After a tiring exam week with 4 exams in a row, I was highly ready to go on my well-deserved vacation.
Therefore, I took the night bus on the 23rd of October to go New York. Going to New York was a highly emotional thing for me, because going there had been one of my childhood dreams. And I must confess that basically everything impressed me during the 4 days I spent there: The Time Square, Central Park during autumn, The view from the Empire State Building, The Skyline of New York, The charm of Lower West Side, the morbid and creative atmosphere of Harlem and Williamsburg, Broadway Hostel, the view on the Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry... However, the most impressing thing was that I just dropped by coincidence into a Taylor Swift Concert, being aired on November 25 as part of NBC's thanksgiving session. I did not look well so I hope I will not appear in television at all or just for a very short time. Whatever, at least I saw a concert in a bar and did not pay anything; neither entry nor drinks. I could write pages about New York, but I decided to present you photos below...
After another trip with a night bus, which is cheap because you save hostel nights and time but also a little bit tiring, I arrived in Niagara Falls. Unfortunately the Boat that drives into the falls did not operate anymore. So, I just spent 5 hours to take some pictures and took the bus to Toronto afterwards.
In fact, I was highly curious and in the end I was disappointed of Toronto. Maybe I noticed while being in Toronto how European I am. I love old buildings, coziness and am hardly impressed by skyscrapers. Consequently, I was very shocked when I saw Toronto's downtown. It seems like Toronto decided to sacrifice its identity and history in order to become a "Wannabe Manhattan". There are hardly any old buildings left in the town, the only special new buildings are the enlargement of the Ontario National Museum and the CN Tower and I also have seen much prettier seasides.
Nevertheless, Toronto has also nice places but you have to look for them for a pretty long time, since they are located in the outer areas. Notably, there are Chinatown, Kensington Market, Little Italy, Korea town and the distillery district. Also, Toronto has very nice exhibitions. I visited a press photo exhibition and a modern fair and I liked the hostel very much.
One week after I came back from Toronto, I joined HEChange, our event and welcome week organizers, for a trip to Ottawa. Ottawa is a nice city with an awesome view from the Parliament Hill. You can visit a couple of things there such as the Parliament and enjoy the beautiful view. After a couple of hours spent there, my fellow students went back to Montreal. I did not join them back and visited Braulio, a fellow student of mine who is doing his exchange semester there (Feel free to have a look at his blog http://braulioinottawa.blogspot.com/) It was interesting to see how different the universities are. My university is in a vibrant city and the students live in apartments all over the city whereas Ottawa is rather quiet city but therefore all the students are living one big building on campus.
I spent nice a weekend over there, and I will not stop exploring the world because I am going to go to Boston in 2 days. :)) Until then enjoy some images...
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