The majority of the Spanish speaking citizens are Cuban immigrants. Here is the highest number of Cubans outside of Havana and the main quarter where they live in Miami is called Little Havana. You can find lots of restaurants with Cuban cuisine and lots of Cuban cigar factories. Here we tried some traditional Cuban dishes: plantains, which are a sort of banana and are served fried as a side for meat dishes; black beans, which are also served as a dish and of course lots of different types of meat.

Our CS hosts Tim and Briana also showed us some nice spots in Miami. Miami basically wakes up at 11 PM and goes to bed around 5 AM, but though this sounds like a lot of action, it’s definitely not the place where you want to walk around in the night if you don’t know what you’re doing. So immediately after we met our hosts, they told us about the places in Miami where we should not necessarily go. Fortunately we stayed in Miami Beach which is technically not part of Miami and is very safe even at late hours. The South Beach is a very funny place; there are gym equipments on the beach and lots of guys training there and the streets look like if there would be a body-building competition in town.

Then during our stay there was also Hurricane Isaac which threatened to hit Miami. Fortunately the only thing it did was to bring a lot of rain for 4-5 days but because nobody knew if it would hit Miami directly, people were buying can-food and water for days. Thinking about what hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans a couple of years ago we also bought some cans and we still have spring water that we bought.

One amazing thing we’ve seen or done

On the last 2 days we went to Key West which is the most southern point in the US. The best beaches around Florida where you see the blue green water are not in Miami, they are around the Florida Keys. But what’s most amazing is the road to the Keys, it’s called the Overseas Highway and that’s what it is, a highway over the ocean, with turquoise water on both sides of the highway. If the Icefields Parkway in Canada is the best road I’ve driven through the mountains, this one is definitely the nicest one that I’ve seen near an ocean or sea.

Next stop

Quito, Ecuador

Grand Canyon has three rims that are accessible for tourists and after leaving Las Vegas we headed for the West Rim which is not the most beautiful of the rims but it is home to the famous Grand Canyon Skywalk. Unfortunately the weather was not good there as it started to lighten and because of this the authorities decided to close the Skywalk. So we drove further to the South Rim which is supposed to be the nicest and most accessible of the three. Here, the National Park is very well organized and you can park your car at special places and afterwards there are shuttle buses to a ton of nice viewpoints or you can just go hiking along the rim. When we first got off the shuttle bus at the first view point and turned around we didn’t expect the feeling that was about to happen. We both were so amazed that I think we just stood there with our mouth open without saying anything for more than a minute. I think the first look of the Grand Canyon is one of those moments which you will remember for the rest of your life. It doesn’t make a difference if you saw hundreds of pictures of the canyon before because the live view cannot be compared to any of the pictures because the canyon is incredible huge.

After 2 days at the South Rim we headed to Page where we took some nice pictures at the Horseshoe Bend viewpoint. But the main reason for going to Page was the Antelope Canyon which is situated in a territory controlled by the Navajo Indian Tribe. It’s not as spectacular as the Grand Canyon and it’s very small but it’s a must for photographers. What make it so famous are the pictures that can be shot here. The canyon is very narrow as you can barely walk through it and because of the shape of the rocks and the light beams that enter the canyon you can shoot amazing pictures with lots of colors and shapes. Take a look at the pictures.

The last National Park that we visited was Bryce who is also very spectacular because of the rock formations that look like chess figures or like people. The chess figures received their shape due to weather conditions and stream erosions of the river.

One amazing thing we’ve seen or done

Like I said, the Grand Canyon is really a breath taking place so we took advantage of being there and booked a helicopter tour to see it from above. The view was amazing though I did not expect a helicopter to be so unstable as you could feel every change of wind

Next stop

Miami, Florida

Grand Canyon

Antelope Canyon

Bryce Canyon

Before going there I thought it will be just a place with lots of kitschy stuff. But now I’m so glad that we went there and can say for sure that this is definitely one of the places that I will visit again. You can easily spend 1-2 weeks here without getting bored as you have a lot of entertainment options starting from gambling (what a surprise) to concerts and shows everywhere and tons of restaurants or you can just stay at the pool and relax. And where else can you see the Eiffel Tower, the pyramids, take a ride with the gondola under the Rialto Bridge, see the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge and go to the Colloseum all in one day?

