For those who are interested, I just posted some new pictures in the gallery. There is also a small video of a marching band in the video section.
It was very busy, on the news they said it could have been the biggest crowd ever. Staying at a hotel just half a block from Times Square was super for this event.
I back in Chicago Downtown. A different hotel this time, The Four points Sheraton… a great hotel for a good price.
Before I booked my ticket to the US I thought about going to a real American sports event, like baseball or football. Unfortunately the baseball season has just ended, but the limo driver advised me to go to either a basketball game or a hockey game. So… why not both! I went to the basketball game on Friday and I’ll be going to the hockey game in a few hours. I thought about making a Podcast or Vodcast for my website, so I’ll be trying to make a Podcast about the Bulls game and the Blackhawks game later today or tomorrow. You can find them on the new video page.
During the day I tried to contact several people here in the States, mostly without luck so far. I have also put my possibilities on paper, well… in a MindMap.
The weekend started off with a good evening with Patrick (one of the people behind Orange Parachute), and some of his friends at his place in Newport Beach. Newport Beach is quite different from downtown LA, not as busy, less traffic and great views of the Ocean. After a tour around the new house, we went over to a restaurant and had great sushi, sake and great conversations.
Today I made a tour around Santa Monica, Hollywood, Pacific Palisades and Los Angeles. As you can see in the gallery, we went by many big houses. Many of them owned by celebrities. We went by the walk of fame, the Rock walk, and some more stuff. We ended our tour with a great view on the famous Hollywood sign, and the Universal Studio’s.
Yesterday, I took my rental car and drove around Silicon Valley. This virtual valley stretches out over several cities and villages, so traveling around to the different companies can take hours. You can see some pictures of several big companies I drove by in the new gallery.
Next to driving by those companies, I spent some time at the NASA AMES Research center. This was a nice addition to my visit to several NASA sites some years ago in Florida. Some nice satellite, vehicle and airplane models were displayed all around.
I also paid a visit to the Intel Museum in the Intel building. I learned some extra things about making chips and their history. This is one of the examples where you can clearly see computers help building computers.
Weirdstuff warehouse is like my garage, only they make money with it. This store is huge! All packed up with old computer stuff. PC’s, servers, electronic parts, cables, cases, racks, switches and much much more. Walking through this store made me think about the first few years I spent my time on hardware. All the parts and things I had trouble finding in The Netherlands in those days, are available in big quantities in here, and they just cost a few dollars.
Fry’s warehouse is the biggest electronics store I’ve seen so far. For those in The Netherlands, it is as big as the Bijenkorf. The only difference is it’s just electronics. Al kinds of things for your car, PC, at home and more. The Mediamarkt is childsplay compared to this.
I ended my day at the San Jose Tech Museum where I visited the Bodyworlds 2 exposition. It was quite impressive to walk around real human bodies. It was clearly art, but if you take a close look at some details it can creep you out. Some of those things made me think of Gunther von Hagens like he could be a good friend of Hannibal Lecter. He put a lot of work in to these expositions, and all the educational things around it.
Unfortunately I was not allowed to take any pictures, so if you want to see more of this, you will have to go yourself, or buy a DVD on the BodyWorlds website.
After the BodyWorlds exposition, I drove all the way down to Los Angeles. It was quite a long drive (6 hours), and it was quite boring in the dark. But I arrived around midnight to get a good night of sleep at the Westin Bonaventure hotel. The first 10 floors are just shops, restaurants, offices and things like the swimming pool and a fitness center.
After some really bad muscle and stomach aches and a relapse last evening, I feel better today. I had some breakfast and tea this morning, and I still feel fine. So hopefully I will be able to go out, and have a look around some of the bigger companies around this area.
Thank you all for your (Skype) calls, e-mails, SMS’es and other congratulation’s for my birthday. Today I turned 28, and my day started with a Dutch Happy birthday song from my little nieces and my sister on a Skype video call. It was a bit strange with the 9 hour time difference, but it made me feel like it was my birthday way before it really was.
This morning I expected a call from Orange Parachute’s HR department for a phone interview, but unfortunately they didn’t call. So I’ll have to pursue this on Monday. After replying on all your calls and messages, I jumped on the cablecar towards Fisherman’s Wharf to start my cruise to Alcatraz.
Walking around on Alcatraz and hearing all those stories in the audiotour, gave me the creeps. You can see the scars on the walls and floors, each of them have a story behind them. Just looking at them brings you back in time, and some of them give you goosebumps!
After this I took a look in the Bay side Aquarium, walking around all those cool fish! Because there was going to be a party at the aquarium, I had to leave early. So I went up to Pier 39 again, enjoyed the view and enjoyed a bit of reading. I ended the evening by having a nice Red Snapper filet at an Italian restaurant on the Pier.
Have a look in the Gallery to see more pictures, I finally managed to get most of them up there.
After being here for a few days, I have nearly seen daylight. So after a long night sleep I jumped on the Cablecar towards Fishermans Wharf. After some walking around, I took a peek in a mechanical museum. There were all sorts of amusement machines: music boxes, slotmachines, games and more.
Next, I boarded on an old US submarine, the USS Pampanito, active during the second World War. It was quite impressive to walk through this submarine, and imagining how 70 people could live for months together in such a small space. Later on I heard 85% of the USS Pampanito is still operational. Have a look in the gallery for some snapshots.
