Great Falls Park

Today, Joe and I spent the afternoon in Great Falls Park. This park is located around the Potomac River, which separates Maryland from Virginia. We only went to the Maryland side but are already planning to go to the Virginia part someday soon. The weather was sunny and a bit hot but not too much. The landscape was simply wonderful as you can see on the few pics below.

Photo taken from a bridge (wait, no, in fact I was flying)

I just turned around to take this one

Some peaceful landscape

View of the Potomac rapids

Road trippin' to California

After the gloomy message I posted about the Virginia Tech tragedy, it’s time for me to come up with some more cheerful news. With that being said, happy reading! :p

Introduction

Joe, Seb and I just got back from 5 days of vacation. We went on a road trip in California from Thursday, May 3 to Monday, May 7. That stay was fantastic but definitely too short...

I won’t tell you about all the issues we went through on our way to Cali due to flight delays – let’s just say we wasted half a day because of those stupid airlines... Anyway, here is a little summary of our trip.

Thursday to Sunday morning: San Francisco

San Francisco is such an enjoyable city. It's got all you could ask for: wonderful weather (sunny and not too hot), beautiful coastline and hilly landscape, nice parks and bridges, welcoming population and the reputation of being one of the most appreciated city in the US. We visited Alcatraz Island (aka "The Rock"), Chinatown, Mission District, Haight Street as well as a bunch of other nice places.

The so popular cable cars

Union Square


The Coit Tower (what's so funny?)


Pier 39: a lovely place


Pier 39 again: those sea lions seem to love that spot!


The Chinatown gate

Most streets are very steep in San Francisco


View over SF (with the Transamerica Pyramid on the left)


Another view of SF


A rich quarter of the city


Alcatraz Island and its prison (remember Al Capone?)


View over SF from Alcatraz Island


The Golden Gate Bridge

Sunday: Road trip from SF to LA

During the (long) trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles, we drove along the West Coast and its fabulous cliffs and beaches. We stopped every once in a while to take pictures of the amazing landscapes and breathe the warm and pure air of the coastline.

A beautiful beach located somewhere between SF and LA

The kind of outstanding cliffs we drove by


Up for a dive?

Monday: Hollywood, Beverly Hills and LA

That was short. Too short. I wish we’d stayed there much longer but given the little time frame we had, we preferred to focus on SF rather than LA (as suggested by pretty much all the Americans we know). We arrived there around 9:30 pm on Sunday and rushed to our hotel before having dinner at a Popeyes. We were literally dead tired and almost passed out in our beds.
On Monday morning, we drove from the hotel to LAX airport across Hollywood, Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevards. We also quickly passed through Beverly Hills but didn't have enough time to stop.

Oh, I almost forgot: don't EVER drive in LA if your car doesn't have air conditioning (34°C at 10:20 am in the beginning of May if you know what I mean...).

No joke!


A photo of Beverly Hills taken while driving

As I often say: "I was there!" :)

Virginia Tech massacre

What happened yesterday morning on the Virginia Tech campus is a real tragedy. In America, people are obviously very shocked, especially in Virginia. TV channels have been broadcasting countless coverages and interviews since yesterday.
I recently learnt that the gunman's family lives in Centreville, only a few minutes drive from my place. What a spooky coincidence...

Some people I know used to be students at VT and my roommate still has friends and her cousin there.

My condolences go to the families and relatives of the victims.

My new room: smaller yet much nicer!

My roommates and I switched rooms last Wednesday. I actually used to have a room twice as large as theirs but I was living alone in it, which didn't really make sense. My new bedroom is totally kick-ass! I now have tons of drawers, a full-size bed, a bigger TV and a fancy ceiling fan.
The best news is I'm going to pay a few hundred bucks less per month! I know it sounds crazy... That's what I call getting an upgrade for cheaper! Only negative point is I'll be sharing the bathroom with my landlord's kid (meaning I will no longer have my OWN bathroom), but honestly, I don't really care about that :)

Check out the pics!

Entrance of the room

My large and comfortable brand new bed (with new sheets too!)

Laptop, router, TV, DVD player, cable box, phone, cell phone, HiFi, ... What else?

Oops! I forgot the printer and the 3 remote controls! :p

Philly... Big time!

It's been quite a while since I last posted a message. That's because Joe and I didn't travel a lot during the last few weeks - we were too busy going out in DC and meeting people ;)

However, we did travel last weekend. That's why I'm coming up with some fresh news! We went to Philadelphia from Friday night to Sunday to celebrate Seb's birthday and quickly visit the city. Seb and Chris actually live in a town called Bethlehem, about 1.5 hours drive from Philly. I don't have any pics of the town, though... go check out Joe's blog for that :p

All the photos below were taken in Philadelphia.

Some irregularly-shaped glass building

One of the large streets of the city

Some buildings (one is being constructed - "I WAS THERE!!")

Some buildings... again


Typically the kind of views I love

The Philadelphia Museum of Art (remember Rocky?)

What' I say 'bout Rocky, huh?

The whole city on a single pic - end of the visit!

Home cinema... at home!

Last Friday, my roommate bought an awesome 47'' LCD HD TV. It replaces the old TV (which, I found, already had a decent size) in the living room. He also installed a home cinema sound system, which makes it insane to watch a movie at home!

Get ready to rumble!

The National Air and Space Museum

Joe, one of his roommates and I visited the National Air and Space Museum yesterday. The museum is actually split into two facilities: one downtown (on the National Mall, in DC) and a bigger one in Chantilly, close to Dulles International Airport. We went to the second one.

The museum essentially exposes WWI and WWII planes, civil aircrafts as well as some space ships and items.

Outside view of the NA&S Museum

US plane that was considered very advanced during WWII

A Blackbird: spy plane that can do up to 3,620 km/h (Mach 3.3)!

Overview of the main wing of the museum

Space items that did a round trip to the Moon

The Concorde