The hotels and the casinos are unbelievable; here you can see probably the most luxurious hotels in the world. The “Caesars Palace”, “Bellagio”, “The Venetian” and “The Mirage” are at the top of the list. The “Caesars Palace” tops them all being like a city where you can easily get lost. And in the evening you have the famous shows of the Bellagio Fountains and the “Volcano Show” at the Mirage.

Coming back to gambling, I had to measure my poker skills with the best so I went to four poker tournaments. At three I made it to the final table and at 2 I even came out on the 4^th place but unfortunately only the first 3 places were rewarded but I had a lot of fun as everybody was joking at the tables and having a great time and I also learned a little bit more about the game because there were a lot of players playing very aggressive.

We also couldn’t miss the chance to go to a concert of Celine Dion and were so lucky to get very good tickets on the last day. We have been at one of her concerts before in Stuttgart but this one was at a different level. The show was just incredible. I couldn’t record anything because cameras were not allowed inside but I linked a video from youtube, so take a look if you want.

One amazing thing we’ve seen or done

Mother, please don’t read this…

Las Vegas is just crazy and like I said you have a lot of entertainment options there but there’s one that beats them all. It’s the Stratosphere Tower where you have at the top, at 260 meters, 3 crazy rides. But what even beats these rides is jumping from the edge of the tower in an almost free fall all the 260 meters. And guess what, I did it… I jumped. It’s definitely the craziest thing I have ever done and I enjoyed every one of the 17 seconds of the fall. Take a look at the videos.

Next stop

Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon and Bryce National Park

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6cGJaSzI0E

In LA we went to Beverly Hills which is the quarter where the bold and the beautiful live and I think it’s not a very bad place to stay there. After that we went to the Hollywood Boulevard to take something from the Hollywood glamour. It’s the place where all the “stars” have their names written on the pavement and it has a special atmosphere.

We also visited the Staples Center because Luci wanted to go to the home of the Los Angeles’ NBA team, the Lakers. The area there is very nice with lots of restaurants, festivals and concerts.

On our last day in LA we took advantage of the weather and spent the day on the beach in the beautiful town of Santa Monica. Here you can also see lots of surfers and people playing beach-volleyball. Later we took a look at the Malibu beach with is also not very far away from LA.

One amazing thing we’ve seen or done

For me the most amazing thing in LA was meeting my cousins and seeing that their children are quite big now. Time really flies…

Next step

Las Vegas

In Yosemite we drove through the Yosemite Valley where we saw the rock formation “El Capitan” which is very popular between rock climbers. There are also a couple of granite domes such as the “Sentinel Dome” and the “Half Dome”. Yosemite is also known for its high number of waterfalls but unfortunately during this time of the year most of them are very small.

The park has three groves of ancient giant sequoia trees. We visited the Mariposa Grove with approximately 200 trees. It was really amazing to see these giant trees that are the world’s largest trees in terms of total volume. They grow to an average height of 50-85m and 6-8m diameter. The most popular attraction in the park was the “Grizzly Giant” that is approximately 2000 years old. It is 64m high and has a diameter of 8m. Its first branch from the base has a diameter of 2m. Another one, the “California Tunnel” tree is the only living tree with a tunnel in it.

One amazing thing we’ve seen or done

The longevity of the sequoias is given by their high resistance towards fires, insects and diseases. But what’s more amazing is that the fire actually helps them regenerate and that’s why the national park service started controlled fires in the park a couple of years ago and since then the health of the trees improved.

