daniel_san's experiences

bla

2010-02-14T15:58:00.000-08:00

snow

2009-12-29T19:02:00.001-08:00

Autumn in Pittsburgh

2009-11-19T20:02:00.000-08:00

Road trip USA 2009 - 14th day to the end - back in Pittsburgh again

2009-11-13T16:44:00.000-08:00

In the morning of the last day of our trip, we were somewhere in the state of Ohio the last state before entering Pennsilvania. I have been driving almost all the night and will continue until we arrive at home. It was so damn cold in the car because of the not really working heating and I was just so tired. Karsten and Johannes were sleeping and I took some pictures out of the car while driving. No more desert now, more forest in the fall's various colours.

Sunrise

After Johannes left the country heading home again, Karsten and I were on a kind of sightseeing tour trough Pittsburgh. Our new car again:

The fall is really beautiful here, I don't know if its the same in Germany. If so it has never catched my eye before like this.

The skyline of Pittsburgh today...

...and 60 years ago. Actually it is just a different camera setting (unfortunately I found out that there is this setting first today, pictures look pretty cool this way), pictures are supposed to look old, kind of worn-out...

oh not this again, our car:

and another car, too many pictures of cars...

We went to a restaurant that used to be a church. In fact it is now not only a restaurant it's also a brewery. You can see the brewing containers and equipment in the background. They brew a lot of different beers there. One of them is brewed where the altar used to be. Also can see there are still monks in the church:

A great restaurant chain and even better confectionery here in the USA is called cheesecake factory. There is delicious food and even better cheesecake. Karsten is eating a burger again, he can't get enough as if we wouldn't have eaten enough of this stuff on our trip. Served with fries and Heinz Ketchup from Pittsburgh.

Yummy cheesecake and the doggy bag because serving are so big here you can impossibly eat he whole thing and a cheesecake.

We have also been to the Hofbräuhaus Pittsburgh, having some beers.

So that's the last picture of our trip this year. It was much too short so we will certainly do this again but with more time and on another route. We have seen a lot but there is so much left to see in this big and versatile country...

so it is not The end ... to be continued!

Road trip USA 2009 - 13th day - on the road - St.Louis - Indianapolis

2009-11-13T16:42:00.000-08:00

On the way towards Pittsburgh somewhere before St. Louis,Mo (Missouri):

We had to stop a couple of times to inflate the right rear tire of our car. It had some kind of puncture. It held the air for some hours but not forever. By the way the air allways costs 75 Cents. That is really expensive compared to Germany where it is for free. When this picture was taken I was still sleeping... it was early in the morning and before we stopped I slept in the rear of the car.

The famous National Expansion Jefferson Memorial (Gateway Arch) of St. Louis also known as gateway to the west. It is built to remind of the setlement of the western US:

Some other Memorial in Indianapolis,Indiana where we went by on our way home:

The streets of Indianapolis, steamy:

Road trip USA 2009 - 12th day - breakdown - breakfast - break even (car screwed - solution finding - trade old for older)

2009-11-13T16:36:00.000-08:00

Last night our real cool and till now reliable californian car kind of broke down, damn thing;) The engine was still running smoothly but suddenly it began to shake and jiggle as we drove more than about 40MPh. At first it shook only a little bit but as we tried to go on it began to shake like hell and it was getting worse and worse so we had to interupt our journey prematurely. Pittsburgh was still about 2000 miles away. Bull shit! We pulled over the next highway exit.
At this moment we were somewhere before Santa Fe, in the middle of New Mexico. It was in the middle of the night so the first thing that came to our minds was to go to sleep and try to figure something out the next morning. It is always good to sleep on problems to not act with precipitation.
As you can imagine we weren't in the best mood the following morning. Especially Karsten looks very sad that day. Poor guy, ohh;)

Some car in Santa Fe with a lot of political stickers. Some ar quite funny:

