What an amazing trip did we just have!

Feels so weird to be back home again. It’s been such a long time since I last slept on my OWN bed and ate breakfast at OUR dining table… Well, I gotta face the truth and finally get back from my dreams to continue the normal life here. No, I won’t ever forget all the places and things I saw during this month, quite the opposite. I’ll watch the pictures and videos we’ve taken, read this blog and memorize the wonderful dream come true adventure :)

Everyone’s been asking what was the best place/thing during the trip, and we were all thinking about them when on the taxi to home from the airport. I’d say it’s hard to mention just one thing, so instead I’m gonna give you guys my top 3 and the reasons for why they’re the best three things ;)

1. Las Vegas. Because it’s just absolutely cool! All the lights, signs and hotels… You must see it yourself to understand how it is ‘cause no picture or movie can show the real atmosphere of Vegas.
2. Boston. Just simply ‘cause that’s where a piece of my heart and childhood is.
3. Broadway musical, the Lion King. It was something I’ve never experienced before, and the way they had created the costumes was genious. The lights, story and music all together made me have lots of chills during the 2½ hours ;)

I gotta mention a few more ‘cause there are so many awesome places and experiences that we saw. Grand Canyon and its beauty, swimming in the big waves of Erie Lake , New York and pretty much everything in it, our friends back at San José, swimming in Colorado River’s warm water and ALL THE VIEWS DURING THE WHOLE TRIP.

The experience as one was amazing, unforgettable, incredible, wonderful… Just so on the top of all the abroad vacations I’ve had so far. The country really is what fascinates me, there’s something in it that makes me go “whoa”. Maybe it’s because of spending a year of my childhood in there, maybe it left its mark in me in some specific way. But what’s for sure is that I liked it a lot and it didn’t disappoint me, instead many times I looked out from the window having forgotten to close my mouth…

So, here’s a bit of USA at numbers:
We visited 15 states: California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey.
The highest temperature was 122 Fahrenheit, 50 Celsius.
The days we were there was 31, plus the two days for flights.
And, in total we drove 5009 miles, 8061 kilometers.

So! Thanks for all, for reading this and leaving comments :) It’s been great writing when knowing there are readers, and quite excited ones, over there! I hope you have enjoyed my blog and understood pretty much everything even if my English has been lacking at some points :D There’s just one more thing to say:
THIS WAS THE COAST TO COAST TRIP OF A LIFETIME!

Badappappappaa, I’m loving it <3

Days 30-31

Home sweet home <3

After waking up and eating breakfast we packed all our stuff and signed out from the hotel. We left our bags to downstairs and ordered a taxi to the airport at 4.45 pm. Then we walked around the city and at 3 pm went to have lunch. Dad had bought a new objective to my camera so after lunch we tested it at Times Square. It works well! ;)

We went to get our bags and waited for the airport shuttle to come. The drive to the Newark airport didn’t take longer than 30 minutes. Our flight to London left at 8.50 pm and we were at London at 9 am or something (the local time). We had an hour before our flight back to our home country left at 10.20 am. I slept the whole flight and I think so did Aleksi. It was so weird hearing all the Finnish again! :D

The plane landed to Finland and we went to get our bags. Everything went fine, we got a big taxi and drove HOME! Felt soooo weird to be at home again, it’s been so long since we last were here :D My room and our bathroom are smaller than I remembered, even!

We unpacked the bags and now mom and dad went to a grocery store to get us some food! I’ll write the final post tomorrow ;)

Days 29 and 30

Day 29, Have you seen a musical on Broadway? ;)

Around 12 pm we took a subway to Central Park. We were walking through it until we saw that there was a baseball game on one of the three or four baseball fields. We watched it for a while and then decided to continue walking. The park really is HUGE and also very pretty. There are a few ponds at there, and we saw a beautiful bridge.

Mom wanted to see the fountain with a golden angel on it (it’s in a lot of movies, almost every one that’s from New York and more directly Central Park) so we searched for it the entire time until now we finally found it. We took pictures and the boys were throwing a few coins in it. We walked to a place that was perfect for sitting down and playing cards. Me and dad went to buy us fruits and drinks.

While playing cards we saw a bit shocking act that could’ve been straight from a movie. A small boy was driving his bike down a hill, his father told him to use his brake but it just got speedier. In five seconds the boy was suddenly disappeared into the water in a pond. Luckily right after you could notice things going wrong a lady and a man ran after the boy and picked him up from the water. The boy was all wet when his father, in just a few seconds later, had come next to him. The whole park was watching this as it happened and when the man who had jumped to the pond to pick the boy up went back to the pond to take the bike (the water was to his waist) the whole “crowd” was giving applause ;)

After Aleksi and I had a wrestling competition we played frisbee and then went to Bloomingoale’s (a big department store). We took a subway back to Times Square and went to have lunch. Later in the evening the boys left for a baseball game as mom and I got ourselves ready for a musical. At 8 o’clock we were sitting in a Broadway hall just about to see the first musical of our lives, the Lion King. And oh, let me tell you it was absolutely amazing. No words can get the right image in your heads, even if I tried to. The music, the lights, the costumes, the dancers, the story, everything. Wow.

Tomorrow is going to be the last full day here in New York and here in the States! Do I really have to go back to Finland..? :/

Day 30, The last full day…

Around noon me and mom went out to do some shopping. We noticed that the whole 7th Avenue was full of these small shops which were selling smoothies, scarves, jewelry, dresses, food… I bought a souvenir and then we walked to Gap store. Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling good at all so I almost ran back to the hotel, took an aspirin and went to sleep.

