• Los Angeles Day #1

    21 Oktober 2019, Amerika Serikat ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    A bit of a quiet day today.

    This morning I left the bustling Las Vegas for a very short 40-minute flight to Long Beach in California (not very long from Los Angeles).

    I’ve been to California a lot of times by now (10 probably?) but this is my first visit to Long Beach.

    I arrived at my hotel around 1 pm and was able to check in early which was nice. Additionally, my reservation had been upgraded to a very large room that actually spans two floors (sounds like I’m still in Vegas!). On the first floor, or on a sort of landing, the bedroom is placed while there is a living room on the ground floor. Very fancy.

    The room also features a nice water view, where the famous Queen Mary and the cruise ships can be seen in the distance.

    After getting settled at the hotel, and getting some tacos for lunch, I went to the Aquarium of the Pacific, a large aquarium and animal sanctuary near the harbour. It was a pretty big place, with lots of fishies to see. They had otters too - one of the cutest animals ever. Nice place for sure.

    After returning to my hotel, I enjoyed the pool for a bit, and the lovely weather. It was over 30 degrees here Celcius, which is a nice change from the other places I’ve visited where it has been fairly cold for the most part. Even in the evening it’s warm and comfortable which I love.

    Closing out the day, I had dinner at a nice seaside seafood restaurant close to the hotel 🐟
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  • Las Vegas Day #2

    20 Oktober 2019, Amerika Serikat ⋅ 🌙 15 °C

    Long day here in Vegas!

    This morning I went out for a walk along The Strip, visiting a number of the enormous casinos/resorts along the way, such as: Caesars Palace, The Mirage, The Venetian, MGM Grand and others. These are basically some of the biggest hotels in the world, and they are indeed massive.

    Aside from the casinos, they also house a number of shops, restaurants and entertainment venues for comedy, theater, magic, concerts etc. While I have been to Vegas before, it’s always super impressive how everything is on such a grand scale. Totally over the top.

    At Caesars Palace I had a nice lunch, and later I visited the local Madame Tussaud’s museum. I was also contemplating visiting exhibits dedicated to the Avengers and Hunger Games movies, but both were fairly expensive.

    I also visited Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. A nice little enclave as part of the Mirage; they have pools for the dolphins, and cages housing white tigers and lions, among other exotic animals.

    Siegfried & Roy used to have a popular show in Las Vegas, involving actual tigers and lions as part of the show.

    I actually saw Siegfried himself today! I don’t think he usually hangs out there so that was a nice surprise.

    Later in the day I also got a chance to hang out by my lovely hotel pool for a while to enjoy the sunny weather.

    In the evening I went to the MGM Grand to try their famous buffet for dinner. They have a huge selection of dishes, as well as an extensive dessert menu. Always fun to try!

    I then headed over to the Hard Rock Hotel which is located in a fairly weird location away from the main Strip area. Anyway, they had an interesting exhibit at the resort, and I concluded the evening by watching the show “Raiding The Rock Vault”.

    It was basically a rock band that played covers of some of the biggest rock classics from the 70s and 80s. They played a lot of songs, covering music from artists such as Queen, Def Leppard, AC/DC, The Eagles, Bon Jovi and many more. The band did a great job and it was a good show!
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  • Philadelphia Day #2 + Las Vegas Day #1

    19 Oktober 2019, Amerika Serikat ⋅ 🌙 22 °C

    After leaving the hotel this morning, I headed back to the historic district of Philadelphia to check out the National Constition Center. This a big museum with several interesting exhibits related to the founding fathers of the US.

    Among other things, the museum had various drafts of both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, as well as letters exchanged between the founders, and much more. Very nice museum with so much history to explore.

    Following a short walk, it was already time to leave Philadelphia again, so I headed to the airport for my flight to Las Vegas.

    Flying all the way across the country to Vegas took a little over 5 hours, but I won back three of those thanks to the time difference.

    Once in Vegas, I went to the luxurious Waldorf-Astoria where I’ll be enjoying my two-night stay.

    My room is lovely and has a really nice view of the famous Las Vegas strip.

    After settling at my hotel, I went to the nearby T Mobile Arena to catch a live show with a living legend: Phil Collins. It’s the last show of his tour (perhaps his last ever?) so I’m really glad I saw it.

    The performance was great, and he had an amazing band with him, including his teenage son on drums, and Leland Sklar on bass, who ironically played with Toto when I saw them a couple of years ago. He played many of the big hits, and his voice still sounds great.

    A nice way to conclude my first night in Vegas!
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  • Philadelphia Day #1

    18 Oktober 2019, Amerika Serikat ⋅ 🌙 13 °C

    Early this morning I left New York City for the city of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. The train ride from Penn Station was less than 90 minutes and passed by in a breeze.

    It's my first time visiting Philadelphia, so it's pretty exciting. After visiting the local Hard Rock Café for lunch (a tradition when I'm travelling!) I walked around for a while in the city, exploring some of the historic neighborhoods. Ultimately I arrived in the most historic of them all, where I saw the Liberty Bell, and visited Independence Hall, the "birthplace of the United States" where the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were signed.

    Later, I walked some more in the city and eventually made my way to the famous Philadelphia Museum of Art. The steps leading up there are arguably more famous than the museum itself, since those steps featured in one of the most famous movie scenes of all time, when Sylvester Stallone runs up the steps in "Rocky" from 1976. To this day people still run up those steps to re-create the iconic scene from the movie.

