Anika & Corinna conquer the world

Hey! We're two german girls who are very enthusiastic travelers and this blog is here to share our experiences with you! We started this back in 2013 when we went to the USA for a semester and now more adventures will follow! Stay tuned ~

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Second Day -Saturday, still in Shanghai and we started it with - Shopping. We wanted to walk from our hostel to the French Concession but unfortunately got distracted and noticed just how damn far of a walk that was. So we went into some shops on our way there and after some time our group of four was lost at Uni Qlo, probably not just because of the pretty disney fan articles they had there. After spending far too much money, we decided to get a 3 Day metro pass (only like 50 Renminbi I think which is around 6 Euros) and wanted to drive to the french concession. After arriving at the Library (the pic with Corinna in front) we ate near there and walked to it, expecting more Europe than we actually saw tbh. Exhausted, we finally made it back to the hostel, where we noticed how brilliant Shanghai looked when lit up in the dark and decided the next day should be when we visit the skyline - Sunday.

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So my first day in Shanghai was eventful! (I say my because I was alone for most of it) At first I couldn’t find the hostel (the description was damn inaccurate in my opinion), then I couldn’t get into my room and had to wait for a long time. My friends didn’t arrive until 6 pm while I landed 6 am so I had so much time to kill in a city so f***ing hot and big. I didn’t want to go back outside in the (what felt like) 40 °C heat so I stayed in the moldy lobby and tried to sleep it off. When I finally got into the room it was almost as moldy and damp as the lobby was but I slept in it anyway because god was I exhausted. When the others finally arrived, we complained of course but they couldn’t change the beds for all of us so some had to stay in the moldy room (spoilers: we did not get our money back). That building has issues I tell you so if you don’t want mold in your lungs, avoid Mingtown People’s Square Youth Hostel in Shanghai, seriously. Well when that problem was solved, most of us were hungry and we grabbed a bite to eat nearby in a cool little seafood restaurant. That was my first Chinese meal and it was delicious! Thanks to two guys we met at the hostel who were also germans we even had a little group together to try lots of stuff. My fav was the pork belly ;D. I slept horribly but that’s a story for another day. Sorry for the block of text again, enjoy the pictures! 

Btw sorry for the late updates (we’re actually already in Hong Kong rn) but China has tumblr on their ‘we’re blocking this for your own safety’ list I guess (this is no irony at all) so I could not access this blog until yesterday. So yeah. I’m updating with a few days time difference.

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Hey there! Long time no See! I wanted to make a small Update right at the start of our new journey. Corinna, me and another friend are going to Tour parts of East Asia and I'm going to take you through parts of our adventures! Today I'll start with my flight, since Corinna is already in China and we'll meet up tomorrow. Right now it's 11 in the morning, I have not slept last night but I'm already in Vienna, waiting for my flight to Shanghai. Enjoy and I hope you stay with us! ~Anni

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And finally, it was flight day. 

Which meant, saying good bye. Corinna and Julia flew to San Francisco in the morning and I went with them to the airport to see them off. We ate the chocolate frogs we had bought in the Warner Brothers store and shot one last group picture.

After that, I spend my time on the airport until 4 pm, when my flight was leaving for London and then finally Berlin. 

As a summary of it all I have to say that these 6 months really gave me much to think about and so many valuable memories that the pictures on this blog can barely summarize them. There were tough moments in school, of course, there always are. But most of all I will remember the good times I had with my friends and I will remember all I learned at RIT (if not, I wrote it down just to be safe ;P). 

I'm writing this from my flat in Germany (where I'm enjoying all the German food I missed so much) and I want to thank anybody who read this, I hope you enjoyed our blog, even if it was mostly personal. 

Thank you for reading! :)  Anika and Corinna

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Our last day in LA together was spend with going downtown and looking at the city, as you can see the Walt Disney Music Hall and "The Last Bookstore", an astonishing collection of books both for buying and just looking, as they have many artists to decorate the place and it's just wonderful. 