In San Francisco we visited Florin, a school colleague of mine which I haven’t seen in 12 years so we had a lot to talk about. Florin moved there 5 years ago so he knows the city very well. On weekend he showed us the city and outside of it we visited also the Muir Woods, which is a nice park with very tall red woods.

San Francisco is now definitely on the list of our favorite cities. It has so many attraction points but the one that we liked most was the area around the famous Fisherman’s Wharf. Here you have a lot of nice restaurants with seafood specialties as well as a place where sea lions gather to sleep in the sun (see the pictures). We did not miss the other touristic attractions like the Golden Gate, the beautiful Lombard street, walked all the stairs up to the Coit Tower to have a beautiful view of the city and took a boat tour around the Golden Gate Bridge and the Alcatraz and went also to the beautiful town Sausalito. Another thing that’s nice about San Francisco is that it’s all built on 43 hills and some streets are so steep that you feel like being in a rollercoaster when you drive there.

San Francisco was almost completely destroyed after an earthquake in 1906 and the fire that lasted for 4 days after the earthquake but there are still some nice Victorian buildings in town. A nice story is that all the houses in SF are not insured for earthquakes because the risk of another big earthquake in the future is so big that no insurance company is willing to sell a package which covers earthquake damages. This also happened in 1906 and because of this there were a lot of cases where people set fire to their own houses because otherwise the insurance would not cover the partial damage.

One amazing thing we’ve seen or done

One amazing thing that happened to us in San Francisco was when we wanted to buy tickets for the Hop-on-Hop-off bus. The person that was selling the tickets was from my hometown where I grew up and went to the same schools like I did so we got the tickets for all attractions in San Francisco for FREE. We also rode the Rocket Boat, which is the fastest boat in the Bay and the ride was definitely something to write home about.

Utah

San Francisco

The park actually stands on the crater of a volcano that erupted millions of years ago. Nowadays the area is still hit by numerous earthquakes daily but the majority of them cannot be felt.

The geysers in the park are a spectacular phenomenon of nature and they erupt by throwing water in the air, some of them a couple of times per day. What amazed me is that some eruptions can be predicted with a precision of +-10 minutes. For example, the Old Faithful Geyser erupted at the exact predicted time. When you get close to the time of eruption a lot of people gather around the geyser to watch the show.

The hot springs sometimes form a very colorful picture because the colors are given by the different algae and bacteria which can live in extreme conditions near the spring. The nicest ones that we saw are the Grand Prismatic and the Morning Glory Pool.

Other impressive pictures were the ones of the Yellowstone Canyon with 2 out of the total 300 waterfalls in the park and the Yellowstone lake which is the biggest lake at high altitude in North America.

In the park are two main valleys known for wildlife. Here we saw a lot of bisons which sometimes walk on the road near the cars, bears and deers.

On the second evening, thanks to a very good recommendation from Thomas Hug, a friend of mine, we had dinner at a typical mountain lodge in Yellowstone. Here they have a lot of typical dishes for this region and we tasted bison steak and elk medallions which were very delicious.

One amazing thing we’ve seen or done

I can say that the whole park is amazing but because I’m also a “picture hunter” I would choose the Grand Prismatic Spring as the highlight of the Yellowstone. It’s just one of those places where I could take hundreds of pictures but don’t worry, I uploaded just three. Take a look at the amazing colors.

Another thing we visited in Seattle is the Space Needle which is Seattle’s TV tower and was built for the 1962 World’s  Fair (Century 21 Exposition) and apparently the architects back then thought that this is how houses of the 21th century will look like. Well, this is not really the case… at least for the house where I live…

One amazing thing we’ve seen or done

The most amazing thing we hoped to see near Seattle was the Boeing factory in Everett. Unfortunately because we had to wait almost 1h for our rented car we missed the last tour at the Boeing factory and only got the chance to see a small exhibition there.