As things tourned out this day we were quite lucky under this circumstances because we happened to hit exactley the right highway exit.
When we woke up in the morning the first thing we did was trying to find a mechanic to estimate the damage on our car to know if we can afford to get it fixed. We left the car at the first mechanic we could find and went to have an extensive breakfast or rather brunch while waiting for the estimation.
After finishing our meal we went back to the garage where the guy told us that our car would have some problem with the transmission. This was the worst case. Although the mechanic was not able to figure out the exact problem it was clear that we couldn't afford get the car fixed. It would propably cost a lot more than the car was worth. The mechanic gave us some names of other garages known for their specialized transmission knowledge and adresses of used car dealers in the area. It turned out that there were a lot of them around.
We went to some of the garages to get another opinion about our junk car. Some told us that it would cost only 200$ and it would only take 2 hours to fix it others and that was what it really was said there were a problem with the transmission. A bearing witthin the transmission was broken and to replace this would be more than 800$ or so.
Another soltution had to be found now. Our options were to buy another car but then we still had to get rid of the broken one, to rent a car or to fly home respectively go by train or bus. So it happened that we were looking for another car first because that seemed to be the best way. If we wouldn't have found one we would have rented one, plan B.
Fortunately we were quite lucky that day cause we found a mechanic who was willling to take our car and also provide us with another one he had to sell. Awesome! The other car was 2 years older than ours but the same brand and model, the heating was broken, it had a scratch in the windshild, the slide doors didn't open and the rigth rear tire had some kind of a punture. Despite everything it seemed like a good deal to us, despite the damage on our car the guy was willing to trade, we accepted.
BTW his car was advertised for 1200$ and still running so we couldnt do anything wrong with this deal...So again I was signing a purchasing contract and now we had a new mexican car instead of a carlifornian one. Not bad at all if you consider our situation. The good thing about the car was among others that it has this skull hood ornament which was pretty cool and also it came with tinted windows, it was nice blue instead of khaki brown something, much better!
If you think about it, it was no good deal it was great one!!! By the way it's a Plymouth Grand Voyager SE 3.3l 201Cl V6 from 1990!!! Pretty old but still running. The guy who sold us the ride, pretty big earlobe:

New license palte - new mexico state of enchantment:)

Back on the road in New Mexiko, kind of bleak and deserted:

a typical western mill:

really, reeeaallllly long straight roads

nice picture:

the name says it all:

route 66:

yummy Mountain Dew!

entering Texas, the last state we were driving through today:

Road trip USA 2009 - 11th day - Las Vegas - Hoover Dam and the desert

2009-11-13T16:05:00.000-08:00

Our hotel room in the Excalibur in the morning, we are about to leave:

Before going back on the road we were getting some beers, gambling a little bit and riding a rollercoaster near the hotel.

After that we were in a realy good mood and could have stayed in LV for another day or two. Unfortunately we didn't have time cause we were already kind of not right on schedule so we had to leave today. You never know what intervenes your plans as you will see the following day...

Bye bye Las Vegas, it was a short but very nice time we had with you!

Originally we intended to stop by the grand canyon on our way home, also we wanted to see mount rushmore but that was not possible anymore due to our extended stay in San Francisco and LA, so we went straight towards Pittsburgh. Nice desert landscape:

A boat in the desert...

...and an igloo:

Why don't we use this road and why the hell are there so many power poles?

Oh thats why, the road isn't finished yet and there is a hydroelectric power plant, the Hoover Dam. We didn't intend to go by there but it was a nice surprise.

Here we go, back on the road again after the short excursion to the dam. Oh oh things in the mirror are always closer than they appear. That's not good at all in this case:)

Leaving Nevada, entering Arizona. This would have been the state where we could have visited the Grand Canyon.

Weird looking landscape here, I've never seen such a scenery before:

Last stop, make sure you got everything you need, like gas and water...

...and we stopped by. Looks like foreigners from far far away have been here before sometimes or are still around?

Maybe behind this fence?

And really there they are, can you see the UFO in the background?! Come to us little friends we won't do you any harm! They flew away without greeting us:(

The sun sets and this day will soon be over.

Road trip USA 2009 - 10th day - Las Vegas

2009-11-13T15:49:00.000-08:00

The night before that day we drove from Tijuana almost to Las Vegas (550km). Because we were all very tired and it was like 4am or so as we approched Las Vegas we stopped about 10 miles in front of the city and parked our car somewhere by the side of the road to sleep. Unfortunately we blocked a driveway of a company. We didn't noticed that in the darkness. So it happened that sometimes during the night we were runned off by an employee of this company and we had to repark our car some hundred meters further down the street. It was very unpleasant to be woken up in the middle of the night and have to drive then.
In the mornig we woke up here...

