San Francisco!

I fell in love with San Francisco almost the second we arrived there! It is a beautiful city and one of my lifetime goals would be to live there and be happy forever and ever! Of course the first things which happened is that we had bad luck with the hostel we wanted to stay at. They were fully booked and the room we kind of made a reservation for on the telephone got given away 1 min before we arrived there. I was super disappointed because the place looked super cool and there were tons of nice people hanging out. Especially that it was located in Chinatown made my heart beat a little faster regarding the food option I´d have had for the next days.....

Our last and second option was booking a hostel room in Sausalito which was faaaar away but better than nothing and as San Francisco was one of my favorite destinations I definitely wanted to shower and sleep well :D we had to go there. When we arrived we found out that there is almost no public transportion into the city which meant that we had to go there by car. Luckily we weren´t the only ones who had to stay at this place so we met Anna and her boy friend from Chicago. They joined us on our ride into the city and it was quite a funny drive because they had to lie down on our bed. Apparently we haven´t had food the entire day and were starving and I was already about to eat my own hands when we found a decent restaurant in Downtown/ Chinatown. The Sesame Chicken was probably the best I had so far but the waitress was kind of weird though. It felt as she wanted us to leave the restauarant as soon as poosible but I guess that is one of the things which is totally different back home in europe where people actually enjoy hanging out at a restaurant and chat after they had their meal.

 

After brunch/dinner we just walked around in downtown and checking out things.  The evening at the hostel was pretty quiet but I have to admit that internet is kind a stressing me out. haha. There is always something to do or to answer people and after about 2 days and more without it can feel pretty overwhelming. I slept really good and I guess with the time I´m getting more comfortable with sleeping in strange foreign environments with snorring people! juhu!

   

Redwood Highway and Avenue of the most impressive Giants on the Planet!

On our way down the 101 Highway we passed through the Avenue of the Giants and drove quite a while on a part of the Highway which is called Redwood Highway. Especially I was super excited about that part of the trip because I love forests and this one is supposed to be amazing or you could even say that´s "the" forest, the king of the forests!

It felt quite mystic to walk through the ancient trees and the vibe was absolutely magical! They looked pretty elegant moving with the wind and I swear I was able to sense all their wisdom which they gained within the last 800 years. We learned that the oldest tree is about 950 years old and and most of them survived several fires and nature catastrophes as earthquakes and floods. I was deeply impressed and loved being there a lot! It is a beautiful drive and highly recommended by us :D

Oregon Dunes

...probably one of the coolest places on earth....

.....bad luck and other stories from the two biggest idiots on the planet :D

....our car is an asshole a.k.a on the way to redwood national park or not!
Sometimes bad things are happening. Especially when they happen 2 days in a row.  The two of us were almost crying but in the end we accepted our faith and had a fun time. On our way to the Oregon dunes we heard a weird and scary sound when we turned the stirring wheel. It happened right after we got up in the morning and everyone was kind of confused but we wanted to let someone professional check it out instead of continuing the journey and have a big crash on the highway.The Car repair  had a look on it and told us that they would order a new stirring gearbox for us to replace the old one and it´d take a day to receive it. That meant that we had to wait and spend a wonderful day on the beach in Oregon.... some might think: not too bad.

On the next day we got the broken part fixed and continued our trip. At this moment no one was expecting the mess which happened the day after :D ( click on the continue button below :))

hanging out in Lincoln City, Ape Caves and problems along the way......

this post is going to be just a short note because we are sitting in a car repair and waiting for our vehicle to be fixed the second time on this trip down the west coast.
Portland was really nice and hanging out on Justin´s floor was more comfortable the second night. Luckily there were not any snoring people around....puuuh!

At Justin´s place we met Lena and Nick and decided to go up to Washington again to visit the Ape Cave. It is a really big and 5°C cave and it is completely dark inside so that everyone of us was wearing head lamps and one additional lamp to see at least a little bit. We were climbing for around 2,5 hours through complete darkness and I slid into a stone wall and got a beautiful bump on my forehead :D.