After a while the boys came back from shopping, and after another while so did mom. I went downstairs with her to ask a few things regarding tomorrow, from the front desk, since I was feeling better. Dad had gone to pick up movie tickets for us. Then we went to have dinner at Olive Garden. The food was again delicious, even though we had to hurry to the cinema.

Mom and I went to see Charlie St. Cloud as the boys saw Despicable Me. We all liked the movies we had seen, I thought Charlie St. Cloud was though very sad also very beautiful and good movie. After the movies we went to a store to get some souvenir candies for our friends back at home. Then we came back to the hotel, packed our bags and wrote some postcards. We’re about to sleep the last night in the US.

This trip has been absolutely amazing. All these views and experiences are gonna stay in our minds forever or at least for a very long time ;) Even though at times we’ve been annoyed by each other we still have had a lot of fun! I’m sure I’m speaking from us all when I say that this trip was a trip of a lifetime, and that we enjoyed it from the day one to the day 30! :)

The next post will be from our home back in Finland, so it might take a few days for me to update this blog. Be patient and until then, see ya! ;)

Days 26, 27 and 28

Day 26, Welcome to New York!

This morning we packed all our things and then drove just a few miles to New York. It seemed surreal at first ‘cause the buildings here are veeeery TALL! :D We drove to our hotel, which btw, is pretty much in the middle of Times Square, and left our luggage there. We still had to wait for three hours before getting our rooms, so me, my brothers and mom stayed at the hotel playing cards as dad went to return our car to Newark Airport.

We went to walk around Times Square, saw M&M’s world (among lots of other stores) and ate some lunch. We went in the M&M’s world and found out it has 3 floors! It had a lot of M&M’s stuff that I’m not even going to write down here, sorry :P

We went back to the hotel, got our rooms and went to watch some tv. We soon left for the lounge in 46th floor (our rooms are in the 43th), it offers free snacks and has amazing views to the city. Dad came back from his adventure from the airport to the hotel and we showed him our rooms. I updated my (our!) blog for you guys and at 5 pm we went back to the lounge ‘cause it now was full of different kinds of cheeses, fruits, berries, cookies and brownies.

Then we left out to the city! We walked to Radio City building, Rockefeller Plaza, Bryant Park (the place where the final two from Project Runway, “Muodin huipulle”, have their fashion show) and from there to Empire State Building. There we bought tickets to a Skyride and city view. The skyride didn’t leave us feeling good but then we took the elevator to the 83rd floor and saw amazing skyline of New York City. We could see the Rockefeller Center, Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park…

We waited for it to get dark and got pretty nice-looking pictures ;) After the sunset, in 20 minutes it got from blue-ish to black and all the lights went on. Wow. What else can I say? It’s a thing that doesn’t look near as good in pictures than in real life and you should see it yourself to understand. Just… wow.

We walked back to Times Square, bought some t-shirts and stuff from Hard Rock Café, ate some supper and got back to the hotel. Soon we’ll go to sleep. We still have some days left of this amazing trip, and what’s a better way to end our holidays than having two beautiful rooms on the 43th floor of Crowne Plaza, in the city of New York? ;)

Day 27, Sightseeing

After waking up we took an elevator to the 46th floor where we had breakfast at the lounge. It was the best breakfast of this trip, gotta say. Then we came back to our rooms, mom and dad planned our day schedule and we left the hotel. We took a subway to World Trade Center.

When walking around the big place where those incredibly tall buildings existed 9 years ago before the unbelievably shocking and horrible plane crashes happened, I had a feeling that I quite can’t describe. It was a mix of feeling sad, shocked and angry at the same time. When walking by the golden memorial mark I felt tears in my eyes. We walked into World Financial Center and heard a woman’s voice. We went to listen her story and own experience during the horrifying 9/11. I was close to cry as I listened her telling about his son who worked at the North Tower. The morning of 9/11 was the last time this woman ever saw her son…

With still a sad feeling we walked through Wall Street to the harbor. There we bought tickets to a Water Taxi. We went to grab something to eat before getting in. The Taxi went to the Statue of Liberty and under the Brooklyn Bridge. We got great photos ;) The tour took about an hour.

Then we went to eat and after that walked to China Town and Little Italy! The atmosphere was just lovely :D We walked to a subway and got back to the hotel. We went to get some snack from the lounge and I went back to the hotel room because my head had started to hurt a lot. Yay headaches ;) At the while mom and dad went to buy me and mom Broadway tickets to Lion King! :D Wohoo, we’ll have an unforgettable night on Saturday! ;)

Me, mom, dad and Aleksi went out trying to find a place where the boys could buy tickets to a baseball game. The place was closed so we just went to a grocery store to buy something for the evening. Now we’re at the hotel rooms and soon we’ll have our 2nd night at New York! ;)

Day 28, Day at the Museum

After breakfast we took a subway to Central Park. We walked through it watching some group of friends playing baseball, people jogging and walking their dogs… While the boys were sitting on the grass a dog ran to them. He was adorable, a very cute dog named Sam :)

We walked to American Museum of Natural History, the exact same that many people remember from Ben Stiller’s movie the Night at the Museum. The place was very big and had 46 different halls. There was African, Asian and Southern American peoples’ halls, a hall of space and planets, lots of animals, fish and dinosaurs… Pretty much like something for everyone.

After walking through all the 4 floors we took a subway back to our hotel. The boys took showers and then we left out for a dinner at Olive Garden. It’s a very nice Italian restaurant, so the food was expectedly really good. After eating pastas we got back to the hotel, watched a little tv and soon we’re about to go to sleep! Good night again! ;)