...in the middle of the dessert but not far from Las Vegas,

Karsten was demounting some plate from this fence. Free souvenir!

He's got it!

After weaking up and stealing plates and so on we hit the road to enter Las Vegas, find a hotel and party then. On this picture, Las Vegas, in the middle of the Mojave desert:

Before we checked in at a hotel we had to eat something:

yummie fries:

Downtown Las Vegas:

The first thing we did befoe checking in a hotel was gambling a little bit at the Mirage casino. You get free drinks if you gamble here, even if you only spend your time at a 1Cent per game gaming machine, very convenient! Also it is allowed to walk on the streets with alcohol (i think so because everyone did it), I think the only place in the USA where this is legal. Cool. A good place to party.

I think this is Cesars Palace.

Hotels are pretty cheap here because the casinos want you to spend all your money gambling. This was our hotel: Excalibur!

Downtown Las Vegas at night.

Short side trip to Paris,

and New York;)

Pollo loco was already closed, only the drive trough still open so we had to "drive" trough,

and eat outside, nice place what?

Spongebob:

Inside some casino, you can't say if it's day or night, no windows:

After dinner we spent the whole night gambling drinking and walking around in the Casino.

Road trip USA 2009 - 9th day - heading Tijuana and Las Vegas

2009-11-13T15:36:00.000-08:00

After we went swimming this morning in the ocean at Hermosa beach and had breakfast at the hostel we set off to our next stop on the trip, Tijuana, Mexico. We still wanted to drive on the Pacific Coast Highway but as we neither had a GPS nor maps we asked somebody for directions and he accidentally also was on the way towards this road so we followed him (white VW van):

Some LA industrial area:

There we go, Pacific Coast Highway and a fair:

VW van with welded on VW beetle on the roof, funny:

We took a break at the beach, oil rig in the background:

Quick Karate exercicse at the beach:

I got my flu shot, did you? Sticker of the forme owner of the car:

We had still a beautiful view on this highway, this is much better than driving in the heartland even if it takes much longer.

We took another break, here was an military base near by. A lot of helicopters in the air besides seagulls. Looks like they are having some sort of competition:

Our car after 1000Miles, still running:

Quick smoking break, we had to get rid of the stuff before entering Mexico...;)

Back on the road again:

The last day we were underway at the coast we wanted to see the sunset above the sea because we had missed it the days before. So we drove somwhere towards the ocean.

Almost too late again:)

There we go:

Someone was hunting for a treasure here:

On the pier:

Military helicopters again:

After watching the sunset we were heading Mexico again and finally arrived at the border to Tijuana:

If we would have changed our mind there would have been still the possibility of a u-turn back to USA:

Because we had no place to stay in Tijuana and didn't want to sleep in the car, we stayed only a few ours there, had some beers at a bar that were really cheap like everything compared to US prices, and went on to head Las Vegas this night. To party in Tijuana must be really cool so we will come back sometimes - at the latest on the next road trip. US-mexican border, the reverse side:

Road trip USA 2009 - 8th day - LA(Hermosa beach, Venice Beach, Hollywood again)

2009-11-13T15:22:00.000-08:00

The view from our hostel room this morning. Right on the beach where we went the day after that to swim. The water was still warm yet invigorating.

A Monster Truck, there are a lot of them here in California. Kind of cool..if you have one. This will be our car on the next road trip;)

We are in the Armi state here. Reigned by the Governator;)

Grafiti at Venice Beach

Venice Beach

Nice skate park here. I've never in my life seen so many skateboarders as I've seen in the last 4 days in California. Maybe because skateboarding was kind of invented here somewhere.

Awesome pictures of flying skaters:

And now awesome pictures of us flying on the beach:

One of the funniest pictures of this trip, supermans:

and again:

Later that day we drove to the walk of fame again to find some stars. Here they are:

Not intended to find this guy but what the hell?!

A smoke shop again with huge bongs:

Jimi, yeah, niauauau verzerrverzerr wauauauieauneaaaaauuuu...

The doors, I'm wondering where the windows are.

We tried to make funny faces like Johannes and Karsten and I know I did maybe just too late.

We don't like the police, no matter which country:)

Because we were kind of on shedule on our trip (who really knows) we decided to stay one more day in the hostel at Hermosa beach what we didn't intend originally.

