12:00 Thu.

10 Aug, 2017

American Museum of Natural History

Madame tussaud New York

Tags: dinosaurs, jennifer anistion, madame tussaud, museum, natural history

New York , United States

24 °C

Clear

6:12 am

7:46 pm

Next day (Friday) I met with all my co-workers who have arrived previous day, we had a short meeting, over super expensive breakfast in hotel (20$ for bacon and eggs), to plan the following days.

But before “real” work really started we had one more museum to visit. Natural history museum – one of the most known museums in USA, being featured in many movies among other in a “Night in a Museum”.

The museum is extremely large, it spans multiple floors in a very large building. If you download their app you actually have indoor positioning system where it guides you around the museum – as a virtual guide and tells you your exact position. We were quite impressed by this thing and are now trying to implement it at our institute. Exhibits range from prehistoric cave man, dinosaurs to the modern day mammals. The museum has a lot of exhibits about different rock formations and also features some astronomy exhibits.

Traditional yellow bus in front of the museum.

Blue whale. It's enormous. — Blue whale. It’s enormous.

Dinosaurs, hard to believe how big they were.

I think I saw something similar to this in Hong Kong.

In the following days we were working most of the day. We started at around 8-9AM and finished around 7-8PM. We didn’t have much time to go sightseeing anymore, only on short excursions in the evening before sleep.

One of such excursions was Madame Tussaud where we had a chance to take some photos with wax figures of famous people. Supposedly the exhibit wasn’t the best as you could clearly see that the statues were made from wax. I was told that in London you can barely tell the difference between a real person and his statue.

3D ghost projected to water droplets/steam

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Thus says Jani Bizjak

20:00 Wed.

9 Aug, 2017

Niagara falls

Almost in Canada

Tags: Canada, fort, musket, niagara falls

Niagara Falls , United States

15 °C

Sunny

6:30 am

12:00 am

Late in the evening we arrived to the Canadian border, but that wasn’t our destination. We came to see one of the most famous falls in the world – Niagara Falls. It was quite late so we only had a quick look at the falls and then retire to our hotel nearby.

Next day we spent whole day on the falls, we walk all over them, above them, below them, under them with a boat. If the ravines from previous day were nothing special the falls here were amazing, I have never seen such a wide falls with so much water before. In Slovenia the biggest waterfall (with most water) is Fall Boka, Niagara Falls must be at least 40 times larger.

The smaller one is american, the one in the distance is just between the border.

The boat ride just below the falls was interesting experience, you get a blue poncho (red is for Canadian side) and then you get soaked below the fall.

In the afternoon we went to visit , which is located down the river before the great lakes. Sadly we didn’t have much time to visit, but we did see a guy firing a musket.

With this we ended our tour and departed toward New York. I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked the waterfalls and how I hated the tour guide who was always rushing us everywhere and had the stupidest accent ever.

In the evening we arrived in New York, this time 1 block away from Time Square, my vacation was over and work began – well almost.

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Thus says Jani Bizjak

12:00 Wed.

9 Aug, 2017

To Washington

and beyond

Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Corning Museum of Glass, DC, Philadelphia, Rocky, washington, White House

Washington , United States

30 °C

Clear

6:27 am

7:55 pm

Long time ago, my French teacher (from Paris) was explaining to us how friends came to visit her in Slovenia. At one point they asked her how far the Venice is from Nova Gorica, and when she said 1hours they couldn’t believe it’s so close and in no time left apartment for a drink in Venice. It was 11PM.

It’s hard to imagine for us Slovenians what far really is. Washington is considered close to New York, yet it took us more than 12 hours with a bus to reach it. On our ways we stopped in Philadelphia, where Declaration of Independence was signed in the late 18^th century. Movie connoisseurs will know Philadelphia from The Rockly movie as well.

It's where the declaration of independence was signed. — It’s where the declaration of independence was signed.

It took us a couple of stops to get to the Washington and at each stop we couldn’t get accustomed to the size of the cars they drive in the USA. If you would look at the cars you would imagine they are driving in the Himalayas each day with all the 4×4 they have.

In the middle of the city. Because you need to cross those sidewalks.

It's hard to imagine how that tiny car can pull such a large trailer. — It’s hard to imagine how that tiny car can pull such a large trailer.

In Washington we had whole afternoon to walk around the sites. It must have been 40 degrees C that day, sweat was dripping from us as we were walking from Lincon memorial to the Aerospace museum and Capitol on the other site. The aerospace museum was particularly interesting, they had models of German jet, from WW2, mars rover, which is much larger than one would imagine from images, some rockets and so on.

It's much larger than one would thought. — It’s much larger than one would thought.

We finished the day with the visit to the whitest of the houses.

Veronika and I in front of the White house. Wonder if Obama was at home.

