Mistakes in my essay?

Hi!

I have to write an essay about a trip thorugh the USA (Eastern states).

I hope it's not too long. This is a part of it:

"After our visit in China Town the guided bus tour ended. We went back to hotel, ate something and in the evening we explored the centre of Manhattan on ourselves. We started with the Times Square, not far away from our hotel, where 7^th Avenue crosses the Broadway and which is named after the daily newspaper “New York Times”, which had its office there in the early 20^th century. It’s an enormous place with hundreds of advertising sings of the biggest companies in the world and many screens showing TV-shows, news and other things 24 hours a day. It was fantastic! It really seemed to be day and not night because of all the lights. Many restaurants, theaters, even TV-Studios and the NASDAQ are located at or around Times Square, the heart of New York. I think most of the people there were tourists, thus many street salesmen where there who sold faked sun glasses, CDs and other things.

After that we explored the Broadway, which goes through the Times Square. The Broadway is a major street and the oldest north-south main thoroughfare of New York City. We didn’t walk down the whole street, this would have taken too long, but we walked down the area near Times Square. In this area of the Broadway, which is often called Theatre Disctrict or “Great White Way”, you can find many theaters and music halls. Like the Times Square, every year millions of tourists visit this place. Although I didn’t find it very interesting because I’m not interested in theaters that much and there weren’t so many lights as on Times Square, it was nice to see if you compared this to other streets in New York which looked like normal streets in other citys. The Broadway was the last thing we saw on this day before we returned to our hotel.

On the next day, we continued our walk through the city and hat a lot of time for shopping. First we visited the Trump Tower, but we didn’t enter it. This is a scyscraper built by Donald Trump, a famous American business executive. It wasn’t very interesting as it wasn’t as big as most of the other scyscrapers and thus we went to Macy’s, the world largest store. I was excited about what it would look like, but when we were in, I realized that there was no real difference to other large stores, for example the “KaDeWe” in Berlin, Germany. We didn’t buy anything, because most of the things were very expensive compared to other stores in New York, so we continued our shopping tour with visiting other stores.

Except of these things we didn’t do many that afternoon. In the evening there was a special highlight: a guided bus tour by night through Manhattan. We saw the things we had seen by day, for example WTC, Empire State Building, but the greatest impression that night was another one: We went to a harbor outside Manhattan but with a great view onto it. You could nearly see the whole skyline behind the waterfront which is around Manhattan and everywhere were lights. It was fantastic. After that we had a small meal at the harbor’s snack bar and returned to our hotel. The next day, it was Sunday morning, we visited a church in Harlem, which is a quarter of Manhattan and where mainly Black Americans live. When we arrived at this church there was a service. We entered it and went up to the gallery so we had an overview and could see the whole church. People were singing gospel songs, dancing, clapping their hands, everything and everybody was loose. It was completely different to our services at church which often seem boring to young people, although in Germany you can come to church in normal clothes, but in the USA most of the people wear special clothes like dresses or suits. The people there were very friendly and the pastor even said “Hello” to the German guests. We didn’t stay until the end of the service and after a short walk through Harlem we made a Circle Line Cruise with a boat around Manhattan. It was nice to see Manhattan from outside and after a while we passed the Statue of Liberty. This is a statue given to the American people by France in the late 19^th century, standing at Liberty Island in the mouth of Hudson River. It’s near New York’s harbor, so it welcomes returning Americans, visitors and tourists and, of course, immigrants. This especially played a big role in the past when thousands of immigrants a day came to the USA. It was nice to see, although I ever thought the Statue would be much bigger. We only passed it but we didn’t climb up to the top of the Statue where you can find a public observatory.

In the afternoon we visited the Hard Rock Café and bought some T-Shirts, made a last walk through the Central Park and returned to our hotel because we had to get up very early the next day. After breakfast, we left New York behind us.

Niagara Falls

We were sitting in our coach and on the way to Niagara Falls, a city in Niagara County and next to the world famous Niagara Falls. While driving to it, our tour guide told the group a few facts and information, for example about citys or things we passed by with our bus. Most of the time I was sleeping because the nights were very short, so I can’t really remember what he said, but I think it was not very important. On our way we stopped for lunch and had a delicious meal in All-you-can-eat restaurant. You had to pay 7 $ and you could eat as much as u wanted. There were many things to choose from and even a soft ice machine. In the USA, you can often find such restaurants and they are highly recommendable. After another few hours of driving we arrived in Niagara Falls. It was a pretty small and unexctiting town, but my sister and me were very happy when we realized that we both had nearly a real suite with 3 rooms and a whirlpool in our hotel. After checking in we started our tour to the Niagara Falls, which weren’t far away and we could even see from our hotel room. “The Falls”, as many people call them, are a set of three massive waterfalls located on the Niagara River at the boarder between the USA and Canada. There are the “Horseshoe Falls”, sometimes also called “the Canadian Falls”, the “American Falls” and the smaller “Bridal Veil Falls”. They aren’t very high but very wide. With more than 168,000 cubic metres of water falling down per minute they are the most powerful waterfalls in North America. The most spectacularly and well-known waterfalls are the “Horseshoe Falls” which we visited this day. There was a public observatory next to the falls with a great view onto it. It was very loud there because of the noise developed by the falling water. We hadn’t much time as it was already late afternoon and we had a special highlight that evening: A diner upon a high tower on the Canadian side with a view onto the falls. We returned to our hotel and in the evening we crossed the boarder to Canada. The city in Canada located at the falls is also called “Niagara Falls”, but it is nearly twice as big as the American city with the same name. In this city you can find the “Minolta Tower”, a tower with a view onto the waterfalls which is 100 metres high and contains a hotel, a observation deck, a restaurant, a wedding chapel and some gift shops. We had to take the elevator and arrived at the restaurant which was in one of the last floors of the building. It was a round room with a glass pane wall which you could look through onto the Niagara Falls. The tables were put next to it; in the middle there was a bar and the kitchen. We had a nice dinner with a fantastic view, but I think it was very expensive. After this we went up to the outside observatory. You could hear the masses of water falling down and you could see the falls which were turned into different colors by spotlights installed on the ground, so it was very nice and exciting to see this.

The next day we also crossed the Canadian boarder because on the Canadian side of the falls there was a company which offered boat tours to the falls called “Maid Of The Mist”. Everybody had to put on plastic raincoats and it began. It took a few minutes and then we were next to the falls, about 50 m away. You could hardly have a look on it because of the water in the air and you even couldn’t talk to each other as it was extremely loud there. Nevertheless it was fantastic being so near to the falls. When we were back from this trip we had a last look onto the falls from another observatory. It was curios that the whole street and observatory next to the falls on the Canadian side were wet. This was because of the fog created by the masses of falling water. It looked like a never-ending rain. As it was noon now, we packed our suitcases and left Niagara Falls behind us on the way to Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Williamsport

Actually we were on the way to Washington D.C., but it would have taken too much time so we spent our night in Williamsport. It is a pretty small city with no real tourist attractions and we arrived in the evening, so there was not much to visit and especially no time for it. We had a tasty buffett in our hotel “Genetti” and, as far as I can remember, our tour guide told that even famous persons like Bill Clinton had spent a night in this hotel. Except this hotel there was nothing interesting in this small town, so we went to bed early."

Especially the correct use of tenses is sometimes a problem for me. When do I have to use which tense (past)?

Thx 4 ur help