    There is also a Rocky statue close by, another popular tourist spot!

    It was definitely fun to see both of these landmarks, and try to run up those steps myself ;)

    After exploring more of the city and walking back to my hotel, I had some dinner and called it a night.
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  • New York Day #4

    17 Oktober 2019, Amerika Serikat ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    Last day in New York!

    After leaving my hotel this morning, and checking into a different one for my final day, I went for another walk around the Midtown area primarily.

    Some of the stops I made along the way include: Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, Grand Central Station and other places nearby.

    Over the afternoon I went on a movie and TV location tour where we drove around for a couple of hours (from Midtown to Uptown and back), to see a bunch of different locations used on the screen. When we were stopped in a specific location, a TV on the bus would show clips from a show or movie filmed right there.

    While I had seen most of the locations before, the tour guide was very entertaining and made it a fun tour.

    Following the tour, I visited a museum with a James Bond exhibit. They had some props, one of the iconic Bond cars, and some storyboards and stuff.

    I then went back to the infamous soup place for, well, more soup! They have a lot of different ones so it’s fun to try different flavors.

    In the evening I caught another Broadway show: this time the show “Secret” by the British illusionist Derren Brown. He’s done a number of shows over the past 20 years or so, both for the stage and TV.

    Among other things he’s done is predict the lottery numbers (allegedly), convincing an innocent man to confess a (made up) murder, and another where he had students tricked into committing a robbery.

    Tonight’s show was less dramatic, but very impressive. He would pick random members of the audience and be able to tell their names, for example, or a word they would be thinking of. It’s hard to explain the show but it was really impressive and interesting to see it live.

    From the official description: “Derren Brown: Secret transports audiences into the startling world of mind-reading, suggestion and psychological illusion. This theatrical experience challenges audiences to take a closer look at the stories and beliefs that guide their lives.”

    That wraps up my last evening in NYC!
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  • New York Day #3

    16 Oktober 2019, Amerika Serikat ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    Another exciting day in the Big Apple! (And another 20,000 steps walked).

    This morning I decided to go for a long walk, from the Times Square West area on 42nd street all the way Downtown to Ground Zero.

    It was quite a nice walk where I passed by a number of attractions, such as Macy’s, The Empire State Building, the Flatiron Building and several of the smaller parks, like Washington Square Park with the famous arch.

    Eventually I arrived at Ground Zero where the new Freedom Tower stands (One World Trade Center), the tallest building in the US. Now known as The World Trade Center site, this is of course the place where the twin towers once stood.

    On the same site, they have opened the National September 11 Museum which I visited for the first time. It was very interesting, and fascinating to see debris, and a number of things recovered from the site. There was a huge exhibit inside that told the story of what happened on 9/11, second by second. And all of the aftermath.

    Definitely a sobering and interesting experience.

    After visiting the museum, I stopped by “The Oculus”, or rather the Westfield shopping center that is the centerpiece of it.

    I then took the subway back uptown and found an Olive Garden restaurant where I had some lovely Italian food.

    After the food, I went to see New York’s version of the Tussaud’s wax museum. I’ve been before, but they do rotate the exhibits so it’s never the same. It was definitely fun to see that museum again 👍

    It has been raining pretty heavily in the city today so I went back to the hotel to spend a little time before heading back out again.

    I eventually boarded a bus headed for a concert in Englewood, New Jersey of all places where I went to see Toto live once again! Funnily I think it was also in the New York area I saw them last time.

    It’s been over 20 years since I first saw Toto live, but it’s still a great experience, and the setlist offers selections from a career spanning more than four decades. Great live show!

    After Toto, I went back to Manhattan and finished my day in the hotel.
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  • New York Day #2

    15 Oktober 2019, Amerika Serikat ⋅ 🌙 12 °C

    My first full day in New York City. Well, I've been to NYC a number of times before. This is probably my tenth visit or so. It's one of my favorite places to visit, so it's great to be back :)

    I didn't really have any specific plans for this day, so I ended up going to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum not too far from my hotel. This is a fascinating place, hosting a submarine, a retired Concorde plane, and a huge aircraft carrier/navy ship that has a number of exhibits, including a retired Space Shuttle!

    I've obviously never flown a Concorde (tickets used to cost as much as ten grand for a roundtrip flight between NYC and London) so it was fun to see one of them inside, and get a tour of the cockpit as well.

    I also saw the inside of a submarine used during the cold war, and of course the massive aircraft carrier Intrepid.

    There was also a number of aircraft on display, and an exhibition featuring an actual NASA Space Shuttle - the Enterprise (yes, named after Star Trek).

    Definitely an interesting experience - and one I haven't visited in NYC before.

    Later in the day, I went for a walk around Midtown New York, including a walk through the beautiful Central Park, and visiting some of the popular locations in Manhattan, such as 5th Avenue, Rockefeller Center, Times Square and Columbus Circle. While I've visited all those places a number of times before, it's always a great time.

    I had lunch from the infamous "soup nazi" of Seinfeld fame. In reality, the service is great and the soup is delicious.

    After walking some 20,000 steps around central Manhattan, I went back to my hotel briefly, and then visited a nearby Broadway theatre to see a play called Betrayal. Starring Tom Hiddleston and Charlie Cox (both of Marvel fame) the play was a very bare-bones experience with a basic set, and just the actors on stage. It was not a bad play by any means, but not super impressive either.

    Following my time on Broadway, I had dinner at a lovely restaurant close to the hotel.
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