Freezing the Blog...

...This
- great,
- super interesting,
- amazing,
- sometimes funny,
- and never boring
blog (all jokes aside) will now be frozen for some time because my exchange term in NYC is already over. Once I'll travelling again through the world, I will launch a new blog or I will continue on this one with some modifications to make it more international. To begin with this mission see below some impressions from last week's college trip to London (UK).
Thank a lot to all my frequent readers and supporters!

Stay in touch and take care.

Back Home in the Winter Wonderland Austria...

...After an 8 h flight and a 2 h drive I'm finally back home in Upper Austria. It's good to be back at home ;) Just a bit jet lagged till now and I hope it's not getting worse.

I really enjoyed the last very cold days in New York and left the city with very mixed emotions. Met up with some friends and I had a last "Thursday fun nite" with my two friends from the Bahamas and other people from the Red Bull crew.

This week I will stay in Upper Austria at my parent's place and next week I will be in London with a group from the Technical University of Vienna to visit some colleges and companies like Google.

After the week in London I have to go back to school and work in Vienna...

Road Trip Summary After 3,318 Miles...

...Since this morning I'm back in the fabulous city called New York. Yesterday we had a long day at the SFO airport, because we went there earlier to watch the XLIII Super Bowl. The game was super fun and the fans at the airport were as crazy as usual when US people watch football ;)

Check out below the overview of our most important stops during our road trip. All in all we drove a bit more than 3,318 miles (5,340 kilometers) in 19 days which was quite a lot. The guy at the rental office was also excited when we returned the car, but we had unlimited miles and therefore it was fine. During the trip we had no major problems with the car and no speeding tickets, just one time we've got a parking penalty at the Berkeley University Campus ($75) - but it was not our fault ;)
Most important stops:
A) San Francisco, CA
B) Muir Woods National Monument, CA
C) San Francisco, CA
D) Berkeley University, CA
E) Yosemite National Park, CA
F) Fresno, CA (was not planned, but we had to go there, because one exit from the Yosemite National Park to the Death Valley was closed during the winter time)
G) Lone Pine, CA
From there we started our trip through the Death Valley National Park
H) Beatty, NV
I) Las Vegas, NV
J) Bryce Canyon National Park, UT
K) Grand Canyon National Park, AZ
L) Flagstaff, AZ
M) Los Angeles, CA
N) San Diego, CA
O) La Jolla, CA
P) Del Mar, CA
Q) Newport Beach, CA
R) Santa Barbara, CA
S) Santa Maria, CA
T) Cambria, CA
U) Monterey, CA
V) Santa Cruz, CA
W) San Jose, CA
X) Mountain View, CA and Palo Alto, CA
Y) San Francisco, CA (car return)

Anyone who wants to make a tour like this and has some questions should contact me. We were already at the time limit but it was still okay - so the more time you have the merrier. There were still spots along our route which we did not visit due to the lack of time.

One important note regarding lodging:
We did not book all our stays in advance, because there are so many good and cheap motels next to the highways and there was not high season and so we never had a problem to get a room for one night. We did only book our hotel (The Excalibur) for Las Vegas in advance.

Now, I have four more nights in the US. Then I'm catching my flight back to Munich on Friday evening, where I should arrive on Saturday morning!

Highway 1, Santa Cruz, Silicon Valley, Stanford University...

...A quick overview of our last most important stops during our trip...

Highway 1 - on our way from Santa Maria to Santa Cruz. We passed also Cambria and Monterey. The drive on Highway 1 took us longer than on the freeway, but it was worth every mile and minute we've driven on that road with that amazing view - California is just beautiful.
Santa Cruz - we spent around one day in this famous surfer city. On Friday evening we got an invitation to a very funny party in a private sound studio ;)
Silicon Valley:
All the major firms have really huge areas which are comparable with separate villages - just impressive.

Apple HQ in Cupertino:
Microsoft in Mountain View (HQ is in Redmond):
Google HQ in Mountain View:
Facebook HQ in Palo Alto:
Adobe HQ in San José:

Stanford University - the most impressive campus I've ever seen:

Tomorrow evening, after watching the Super bowl in San Francisco, we will take the plane back to New York JFK.

Some more days in the US and than I have to say - Good Bye :-(

After 3000 Miles - Newport Beach and Santa Barbara...

...Our last stop before driving up further North on the famous U.S. Route 101 was Newport Beach. Most of you will know this place from the teen drama series O.C. California. It is also a calm place with a lot of yacht clubs and very nice beaches.

