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. 🙂

New Year’s Eve

Last day in Luleå

Day 164 , -18 remain

Tags: fireworks, frozen sea, last day, new year

Lulea , Sweden

-30 °C

Fair

9:06 am

2:18 pm

Tuesday 31.12.2013, my last day in Luleå.
Toward evening we prepared some food and headed to other building where majority of students who were staying here over holidays gathered. Again there was lots of food from all over the world, tons of people who I never saw before, or at least talked with them.

Toward 11PM we left apartment and took bus downtown. It was around -7 outside and snowing quite strongly. Yet to my surprise there were really a lot of (young) people (girls) dressed in miniskirts, wearing high heels. I don’t know how they weren’t cold or how their feet didn’t froze, since there was at least 5cm of fresh snow on the ground.

There was no stage or band in city centre as usually in Slovenia. Instead of this there were 3 stalls selling some drinks and sweets and that was it. After following crowd few meters we found a place where they were going to shoot fireworks from. Guess where? From the middle of harbour on almost half a meter of frozen sea.

A lot of people gathered to watch fireworks. Although you could tell you’re not in Slovenia since everyone made sure to have enough personal space around them.

We soon found a nice place to view fireworks from. Just at the edge of pier looking directly onto the sea. After counting backwards from 10 to 0 fireworks started at midnight sharp.

Fireworks were amazing. They were big, colourful and close, I even got hit by shrapnel which somehow made it underneath my shirt. All in all it was amazing.

After it Veronika and I decided to go home alone, since we had a busy day in front of us. We went by foot, my last hike here in Luleå. We had a plan to go over the frozen lake, snow was falling really hard by now, a great last memory to have!

After waking up following morning we ate something and began to clean apartment. When we were done it was already time to go. We said goodbye to our friends and were off on bus. It was sad, driving by the lakes and paths I’ve grown so used to in the last half a year. By the time we came to the rail station I already started to miss this place…