In the evening we boarded the bus again and set our course toward north. Next day we were driving whole day, stopping in the middle of nowhere in the Glass museum. It was interesting to see how they make different products out of glass and you could also try to make some glass figurines yourself.

After few more hours we arrived to some ravine and falls, nothing to special compared to what we have in Slovenia.

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Thus says Jani Bizjak

20:00 Tue.

8 Aug, 2017

4th of July

Veronika's Birthday

Tags: 4th of July, city from above, fireworks, helicopter, Macys, New York, Veronika Birthday

New York , United States

25 °C

Mostly Cloudy

12:00 am

7:52 pm

After few weeks of planning and numerous calls to USA I managed to get a perfect gift for Veronika’s birthday. Luckily whole USA nation celebrates her birthday, so I didn’t have to worry about fireworks.

Despite sitting in a "safe" spot we got soaked. — Despite sitting in a “safe” spot we got soaked.

Our day started with a ride on a speed boat, again to the Lady Liberty. Seeing it for so many times almost lost some charm to it but the boat ride was fun nonetheless. The boat was fast, there were waves so in the end we were as wet as we would go swimming.

After franticly trying to dry up in half of hour (luckily weather was very hot) we had our main attraction ready – helicopter ride around Manhattan. After quick briefing we were equipped life jackets and escorted to the helipad. Veronika was seated in the front and I was at the left doors. We soon took off. It was a strange feeling flying in a helicopter, it felt like being on some kind of a rollercoaster, very loud a bit bumpy and very light.

Our first destination was nothing else but the Statue of Liberty. Despite seeing it so many times already I can say that from the air it was the best experience. We flew right over it and hovered around a bit before continuing up the Huston river up town. We were flying quite low, there were probably some buildings higher than us at some points but the views were amazing.

Empire State Building from the helicopter.

This truly had been one of the best experiences we had in NY albeit quite expensive.

Manhattan and Lady Liberty from the helicopter.

In the evening we prepared, just as about 3M other people, to go see the fireworks from the Brooklyn bridge. It was only 9PM when the fireworks were supposed to happen, it’s weird, because in Slovenia I think we always have them at midnight, but it’s good for the children I think. The weather got quite bad toward the evening and there were some thunderstorms right at 9PM. Luckily they quickly went by and we could enjoy about 30 minutes of fireworks.

What a perfect end of a birthday. 🙂

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Thus says Jani Bizjak

12:00 Tue.

8 Aug, 2017

Top of The Rock

Intrepid Museum

Tags: Empire State Building, intrepid museum, Lady Liberty, Manhattan, New York, Statue of Liberty, Top of the Rock

New York , United States

21 °C

Partly Cloudy

12:00 am

7:52 pm

Third day started with a shopping in a giant electronic shop B&M where I bought 128GB SD card for my camera for less than half the price of the card in Slovenia. The store has an interesting concept. There are counters everywhere and you tell a guy what you want, he hen fetches the product and puts it on a conveyor belt that runs all over the store (multiple floors). You then proceed to play what you ordered and the items are already waiting for you.

After the store we went to visit a museum on the aircraft carrier from Second World War – Intrepid museum. It’s hard to imagine how huge the thing is, when you see it on TV or in a picture. Even the planes that seem so small are gigantic once you step beside them.

American WW2 aircraft that was capable of landing and taking of from aircraft cariers

We visited the captain’s bridge, overlooking land stripe, and despite the huge ship the interior is small and crowded. It’s hard to imagine how it was being in here during the war.

The museum not only has an aircraft carrier but a submarine also and it was possible to go visit it. If the ship felt tight and cramped the submarine was nothing but claustrophobic. More often than not you had to be crouched and had to watch for your head, legs basically everything.

This was the first submarine capable of carrying ballistic missiles.

Multiple sailors shared same bed (they worked in shifts so when one was sleeping the other one was working)

After the museum we took a boat around the Manhattan. We stopped at the Statue of Liberty again, this time really close and then continued under the Brooklyn Bridge up the river. Again it was interesting to see the city from the river and the guide had an interesting and funny way of convening information about the city. It felt like a movie.

Golf course in New York. I guess they don't have space for full course with holes and grass. — Golf course in New York. I guess they don’t have space for full course with holes and grass.

Toward the evening we visited Top of the Rock – one of the landmarks in Manhattan, quite tall skyscraper with famous Christmas tree (during December) in front of it. New York is such an iconic site, almost every part of it was in at least one movie, Top of the Rock was in Home Alone 2.

After not so quick ride with an elevator we were at the top, it was crowded with tourists but with some help of the elbows we managed to fight our way to the edge of the terrace. The views were breath-taking. You could see whole Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey. Since we came in the evening the sky took nice shade of red.

My favourite photo from last year: Central Park, New York

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Thus says Jani Bizjak