After we arrived the exit everyone was super hungry and we ended up eating in a typical american small town restaurant which looked exactly as I was expecting it! The portions were crazy big and the waitress filled our glass every 5 mins with sugar water :)

more picture by clicking on the " button"

Road trip:1. Stop Portland

We started our Road trip yesterday and it was sooo much fun already. The car was ready, the backpack got packed and we managed to buy all the necessary utensils before departure. It took around 45 min to drive to the american Borders from Vancouver and around another hour to pass the border control - as usual a bunch of questions included.

The journey was supposed to take around 5-6 hours which should have made us arrive around 6 pm but that never happened :D Due to problems with the navigation system and the fact that there are now 2 idiots instead of only me made us arrive 3 hours later.

The ride through Washington was beautiful and interesting. We had to drive over Seattle to Portland and made a quite long stop at Mc Donalds. I was definitely a little bit disappointed as I was expecting crazy big portions but only got the normal amount of food. Somehow the american Sim card I had from my last visit to New York was not working and still isn´t. ( I´m listening to Hotline music for about 30 mins while I´m writing that post) Anyways we were trying to find the reason and repair it with getting information in the MCD wifi.

Stanley Park

Most likely it was a grey day yesterday when my host came down into the basement and asked me to walk around in downtown. As I´ve heard of Stanley Park before and I was already sad that I haven´t seen that much of Vancouver ( I kind of felt sick for a couple of days but I was probably only visually overdosed) yet I suggested going to the biggest Canadian urban city park. You can find the park right next to downtown which I find is pretty unbelievable and contrary- so much nature so close to a really big city.

We started somewhere in Burnaby and took the bus to downtown. I mentioned that the Park is pretty close to downtown but it took us around 30 mins from the bus stop to finally get there. On our way we stopped for some "Gelato" and sat down a few minutes while observing the 8th wedding party including Bride and Groom who got photographed on their happiest day in their life :)

Marina and I agreed with each other that it must be a sign for us to meet our future boyfriends soon. The Day turned out to become sunny and warm and we kept on walking by the harbor.

Actually we saw something really cool there! A Fisher was preparing his salmon to sell it to costumers and threw out the inedible parts of the fish into the water. Due to his work, we had the chance to spot 3 huge harbor seals in their natural environment which were of course waiting for free food! They were beautiful and it was absolutely impressive to watch them sliding gracefully through the water. That sensation definitely made our day!

When we arrived in Stanley Park the weather turned almost into a beautiful summer day. We chatted constantly about interesting information about Vancouver, Canadian politics especially in Vancouver and how they want to prevent the Park and the surrounded nature from getting more polluted.

While walking around and exploring the forest we spotted the famous totem poles at Brockton Point. We learned that they were transferred from Vancouver Island and other locations in B.C to celebrate the 1936 Golden Jubilee and got moved to the more attractive Brockton Point in the 1960s. Each of the wooden animals in the totem poles is having a certain meaning and some of the poles are dedicated to former inhabitants of the park.

let´s get serious...

normally I wouldn´t describe myself as a person who has a lot to say but for the past 2 month I was working on my own Travelpicture-blog on tumblr. Maybe it was kind of a test for me to see if I enjoy posting pictures and little texts regularly. I have to admit that I not even liked it - I loved it and I still do.

First of all I want to give my respect to all the bloggers out there. Damn, it´s pretty complicated to work with all these technic stuff and figure out how to do all of it but I guess that´s part of the game and honestly I start enjoying finding new templates or better functions for the blog. I kind of get a hint of the social media importance and read a lot of awesome blogs during my research! You can find my favorites in the sidebar on the right where I´ve listed them.

6 month ago I moved to Montréal/Canada. It was just me! I figured out all the work permit and organizing stuff myself and everything went well but somehow something was missing. Sometimes I thought about homesickness, sometimes I felt miserabel concerning my shitty job and sometimes I just had a bad day but I never really understood why I´m such a grump from time to time. In Skype conversations with friends from back home, I found out that I miss sharing. Sharing my thoughts, sharing the pictures I´ve made, sharing the stories and everything I´ve experienced!

to be continue after the "klick" :D

hanging out...

that´s what I´ve done the passed 2 weeks. Apparently it´s stressing me out so much that I got a cold sore. WTF. 

Obviously I have to learn to relax and spend money without earning it. puuuh… that´s definitely a tough one, who might have thought that!