Road trip USA 2009 - 7th day - Santa Monica - LA (Hollywood, Beverly Hills....) - Hermosa Beach

2009-11-13T15:12:00.000-08:00

We woke up on a hill at the cost where we parked yesterday night. It was foggy this morning and we were situated before Santa Monica beach right next to Los Angeles.

After a short breakfast consisting of cereals without milk respectively with orange juice, bähh, we were heading Los Angeles.

Nice old beetle:

Now we were hungry and went to some small fast food restaurant where you have to be nice. No problem for us.

LA:

A fratenity house near the University of California Los Angeles.

Entering Beverly Hills and driving below the speed limt;)

We happened to find a small art fair and stopped by to see what's up there.

The world is a licence plate.

Now we are in Hollywood or at least near to.

We tried to find the Hollywood sign to climb up the letters or take pictures in front of them but we got lost in some narrow street where we found a lot of peculiar houses. For example this one.

Again the Skyline of Los Angeles. If there were no smog you could see a lot of skyscrapers.

Very very small and illegible you can see the Hollywood sign in the background. We tried to come there for 4 hours or so but finally abandoned this plan cause it was getting late and we had other things to do.

Zoom.

Instead of the Hollywood sign we found this nice lake, Lake Hollywood.

Walk of fame and smoke shop:

Nice car, we took so many pictures of cars but this really is a beauty isn't it?

After driving through LA all day long we headed the hostel where we planed to stay the night. We arrived there at about 11pm or so and were happy to take a shower after 3 days and two nights without. We saw a lot this day. LA is such a big city as far as area is concerned. It took us about 50km and 1 hour to drive from Hollywood to our hostel which is also situated in LA. And it is not even at the city border. Huge city.

Road trip USA 2009 - 6th day - SF - heading to LA - Hystoric Pacific Coast Highway

2009-11-13T14:31:00.000-08:00

After spending the night in the car the first time (not the last one), we found ourselves situated near the Golden Gate Bridge. It was covered in fog this morning:

Alcatraz:

Nice neighborhood:

San Francisco in the early morning fog:

Driving towards downtown San Francisco:

It's a really beautiful city with these pretty steep street and everything.

Partially the street are that steep that there is stairs to climb up and cars are parked vertically!

Before we could start to drive down the cost to Los Angelas we had to buy a car radio because we had a very long way to go and music is essential on such a trip so we bought one and let this guy hok it up. It was not that we couldn't have done it ourselfs but we had no tools;) No. we failed trying so we had to go back to the store where we bought it and ask for help:)

Now it was working...

...and we could start our trip

After driving on a normal highway for a while we pulled over to this Pacific Coast Highway that goes by the coast all the time down to LA. Our first stop was somewhere at the beach:

We picked up some hitchhikers on the way. They were headed towards the south and we had the same target. I think it's illegal to hitchhike but what's the point? After we let them out somewhere before LA they gave us a small greenish compensation for our efforts;) By the way you need only a prescription by your doctor to buy legaly medical-marihuana that is not different to normal smoke-marihuana. The prescriptioin is about 90$ and you only have to pretend something like headache.

It's really a scenic road, awesome landscape and views.

A typical view from the backseat and this for about 400km today. As you can't drive fast and the road is very winding with narrow curves, it takes a long time to go all the way down to LA but it is absolutely woth it.

By the end of the day after we let the hitchhikers out we were not far from LA but it was already 1 or 2 pm and we tried to find a place to sleep. This was the car of course but we needed a parking space that is not too exposed.

Road trip USA 2009 - 5th day - San Francisco - purchasing a car...Golden Gate...

2009-11-13T14:24:00.000-08:00

We are excited as we are about to purchase a car today!

We are after this beautiful and powerful and above all still running car.

The dude who is going to sell us the ride tells us the way to I dont know anymore, somewhere. He told us that he is driving a lot and knows the way to a some nice places...

We got a pretty good offer from the guy and could beat it down a little bit to finally 500 bucks for the car so we did it. Because I live here in US at the moment it's officially my car so you can see me signing the purchase agreement. Its so easy to buy a car here in the USA, no need to have a new licence plate, its more relevant to the car than to the owner how it is in Germany. You buy the car - license plate included...great!