As it was Julia's Birthday as well as our last evening together too, seeing as Corinna and Julia would continue for San Fancisco and I would fly home the day after, we decided to have a special evening at the "Rodeo Ranch". It was basically a bar that had one of these bulls you could ride and the food was excellent. Especially the desert, because we had a macadamia nut brownie ordered for Julia and the waitress brought us this gigantic cotton candy with it that we spend the rest of the evening eating. We had refillable drinks and great entertainment and it was a fitting goodbye for us all. :)

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We went to see the Warner Brothers Studios!

Especially for us as film students, this was reaaaallly interesting to see. There was Harry Potter stuff and we saw original costumes and we even saw the original set where "the Mentalist" is filmed. There was so much done in these studios that I can't even remember everything our tour guide told us. Seriously, it's from every gengre, from "The last Samurai" over "Spiderman" to "Big Bang Theory" to, well, f.r.i.e.n.d.s.!! We even saw the set and did a pic there :D. It was really fun and informative and my fangirl heart was beating fast!

When we got back, we thought about booking a tour of the city for tomorrow but then decided *why not do it today* so we did and got ourselves a nice bus and good seats, saw the Hollywood sign, Beverly Hills and as you can see there, the church from sister act!

All in all, a very eventful day in LA.

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Welcome to Los Angeles! 

Or rather the days we spend there. First day was really just arriving, our bus ride from Vegas was 6 hours so we mostly just dropped into bed that night. 

The next day, we were meeting up with friends of Corinna's who took us to Santa Monica Beach. I always wanted to see that beach, I've never seen the Pacific Ocean and neither had the others. It was nice and relaxing after all the flashing lights and tourist masses that were Las Vegas. They also brought German food, which was even better. I'd never imagined how much I'd miss that.

Afterwards, we still had some daylight to explore the walk of fame, that was luckily just in front of our doorstep from where we lived. It was amazing, imagining how many stars had probably walked over that sidewalk and that the stars in that square really once had their hands on that very spot. Other than that we discovered that man, we really do not know many of these people that have a star on the walk of fame...

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Look, it's the Grand Canyon! We had a great trip with stops at Route 66 and Hoover Dam and the Canyon itself was amazing! These are just a few of the at least 1000 pictures we took there and we're very happy we spent the money for this journey after all. 

Seeing how big the canyon was was very mind blowing and mesmerizing and it makes you see how damn big this country really is. We spend at least half an hour just sitting there, enjoying the view of this national treasure, and, as our busdriver put it, one of the seven natural wonders of the world...

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Shopping Day! Or in other words: The day when we planned on just going shopping and ended up dong the Eiffel tower as well as downtown Las Vegas, which was both lots of fun and a wonderful experience, especially downtown. 

Before shopping, we stopped by a tourist stand that sold us tickets for the Grand Canyon tour the next day! Very excited for that and having to get up early, we went to bed pretty soon.

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More Hotels, more little worlds, more tourist stuff! 

That is basically the summary of our second day in Las Vegas. We went to many shops and many more hotels and the first thing we did was: Walk to the Las Vegas Welcome sign. I have to say, i didn't think that many people would be there. There was literally a line to shoot photos with the sign.

We also got ourselves a bus ticket to get to the sign and in general so we didn't have to run that far. 

Luxor was also a great Hotel. look at it, it's a pyramid! And the rooms of the hotel are in the wall of the pyramid, building on top of each other until they meet in the top and the architecture of it is extremely fascinating.

New York New York brought a little surprise for us, they had a rollercoaster! It was extremely bumpy but still fun and it was funny to see that hotel when we basically just came from the big apple itself. 

The end of the day brought us to a show we wanted to see, the "Las Vegas Show". We wanted to see a show for sure but didn't know which but an actual show ABOUT Las Vegas seemed like the right choice.

The next day would be our shopping day!

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Viva Las Vegas! 

At 3 in the morning on the 2nd, we -literally- crawled out of our beds in New York City, dropped in a cab and drove to the airport for check in. Are we crazy? Maybe. But seriously, it was maybe the most luck we ever had to catch a flight that early. Not because it's fun (it isn't) but because a huge snow storm hit New York City on the 2nd, as I mentioned earlier, and as our flight was at 7 in the morning, we barely escaped it. I think our flight was maybe even one of the last to leave the city at all .

