my mate, and won 35$ back.
So i gave him back his 5$. And was again in minus with 20$, like right after the Roulette game. I believed that i could perhaps win back the 20$. But again i lost all the 30$.
So this is were i stopped and decided to give up.
These games are not fair, they are made so the casino wins most of the time.
So in total i lost 50$, which is a bit annoying, but it was still fun to play :) .
And if you convert it to euros, it's only around 35 euros , which is not that much of a loss.

Antelope Canyon - 23.02.2013

So after watching the Colorado River we went for a trip to the Antelope Canyon. This canyon has some beautiful shapes. Depending from which angle you look at the canyon walls, and from the light which falls into the canyon, you can see different kinds of shapes and figures. Our guide pointed all these things out for us. I really enjoyed the walk through this small but very nice canyon. See the pictures down below.

entry of the antelope canyon

the antelope canyon start

me at the antelope canyon start

shape of a heart in the antelope canyon

Grand Canyon Nationalpark - 22.02.2013

On the 22nd of February i joined the people who i had met in Los Angeles and followed them to the Grand Canyon National Park. Originally i had been thinking about driving a bit, but the condition of my flu had become a lot worse, so i slept most of the time in the car. It felt a bit like being under the influence of alcohol, i would definitely not have been able to drive. However after maybe 10 hours in the car we finally arrived at the Grand Canyon National Park, at maybe around 3 or 4 pm.
It had snowed over night, so it was quite cold in the National Park. Because i was really sick i didn't feel like going for a longer hike into the canyon or along the canyon. On top of that because of the snow some of the stairs down into the canyon were closed, so it was not possible to walk down anyway.
So we drove a bit with the car along the canyon which was still very impressive. This canyon is so huge. I might look 'normal' on these pictures, but i felt really sick that day.

this is me standing on top of the grand canyon :)

me standing at the grand canyon at sunset

After watching the sunset we decided to go to sleep. In order to save some money we decided to sleep in the car. Well it was not 100% comfortable, but cheap. During the night, we somehow made our way to the so called Antelope canyon, because our driver sometimes couldn't sleep and decided to drive instead. So on the next day, we were near the Antelope canyon. In the morning we first went to see the Colorado river. We were at a special point were the river almost made a 360 degree circle/curve. Okay maybe you don't see it on this picture ever, but i felt even worse on this day, than on the day before.

this is not the grand canyon !!!!

Los Angeles - 19.02.2013

On the 19th of February at around 10 pm i left the Fiji islands and i arrived in Los Angeles California on the same day at around 12 o'clock noon. This was the first time in my life that i ever traveled backwards in time. The security control at the airport was anoying: first i had to wait 1.5 hours at the passport control, and then i got into an extra security check where they unpacked my whole backpack and analyzed every single part of it. So after a long time in the airport of LA i finally left the airport at around 3 pm. I guess at around 4 or 5 pm i arrived at my hostel in LA which was near the Hollywood Boulevard. I was so tired from the flight that i slept for the rest of the day. On top of that, i somehow had become sick during the flight. It seemed to be some kind of flu.

When i woke up i had a real sore throat. I went down to the kitchen to have some tea. There i met a guy from japan, from china and from austria. I got into a conversation with them and they told me that they were planning to go to the grand canyon soon. They also told me that they had rented a car.
We talked until late midnight, and well in the end we figured out that i might come with them to the grand canyon , because the canyon was something i've wanted to see anyway, too.

On the next day i had breakfast, where i met the people from the day before. I still felt a bit sick. They asked me whether i wanted to come with them to the beach. I had planned something else, but spontaneously decided to come with them, and blew my plans in the wind for this day. So we went together to Venice Beach and to the beach in Santa Monica. After that we went to a place to watch the Hollywood sign :). I would have liked to touch it. But it's not possible to hike closer to this sign.

After watching this sign and taking some photos, we went to the Griffith Observatory, which was really interesting. From there you have a beautiful sight all over the city and also the sunset could be seen quite nice. On this day i unfortunately forgot my camera in the hostel. But the others took lots of photos. So i will upload some of them some day.

On my 3rd day in LA i felt really horribly sick. The flu had become a lot worse. I nevertheless tried to motivate myself to do something. So i decided to walk along the walk of fame, which is settled in the Hollywood Boulevard - only about 100 meters away from the hostel.
While walking through town i noticed that people were building up stuff for the oscars event.
I found a nice shopping centre from where i could see the hollywood sign :) ! .

hollywood sign as seen from a shopping centre in hollywood boulevard

After taking a picture of the hollywood sign, i walked on and ran into some people who were dressed up as movie charakters. I had heard before that these people were homeless people , who dressed up as movie characters, in order to get some tip. I took some photos with some of these people and gave them a nice tip.

me and a movie character at hollywood boulevard

me and darth vader and a clone warrior at hollywood boulevard :)