Keys for cash

got a car now, yeah!

and its ours!

the golden gate in fron tof the evening sky:

got some small sandwiches

a deer

Three guys and the Golden Gate Bridge...

...and the City of San Francisco from a hill far above.

Road trip USA 2009 - 4th day - heading for San Francisco

2009-11-13T14:17:00.000-08:00

Finally sitting in the plane to San Francisco after passing through the night without sleep in NY.

...somewhere above the USA between east and west coast...

...taking care of some stuff like writing postcards or me watching a movie, btw there was no food on the plan what was not nice of the stupid airline because it was an 6 hour flight and I was really hungry...

those clouds are too low to pass by the mountains, fortunately we're not;)

Following picture shows the view from our hotel room. This was the only night we spent in a hotel on the whole trip. You can se the lovely small apartment or whatever it is on the roof of the building across the street. would be great for making parties on something like a huge balcony in the middle of the city. only have to install some sort of handrail.

Johannes took a lot of black and white pictures cause he thought it was cool. Well it is true but you could also do that later on the computer. Anyway the pictures are very nice black and white.

Some small grocery store:

nice car hm?

A short thin guy's, karsten's and johannes's shadow, actually the short thin guy is a parking meter of course:

There is really steep streets all over San Francisco even steeper than the street that I live in Pittsburgh;) its also very steep and im breathless after walking up there from the bus stop.

Road trip USA 2009 - 3rd day - sightseeing and partying in New York

2009-11-13T13:54:00.001-08:00

The first picture shows the view from our sleeping place the morning of the 3rd day. We stayed at the appartment of a friend of Johannes. The appartment is located on Roosevelt Island, in
the East River between Manhattan and Queens. So you can see some of New York's bridges (Queensboro Bridge I think) that connects Queens and Manhattan.

In the subway on the way to Manhattan. Subway is a great invention. Super fast due to no traffic lights and intersections, much more convenient than the bus because of more space, its nice warm down there in the underground (sometimes too warm) and its just cool because its below ground.

We were kind of hungry this mornign so the first thing we did when we arrived in Manhattan was getting a hot dog. Was very good but also very expensive. I think the guy noticed that we were tourists and kind of screwed us. What can you do.

As much Skyscrapers like you wouldn't belive. Everywere. And also the yellow cabs. There is more of them than normal cars i think...

...and we were driving with one. On the way to a boat cruise that we would have missed otherwise. The tickets were still valid the next day but we were leaving the next morning so no chance to redeem them another time.

We arrived on the riverside just in time!

On the boat. The skyline of New York...Empire State building in the middle of the picture.

In case we were running out of money I found a way to get some...

...and all together we could make a fortune;)

Old sailing ships and new helicopters between Manhattan (left) and Jersey City(right).

Lady Liberty. Still holding this torch.

This must be Ellis Island, it is the location that was from January 1, 1892, until November 12, 1954 the main entry facility for immigrants entering the US. About 12 million people from all around the world (mainly from europe/africa of course cause its the east cost here...) entered the US here within this period.

Back from the boat cruise. Headed to Times Square.

This is a police officer we bothered. A lot of people did that and I think there is always one officer available to entertain the tourists around here.

Above the roofs of the city. The highest viewpoint in the city is still or again (after the World Trade Center was destroyed) the 1936 built Empire State Building. Nice view at night.

Here a picture of the antenna that makes the building taller than the Crysler building or so. Everybody only takes pictures down, I took one up. Not that exciting right?

After climbing up the empire State Building we went on with a night sightseeing bus tour from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

Empire State Building from the ground.

Mahattan from Brooklyn:

After our sightseeing tour we went to a bar that also existed during the prohibition when no alcohol was allowed to be sold or drunken. That's why the beer is served in cups as it was back then to pretend drinking coffe or something else non-alcoholic. Also there are staches everywhere in the bar where alcoholic beverages can be hidden. For example a folding globe.

After the bar we got some pizza, picked up our luggage and were headed for the airport. Our plane to San Francisco was leaving at 7am or so. Kind of exhausted after spending the hole day with walking and driving through the city and spending the night in bars...

Road trip USA 2009 - 2nd day - visiting the Niagara Falls in Canada and heading to New York

2009-11-13T13:18:00.000-08:00

Our smelly motel room the morning of the 2nd day. Not too much to expect for 35$ a night. It was pretty stuffy when we arrived. Better when we left of course.