Santa Barbara was next - it is till now one of my favorite places on the west coast. The city itself is very beautiful, not too big and there is everything what you need. We spent there yesterday evening and today nearly all the day.

Palm trees - they are everywhere in the city - the city itself is very green - just nice.
Sunset on the first evening in Santa Barbara:
Lifeguard on duty:State street:
Currently we are in Santa Maria and leaving tomorrow morning to go to Moneterey and to stay over night in Santa Cruz.

Whales and Dolphins - San Diego, La Jolla and Del Mar

...On Sunday evening we arrived after our beach hopping day in Los Angeles via Venice, Santa Monica and Malibu Beach in San Diego. The area around Malibu is awesome and I can now understand why so many VIP's have their villas there...

Anyway, we drove in the evening to San Diego what is also a very nice city. It's directly on the boarder to Mexico which we did not cross. Our rental agreement prohibited this trip otherwise we would have gone to Tijuana.

1) La Jolla
This spot is a bit outside of San Diego and is a really nice village. There we went to children's pool to see the seals and afterwards we drove around in the village and up to a mountain were we had a 360 degree view over all the area. We also got a tour through Peter Lik Art Photography gallery which was very nice. One day, when I earn more money I will buy one of these pictures. You should check out the website...
2) San Diego
It is also a very nice city with already a really Mexican atmosphere - you can feel that you are pretty close to the boarder. On the second day we made a Whale, Dolphin and Sea lion's watching trip which was very impressive. We saw many Dolphins, Sea lion's and also some Grey Whales. They pictures are not very good, but I took some nice movies, but the reality was much better.
3) Del Mar
After visiting San Diego we also made a stop at the famous Del Mar. There is a great beach which should be one of the most beautiful in California - and it was awesome! We walked through the town and had dinner in a very nice Surfer bar ;)
Currently we are in Newport Beach - many of you will know it from O.C California. We will visit the spots here tomorrow morning and are afterwards heading up North to Santa Barbara.

Universal Studios Hollywood...

...Yesterday we visited the Universal Studios Hollywood which is the flagship theme park of the Universal Studios. Universal itself call this park - The Entertainment Capital of L.A. :-)
The studios are huge and quite expensive, but it was worth every penny we spent there. We did all important rides like
- The Simpson Ride
- The Mummy Ride
- The Jurassic Park Ride
- The House of Horrors (very scary)
and visited also many shows like
- Backdraft
- Waterworld (rated as the #1 show and definitely it was also my no. 1)
- Shrek 4D
- Terminator 2D, 3D (was great!)
- and the Special Effects show.
Between all these shows and rides we took some fun pictures - see more below:

The Terminator:
Jason Bourne and me:
The Zorro:
Waterworld show:
Krustyland, where the Simpson ride is located:
Dinner with Basha:
Yesterday evening Basha and me took the opportunity to meet up again. I know this very nice guy from my time in Dubai where we worked together on the successful POS launch. Unfortunately we did not meet each other since nearly 2 years - next time we will met up in Austria :-)
On the picture - Basha, Markus and me.
Today we are going to leave L.A. and we are driving to San Diego. Let's see what this place will bring...

Los Angeles - First Time...

...We arrived in L.A. on Wednesday afternoon and had already a great time here. Did lots of sightseeing (Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Hollywood Blvd, etc.) and there are two more days to go here and still many places to visit. See below some first pictures:

Must have - the Hollywood sign and me:

David, Spiderman and me:
Elvis and me:
Walk of Fame on the Hollywood Blvd. - I love Austin Powers and also Mike Myers is a great actor:
Also Pepsi cheers for the new President Barack Obama:
Markus, me and the girl who asked us for a picture at Chateau Marmont in Hollywood:

Roadtrip - Canyon Tour

...Our next stop after a more than 6 hours drive away from Las Vegas was the Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. We arrived in the evening and had around -10 degrees Celsius and were at around 2,400 m above the sea level. In Vegas we had 25 degrees Celsius.
This Canyon is not as well known as the Grand Canyon and therefore not as crowded. See below some pictures...

Grand Canyon National Park:
And another long drive 6 hours, what else? - next stop - the Grand Canyon which is located in Arizona.
After around 2,200 miles we reached yesterday afternoon Los Angeles and we are now somewhere in West Hollywood. We cruised already through Beverly Hills and "inspected" some nice houses.

Off-topic:
The gas prices in the U.S. are great for us during these days, because we drive a lot.
This was not the cheapest gas station, but a pretty good one.

Pictures from the first week will come soon...