I walked down the piers towards Pier 33, the pier of Alcatraz Cruises. I was just in time to buy a ticket for the next day. So tomorrow I will celebrate my birthday at Alcatraz 
I ended my day by a walk on Pier 39, with some terrific San Francisco sea food. Full of little shops and restaurants, this is a great tourist place to walk around. On the end of the pier you have an amazing view of Alcatraz, the Golden Gate bridge, and San
Francisco itself. It the harbor of Pier 39 you can have look at the local Sea Lions. After some great cioppino (some sort of fish stew, a local specialty), I jumped on the cablecar back downtown towards the hotel.
Have a look in the Gallery for some new pictures!
Because I didn’t manage to do all the tours on Saturday and Sunday, I had to do the Brooklyn tour on Monday morning. After just missing the downtown bus, the second bus beeing delayed and hitting the middle of traffic, I missed the first connection for the Brooklyn bus. But the let me on on the next bus to Brooklyn anyway, so nothing was lost.
Our tour guide was a “born-in and grownup-in Brooklyn” kind a guy, and best of all… he was devoted to his work. So he really made up for all the delays in the morning. He told us all about the numbers and figures of Brooklyn. How many people live there, how much money is made compared to the rest of the country, how many people from different races live there, etc.
Brooklyn is quite different from Manhattan, people are less hasty, and streets are a bit quieter. The houses are not as high as in Manhattan, and most of them look very nice and cozy. A lot of people working in busy Manhattan live here, both rich and poor.
After my trip back to Times Square I was quite hungry. So after some tips from our tourguide, I searched for a nice restaurant in Little Korea, a neighborhood around West 32nd street. Most of the Korean restaurant here are open 24 hours a day. And almost all of the have a barbeque menu. So I gave it a try at a restaurant where I could see no local people, just Korean people. I had the best Bulgogi I had in years for just $25 including tip, and unlimited tea!
Knowing I had to do a lot of sightseeing before my tickets would expire, I started off early with some coffee and some fatfree yoghurt breakfast at Starbucks.
I took the downtown bus again, and hopped off at the Statue of Liberty/Ellis island ferry stop. I walked through Battery Park. There I saw a monument which was recovered from the WTC site. It was originally placed between the Twin Towers, and was later found beneath the rubble.
After the security check, we head off to Liberty Island. Unfortunately CitysightsNY didn’t warn me about a free time pass I should have ordered on the internet, Manhattan skyline. Nonetheless, it was an impressive view from the outside!
The next ferry stop was Ellis Island. Because the museum on Ellis Island is quite big, and time was short, I had to skip this part. I might go to Ellis Island at a later date.
I hopped back on the bus again, and hopped off at the base station. From here I had to walk to the Circleline ferry on Pier 83. The Circleline ferry took us from Pier 83 at 42nd street all the way to Liberty Island and back. Although I didn’t see anything new on this trip, it was a nice trip, with some extra stories about the buildings of New York.
After the boat trip, I walked back to the bus stop to catch the uptown tour. I made it just in time for the last ride of the day. The bus went uptown to Harlem, and back down by Central Park. It is nice to see all the different neighborhoods, and all the different people who live there.
After the uptown tour, I went back to the hotel to search for a good New York porterhouse steak. After some browsing on www.nymag.com I took a taxi to Macelleria on Gansevoort Street. There I was stunned by the prices, but I took the chances and ordered a Rib eye steak and some vegetables on the side. After some time they brought me my steak… I think it was almost 20 ounces (0,5kg)! And now I noticed why I had to order vegetables on the side, because there wasn’t any more room on my plate. Although it was way too big for me, I really enjoyed the steak. I can honestly say this was the best and the biggest steak I have had so far. The downside was they filled in the tip on my tab them selfs, and I had to pay $80 for a steak, some Italian broccoli, 2 drinks and tip.
The first day after I purchased the Super NY tour at CitysightsNY.
I started off with the downtown tour on the doubledecker bus at Times Square. I saw a lot of typical New York places: The designer district, Macy’s, The Empire State building, SoHo, NoHo, The Flatiron building, Ground Zero, etc. You can have a look in the New York gallery to get an impression.
After the first round, I decided to visit some of these places. So I got of at the Empire State building stop to take a look at New York from the observation deck. Well, it really is amazing from up there! The Euromast in Rotterdam has a nice view, but nothing compared to this.
After this amazing view I hopped on at the next stop, and hopped off at Ground Zero. As much as the view from the Empire State building was dazzling, the view at Ground Zero was quite shocking. Being there, looking at “the pit” with all it’s broken concrete, torn up iron, continuously demonstrating people, really moved me. I instantly remembered the news fragments 6 years ago, but being here gave those an extra dimension. Hearing all the different stories from all those people really puts your face in it. I cannot even describe half the feeling Ground Zero and it’s stories gave me. Very impressive…
I hopped on to the bus, and went back to the base station. I went for a bite to eat at Planet Hollywood, and started the night tour. A large part of this tour is the same as the daytime downtown tour, but it also crosses the Manhattan bridge, and goes into Brooklyn. We stopped at the Brooklyn Ice-cream factory. An old lighthouse at the base of the Brooklyn bridge. Waiting in line for the best ice-cream of New York, we looked at the amazing skyline of Manhattan by night. After this great treat, we continued our trip back to Times Square.
When I was back at the Hotel, I realized I would have a very busy Sunday. I still had a big list of tours to do…