Happy about that little victory and given three hours of new time to spare, we arrived in Las Vegas around 10 in the morning, exhausted but having seen glimpses of the city and the strip from our shuttle, we wanted to see more. It was so warm, too! After -5°C or something in New York, 20°C in LV was beach temperature for us.

Since check in for hotels wasn't until 4 anyway, we left our stuff at Circus Circus and walked the way to the beginning of the strip.

"The Strip" is the name of the giant street where most of the famous hotels and casinos in Las Vegas lie. Now we hadn't come here to gamble (not yet anyway) and so we just looked at everything and shot (so many!) pictures because god, there was so much to see!

There's Treasure Island, with the ships and everything, then the Venetian, which has basically all of Venice rebuilt inside and out and it's just incredible, every hotel had this own little world to see and the whole city itself was an inspiration. 

Caesar's Palace was one of my favorite to see, to be honest. I'm a HUGE fan of Roman/Greek architecture and this place was just full of it. All the statues of gods and the entrance hall alone! 

Okay, shutting up. 

Anyway, we couldn't make it to the end, only made it about half way down the strip before our feet seemed to drop from our bodies. We decided if we wanted to make it back at all, we should do it about now and it was already getting dark. So deciding to come see the rest tomorrow, we turned around after seeing the Flamingos at (oh wow!) the "Flamingo".

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New Years Eve!

Before all the celebrating could start, we still had the whole day to kill. So we went to Central Park again, only having seen about half of it the day before and went to see the rest of it (lower half) we found the ice scating ring and Julia almost pushed me into the Pond with her giant finger.

It was extremely cold already this evening, an omen of the coming cold front that would flood NYC on the second of January.To not freeze to death, we enjoyed a hot chocolate in the boats house in the park. 

Afterwards, we went to see Grand Central Station, not having made it to the main hall at our last visit. It's gigantic and strangely has an integrated Apple Store??? Yeah, you totally need that..

Back at the hotel, we were obviously totally motivated and had a little celebration by ourselves, then heading out for the main event.

New York City provides many ways to celebrate this wonderful evening of greeting the new year. We chose to go to the central park, wisely avoiding the crowded mass of people at Times Square. In Central Park, we enjoyed the Fireworks, saw the joggers get to their start, had a picture made (and did a little light artwork of our own) and then soon left.

Welcome, 2014!

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Central Park! H&M on Time Square! The Wall street Bull! Playground on 11th Street! Free Mason's Loge! Our Hostel room!

Wow, we were around on this day, huh? Yeah, we got up early and explored the corners of the city we hadn't seen last time, visiting places we knew from movies or just wanted to see and look at. Including an abandoned playground.

After walking around all day, we dropped in our beds in the evening, looking forward to New Year's eve the next day. Stay put for that entry ;P

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Christmas!

Skyping with our families in the afternoon (evening in Germany) and celebrating a little bit of Christmas by ourselves in the evening, we had the first Christmas away from home but tried to make it as normal as possible. There was even a little Christmas Tree (pink!) that held our presents to each other and the ones send form friends!

On the 29th, it was time to leave Rochester. Everything was packed, I threw out what I didn't need, since I wouldn't return, and off we went to New York City!

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Baking cookies and cupcakes!  I know, late entries but wow, stressful few weeks ;P You'll get everything in the next few days :)

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we moved! On the 20th, we said bye bye to the RIT Inn, since paying 450 more dollars for 9 more days didn't really seem worth it. So since Corinna and Julia are staying one more Semester, we all packed our stuff and moved to park point together, because it's more awesome there :D (it's like little apartments for students, 2-4 people)

Also, Romy flew back to Germany and made it back safely :3. I'm looking forward to doing the same in January but fiiiirst there's our city tour, yay! :D

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14th December 2013 - FROZEN Frontier

Frozen could be taken quite literally. We went to see an ice hockey game (because that was one thing we didn't want to completely miss out on, seeing as RIT is famous for it) but little did we know that the game was actually OUTSIDE. It was played on a Baseball field for whatever reason and it was -10 °C (14°F) outside and fu**ing snowing. 

But we made it through somehow and until now, none of us got sick...