New York cannot be described in a couple of sentences but it’s definitely a crazy place. All your senses are instantly activated. You hear a lot of horns from taxi drivers, ambulances, police cars and firefighter cars. Then you hear a lot of noise from restaurants, people who want to sell you a bottle of water for 1 USD, bus tickets or God knows what. Everywhere you smell food from every possible place on earth. There are a lot of people on the streets, for example in Times Square you would not know what time it is only by looking at the number of people. At 2 AM there are just as many as at 2 PM. This city never ever sleeps.

You can have a very good view of the city by going up on one of the main towers, the Empire State Building and the Rockefeller Center. The views at night from the Empire State Building are just breathtaking and in front of the Rockefeller Center is the famous Rockefeller Plaza where they have the big Christmas tree during December.  The Manhattan Skyline can also be nicely seen from the boats that go to Liberty Island or from Brooklyn. Other nice buildings that we saw are the buildings of Chrysler, the UN, the Trump World Tower and the Flat Iron.

We also went to the 9/11 Memorial for which the largest design competition in history was organized. They received 5201 submissions from 63 nations and the one that won consists of a forest of trees and two square waterfalls that stand on the place of the two towers. Currently a new tower is under construction, the Freedom Tower which will be the highest building (104-story and 541m) in New York when it is finished. We also went to the New York Stock Exchange but we couldn’t go in because visitors are not allowed anymore since the 9/11 attacks.

One amazing thing we’ve seen or done

The most amazing things we saw in New York were

• the Times Square –the amount of people that you see here is incredible
• the 4^th of July Fireworks. We had the pleasure to meet Tania over Couchsurfing and we went to her building where we had the best view on the fireworks from the 31^st floor. Take a look at the video.

Washington DC is the nicest capital I’ve seen and definitely in my favorite 5 cities. 37% of it are green spaces like parks and forests which is amazing for a capital. You have a lot of history here as every important president of the US has a memorial here and what’s nice about all the sightseeing points is that everywhere you have FREE guided tours, you just need to ask for them so you can learn a lot about the history of that place.

The most important sightseeing points that we visited are:

• The John F. Kennedy Memorial – Center for the performing arts. Here you have every day, 365 days/year FREE concerts starting at 6 PM. We were at one concert on the last evening and it was great.
• The Lincoln Memorial – this is the place where Martin Luther King Jr. held his famous speech “I have a dream”
• The Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial is a place with a lot of fountains and the place is really nice for a walk.
• The Washington Memorial is the famous statue that appears in almost every postcard of DC. It has a observation point at the top but due to an earthquake from last year it is unfortunately closed.
• The White House – this is really cool because you have the impression that nobody is guarding it but as soon as something happens you see a lot of policemen coming from nowhere. For example I started mounting my tripod to take some pictures and suddenly one told me in a very friendly way that it’s not allowed to use it.
• The theatre where Lincoln was shot and the house where he died.
• The Smithsonian museums – this is really nice as all the museums in DC are free and you have also free guided tours.

In Washington DC you can try out food from all over the world but I asked Karl to recommend me something typical for the city so on one evening we went to “Ollie’s Trolley” a typical American bar where we ate Crab Cakes. It’s like a sandwich with Crab meat and it’s very tasty. Because it’s also served with a ton of French fries which were also very tasty you can imagine that it’s a calory-bomb.

One amazing thing we’ve seen or done

There were two things that were amazing.

• The first one is Conchita, a lady who is living in a tent on the street in front of the White House since 1981 and protesting against the use of nuclear power and the effects it could have on humans. She’s very famous and if you go and talk to her she would ask you where you are from and hand you a newspaper from that country with an article about her. It’s really amazing that a person devotes her complete life for a cause like this.

• The second amazing thing we saw is the Arlington Cemetery. It’s the place where the soldiers who died in military conflicts starting from the Civil War till the war in Afghanistan are buried. Over 320.000 soldiers are buried here so it’s huge. The pictures don’t show the strange feeling that you have when everywhere you turn around and as far as you can see there are only graves. Here is also the grave of John F. Kennedy and the astronauts of the Challenger.