Anyways Steffi and I were planing on visiting the Vancouver Art Gallery on Tuesday because they´ve a free entry day then. Unfortunately I was super late and the line was longer than almost 2 blocks which led decide us to grab some ice cream and go for a walk and return later to see if there is a chance to get in. There wasn´t :( We ended up eating in a lebanese place where we ordered some Falafel and Halloumi Cheese with tomatoes - I´m still grinning about the size of the portions! There were just so little food on our plates that we first thought it is kind of a joke or maybe the plates were not supposed for us :) But it was really tasty though!

Another important thing which happened is that I had to “buy” a car. Lucas and his entourage were picking me up to drive to the insurance company in the early afternoon to add me into the car insurance as a second driver but what we found out was that I actually had to buy the car so that we are covered in the United States while we are doing our roadtrip! After a few seconds of thinking about it I accepted to buy the car and am super excited to start planing the trip!! 6 days to go…..

city girl

Once i grew up in a super tiny little village and was totally used to nature and running around in fields! Living in cities for several years changed me in lots of ways. I realized that i definitely still enjoy being in the countryside and love exploring plants and animals but it is not that easy anymore. I might wear better cloth now and have a more well educated taste in music, but I´m in a really bad condition because of working crazy hours for asshole companies which made it almost impossible to work out and keep up my hiking skills.

Since I came to Vancouver, my bad condition made me feel embarrassed about myself. We undertook a few hikes in the closer environment and everyone seemed to sense that I had problems to hold on to the speed all of them were climbing up and down the mountain. Again I feel like I gave up a part of myself at some point working in the fashion industry which I now miss a lot. Meeting people who seem to be more similar and closer to yourself and are excited about the same kind of stuff is opening yourself up and is taking a lot of pressure off of you. 

My plan for the future is to get into a better shape and be able to explore more than eventually my thirst for new experience, always find new visual input and my background which let me choose becoming a designer in the first place!

But please I never want to hear that again: Dani, you are such a city girl! 

Because actually I´m not, I just forgot about a few things :)

Goodbye NYC and Hello Vancouver

Hello!!! Unfortunately I had to leave New York after almost a week. As I flew out at 6am I had to order a driver to take me to JFK Airport which was a recommendation of my hosts. Apparently the New York CIty transportation system isn´t very reliable at night and the neighborhood where you have to change trains isn´t really the greatest environment for a woman on her own. Maybe it was for the best because I was able to sleep at least 2 hours that night and I spared myself walking around for hours with my heavy back pack.

When I arrived at the airport everything went well and when the plane took off I was able to see the sunrise and countryside which was beautiful!

After 6 hours in a plane and over the clouds I arrived in Los Angeles and was deathly tired - I think I had a one hour sleep on the plane, of course with my mouth wide open :) The time passed by really quickly and I found myself in the next plane to Vancouver, sitting next to an overweight Lady who was super nice and we might have probably cuddled a little while the both of us were sleeping. Given that i was squeezed between her and the window, there wasn´t really a chance for me to not lean on :D

My first impression about Vancouver was pretty good and I was totally surprised by it´s beauty! Daniel, I met back home in Hamburg and who is living in Vancouver right now, picked me up at the trainstation and we had some salad which was awesome. After that I met all his roommates and I had a wonderful evening hanging out with them!

last but not least...

my time in New york is almost over and today was kind of my last day to explore Brooklyn and Williamsburg.  

I met up with one of my hosts in Williamsburg to have lunch together and walk around in that part of the city. It was nice but as every other city with a lot of gentrification nothing special. I feel like in comparison with Kreuzberg there isn´t a significant difference. You are always meeting the same group of people with the same interest and opinions in a district like this. I have to admit that the thai and the smoothies we had, were actually really good though.

After that i took the train back home which made me go back to Manhattan to head to Brooklyn ( super weird :) ) and because i had to change the train at Union Square i decided to just walk around a little bit more and absorb the vibe.

2nd day...

the 2nd day started as amazing as the 1st day ended.

I kind of made it possible to see all the main attractions within these days except going up on the Rockefeller Center but i´d like to wait till Wednesday so that it isn´t cloudy anymore.

The MOMA and MET are by far my 2 NYC favorite spots and I´ll definitely visit the Central Park a second time but with company. Taking the Staten Island Ferry or the one to Governors Island was absolutely impressive as well. Seeing Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey out of a whole different perspective is actually really great! Besides that exploring the City by feet makes it even easier to understand the structure and there´s something to discover and look at in every corner.