We were heading straight for the Niagara Falls form the motel. Some people are addicted to Jesus here.

At the canadian border. As we watched the Falls from the US site yesterday we were driving to Canada now to get another view. No problem to enter the country.

A lot of policemen at the border. In the background the beauty of the canadian nature ;) We actually tought the falls would more be situated in the middle of the wilderness. But that's not the case. City anywhere.

One part of the Falls. The view from the canadian site is much better. Impressive.

Sunny day but also quite chilly.

There were a lot of tourists although it was Tuesday morning.

Behind the barrier.

Unfortunately we had no time for a cruise because we wanted to be in NY in the evening at the latest.

Somehow we had to get directions to drive to NY so we stoped by at another motel that had wifi and used Karsten's netbook and google of course to plan our trip on this day, we also had this small map from a eastern usa travel guide but this was really too vague to figure out the shortest respectively the fastest way to NY

somewhere between Niagara Falls and New York city. we took a short pee break

we are getting closer to the big apple or are almost there

digicams don't work that good at night especially if you are driving

after arriving in NY we had to clean up the car before handing it off. Otherwise we would have to pay a 250$ fine

the first night in NY we went to some bars in Manhattan among others this blues bar were live music was played and the beer was pretty expensive but the music was awesome, unforunately we came a little late and only attended the last 30min of the show but anyways it was cool

Road trip USA 2009 - 1st day - Karsten and Johannes arriving in Pittsburgh - heading the Niagara Falls

2009-11-04T11:34:00.001-08:00

- ROAD TRIP USA 2009 -

Welcome to "Road Trip USA 2009". Firstlly an overview about our trip trough the USA - from Pittsburgh to Niagara Falls - New York - San Francisco - Los Angeles - Tijuana, not USA but along our way - Las Vegas - Santa Fe - Saint Louis - Indianapolis and back to the city of champions, Pittsburgh. The first pictures shows a map we bought very late on the trip but could have used before. The drawn through line ilustrates the route we went by car and the dashed line the route we traveled by plane! The first day directed us towards the Niagara Falls at the canadian border. We rented a car at the airport in Pittsburgh to drive to the Niagara falls and from there to New York.

we are comming closer,

and closer.

We were driving almost all the way in the dark because it was already October and it was getting dark quite early also Karsten and Johannes arrived in the afternoon and we had to manage some stuff first like picking up my luggage at my place, buying some beer and other stuff for the trip and so on. We arrived in Niagara City at about 10pm and also found the falls then. Not that exciting in the dark, especially if you are on the US side. We were finally looking for a motel near the falls. We took the cheapest one we could find (was kind of smelly), had some beers and celebrated the beginning of our trip!

Trip to Providence via New York....to Boston, Westpoint and NEwport and back to Pittsburgh again!

2009-09-17T08:11:00.000-07:00

on my way to prvidence, 3h layover in New York City, bus terminal was next to tht times square:

short layover in boston:chinatown, boston, bad neighborhoodTrip from rhode island to boston, harvard university:the cheers in boston, famous sportsbar:after one beer;)I stayed in providence, capital of rhode island, view from the apartment:trip to westpoint military college, football game, army vs. some other college I don't know, army lost:fran is going to argentina, a lot of luggage, and she wanted to go by NY's subway and train from rhode island to JFK airport by her own, ts:on my way back to pittsburgh:

08/26/2009 baseball Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Philadelphia Phillies 3:2

2009-08-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

my house and neighborhood

2009-08-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

my house

going up the street (hilltop street)

going down the street
you see, they know what's entertainment (Seinfeld...;)
the view from my room's window
later that day

still in the hotel

2009-08-22T09:36:00.001-07:00

watching baseball (the new yor yankees vs. somebody else) in the hotel room and having some bud's. It's raining a lot in Pittsburgh. CMU campus from google earth.
zoomed in to my workplace the IW respectively the CBPD (Center for Building Performance and Dyagnostics)
this learning tower again

new pictures of campus and Pittsburgh as well as hotel room etc. etc. etc.

