Berlin

           Although I live not far away from Berlin (exactly 2,5 hours by fast train) this year I visited the city for the first time. It was great.

            I only had two days to see everything but I managed fairly well. Berlin is off course very big, with many tourists, shops, caffees and great, gorgeous buildings especially when you walk from the Alexander Platz to see the Brandenburg Gate along the Unter den Linden. It's a very nice walk with trees, and most of the things you should see during a short visit :)

TV Tower

Neptun's fountain

Berlin's Cathedral

Brandenburg Gate

Reichstag

Reichstag's surroundings

 Reichstag's surroundings

 Reichstag's surroundings

 Reichstag's surroundings

Reichstag's surroundings

Reichstag's surroundings

Potsdamer Platz

Berlin's Wall plaque

The Berlin Wall

Jewish museum

TV Tower and the Red City Hall

Views from the Tower

The Bridge

Las Vegas

              When you want to entertain kids - you can take them to an amusement park or Disney World. And when you want to amuse adults you take them to the Sin City :) And what better city there is than - Las Vegas.

When near the city you can take a small detour and visit the Grand Canyon (or when you travel by plane you can see it from above - like me). It's a spectacular and unforgetable sight, even from a far distance.

Immediately after you leave the plane you notice one thing - Vegas is HOT! No wonder of course since it's on a dessert, but still. It's hot and dry. Mercifully, every hotel and every shop has air conditioning. So when you walk in and out of buildings you can experience change of temperature of around 20 degrees Celcius every few minutes. It's not easy.

The hotels are very often full during the day, or maybe only lobbies and places where you can gamble, which is basically everywhere. The streets are less crowded, no surprise here I guess, but those who can tolerate heat fairly well, walk to admire the "out side" Vegas. And there are definately things to see. Vegas offers the whole world in one place. You can see the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, Statue of Liberty, you can take a ride in a gondola, admire fountains dancing to the music and of course enjoy losing big sums of money.

During the night the city can dazzle you with lights, traffic, sounds, music and the never ending clatter of slot machines. There are shows, performances, dancing. Anything you want - you can find. No wonder that it is said: "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas".

P.S. Selling alcohol and gambling is strictly forbidden to people who are under 21. It was very funny for me that I couldn't even try one game, because I was already 1 year legal in my country, but I had to wait 2 more to be legal in the US. On the other hand, I was sattisfied that the law was dutifully followed.

The Grand Canyon

Paris Hotel - where I stayed

Bellagio Hotel - with famous fountains - opposite the Paris Hotel

The Venetian Hotel - with the gondola ride

Years

       Years are passing, time is flying and nothing is going on. I achieve nothing.

Aloe

          I got the aloe plant from my friend. It was very small back then and I was not sure whether it would grow because for some time it was not growing an inch. But then ... voila. It grows like crazy.

           I keep it on my window seal for it to get a lot of sun.

My beautiful aloe :)