Moreover I have to say New York is treating me very well. Actually I´m totally surprised how friendly and helpful everyone seems to be and especially in comparison with Berlin which seems to always wants to kick me out and punches me into my face, well I honestly started imagine myself living here.

 now that i know...

I might become a huge Vincent van Gogh Fan! Of course I liked it before but was never seriously into it but now that I´ve seen a few of his paintings hanging in front of me - I´m stoked! They are displaying a certain kind of movement and mortality, they apparently having their own dynamic which I´ve never seen in art somewhere else! The colors are brilliant and they are just gorgeous!

Besides this new insight I literally had to fight against my tears of joy either in the MoMa and the MET. It was just to good to be true to finally see my favorite artist and of course new Artists who I should definitely not forget about in the future.

Gauguin, Monet, Manet, Lichtenstein, Renoir, Van Gogh, Matisse, Mondrian, Polke, Warhol and Cezanne only to mention a few :) were Artist I might have seen hanging in Galleries before but it was never curated that well and of course I never saw the most famous paintings!

 Rebloggen

WOW!!

Yesterday i arrived in New York. It is wow and I don´t know how to describe the feeling of this city. I entirely understand how people can become totally obsessed with NYC. 

It smells, it is loud, there are unbelievable many people walking around but damn it´s incredibly beautiful here! If the movement of a butterfly can change the world - this city is going to turn the world upside down whilst twisting it! Blessing or curse you´ll find out. For sure!

It´s crazy how fascinating it is to walk down the streets - Honestly I didn´t even realised that I was walking for hours without feeling hungry or a need to talk and I´m seriously inspired!! But I can´t deny that there is definitely an evil touch and when you look more exact at the details you´ll find out that there is a lot of trash lying on the streets and you can sense that people are highly stressed and health insurance is not affordable for everyone.

But still If you look at the buildings you´ll find a lot of beautiful details as for example 20s architecture everywhere which i totally fell in love with. The Chrysler building has a wonderful Lobby and most of the buildings in midtown are having art nouveau sculptures or wall decor which makes everything look really charming and giving it a special flair!

to be continue…

on my way to new york....

the last week passed by as fast as i could imagine probably even faster. I had a couple of really sad moments and a whole lot of tears were in involved whilst saying goodbye to my montreal friends. 

Packing my suitcase and the recently purchased 80l backpack took me quite a while and I had to throw out a lot of stuff which was by far not easy. 

In conclusion I can say i really enjoyed my stay in Montreal. At the beginning it felt like a punch in the face with the never ending winter which I´ve never experienced before and all the french which made it so hard to find a job but I´ve learned a few things about life and of course about myself. 

Finally after a really short night i found myself in one of the famous greyhounds to New York City where I`ll spend 6 days before heading to Vancouver.

to be continue…..

last days in montreal.....

Time is running - especially when you´re becoming older. When you passed a certain age it is running so fast that it is almost scary.

Anyways I was super busy taking care of my baggage and spoke to millions of people about my future plans, luckily everything seems to work out well so for example I was able to find a place to stay in Brooklyn/New York and Pawel offered to convey my suitcase to Vancouver or Calgary. 

Other than that I´m pretty busy with eating :) Of course I want to meet up with all of my Montreal friends before I´m leaving (I won´t return for at least a year and a half) and what could be a better occasion to do that than dinner.

Sushi, Tacos, famous Montreal smoked meat and a lot of Korean food disappeared in my stomach and made me feel really good and not want to leave Montreal at all. It is such a wonderful place and people are really nice and generous. I´ll miss each of them a lot and hope to see them again some time soon!

Yesterday Becky and I went to the Botanical garden and the Insectarium to check out the Butterfly house but unfortunately it is a seasonal attraction and it is only open from february to may. To top all the disappointment it started raining like crazy and we ended up walking through the green house and the insectarium which was beautiful and stunning though. 

In the evening we had dinner with Lara, Felix and Daniel at Lara´s and my place and we prepared delicious tacos which burned my lips and made them look as if they would explode for at least 30 mins till I put some butter on it :)

2 more days left to go and I´m really sad to leave but also excited for the things to come now…..