2009-08-06T20:21:00.000-07:00

first american style pizza from Alfredo's or so. They didn't have tuna so I took bacon and pineaple. It's only onefold cheese but it feels like extra cheese. Very tasty. In the backround you see the pattern of my blanket in the hotel room. Not that nice. The way of cooling beer in a hotel room without a fridge. You can get ice everywhere for free from the vending machines. The Heineken I got from a bar near the hotel as there is no beer in
supermarkets because of some special law in pennsylvania (You need to have some license to sell beer). As I understood there is only 3 stores in Pittsburgh that are allowed to sell beer however you can get a six pack in a bar (only 1 per person). Very weird.
A campus tour I attended some of my first days at CMU. Highschool graduates and their parents looking for an university suvrey the campus of CMU. I think in the US the university has to be well choosen as you will pay a fortune for studying. So take a look at the CMU campus:
This is the building I work in. The Margaret Morrison Building or so.
The library with more than 6,000,000 books to choose from (glassy building at the right)
Can you see the window-mounted air conditioners. They are everywhere.
The oldest building on the campus. You can see a tower in the background. It's the learning cathedral of the University of Pittsburgh (a different college here in Pittsburgh). It's the second largest academic building in the world behind some university building in russia. I don't know what's in there but I will find out sometimes.

Inside some building.

again the building where I work in. My workspace is on the roof of this building (The Robert L. Preger Intelligent Workplace, IW, of the Carnegie Mellon University was constructed in 1997 on the roof of Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall to provide 600 m² of offices, meeting room, and work space for the students, staff, and faculty in the School of Architecture’s Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics.) If you want to learn more about it visit: http://www.cmu.edu/iwess/about-us/iw.html. It's very interesting.
CMU stadium, not that big but I will jog some laps there sometimes and maybe watch football.
The IW from another perspective.
This is the cathedral of learning if you're standing right in front of it. Impressive.
Some other academic buildings from another college in Pittsburgh, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). There is about 10 different universitys in Pittsburgh. 85,000 students live in the city that makes it to the 3rd largest student city within the US (1st id Boston, 2nd Philladelphia)

the star-spangled banner

stuff that I always carry in my pocket: lighter, key to the workplace, bus pass, dollars of course and the most important my ID.
catherdral of learnign again
lovely
everything here is called Heinz-something, I still don't know why that is but I will find out.
Mabe they really like the Ketchup here. I mean there is ketchup on every table in restaurants but I think thats quite normal in the US.

skiing vacation 2007

2009-07-26T20:28:00.000-07:00

best picture ever

second day, tour through downtown pittsburgh and boating

2009-07-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

today I was in dowtown Pittsburgh the first time, amazing! But at first my hotel room:

I have everyting I need in this room and one more giant bedin the US every room, car, house and whatever needs an ac of course

is it a toilet or is it an ocean?
I somehow missed the tour I booked for today so I joined another one called just ducky tours. It is a tour through Pittsburgh by an amphibious craft (also called duck), awesome
at first we were driving trough downtown Pittsburgh, here is some building. How you can see it was raining today,
...and raining...

and again: raining.

some boxes where you can grab a newspaper, in the background a indian restaurant I think
some church in teh middle of tall buildings
inside the duck, the tour guide told us a lot about the city, for example there is a tall building which is completely covered with steel plates (Pittsburgh produces as much steel as Germany and China together) and when it rains a thin layer of rust emerges on it and it looks red

then we went down to the Allgheny river and into the water
water from above and also water from below

the tour guide asked if anybody wanted to drive this vehicl. Of course Daniel wants to, he even has a driving license for this and from now on he was called captain daniel :) You can see the button on my chest, it says "I drove the ducky boat" yeah.
Pittsburgh's skyline
Heinz Field, home of the Pitssburgh Steelers (winner of the Super Bowl 2009)
and here they are, the ducks, I was driving with the carmouflage one.
At the end some ambulances and paramedics (friend of mine who helped me with the design of this block likes them really much)

2009-07-25T08:09:00.000-07:00

somewhere above Canada or the USA, I can't remember
in front of the newark airport, new jersey, exhausted from the flight and the carrying of big bags..., ny cab and police in the background ;)
at the newark airport, if you look precisely you can see the new york skyline in teh background
my first purchase in the USA: a coke
this is the hotel I will stay the first days, isn't it typical american?

and the view from the backside of the hotel, i'm surrounded by malls and restaurants here