Cabrillo National Monument - San Diego
Surf Dudes (Matt on Right) - Ocean Beach, San Diego
Rangitoto Volcano Caves - Auckland, NZ
Hollywood Boulevard - L.A.
28 October 2006
Photos of Phun!
Rangitoto Island from Devonport Beach - Auckland, NZ
Cabrillo National Monument - San Diego
Surf Dudes (Matt on Right) - Ocean Beach, San Diego
Rangitoto Volcano Caves - Auckland, NZ
Hollywood Boulevard - L.A.
Cabrillo National Monument - San Diego
Surf Dudes (Matt on Right) - Ocean Beach, San Diego
Rangitoto Volcano Caves - Auckland, NZ
Hollywood Boulevard - L.A.
26 October 2006
joke de la jour
Why does a lump of moon rock taste better than a lump of earth rock?
Because it's a little meteor.
Because it's a little meteor.
18th-23rd october
We are currently cruising at an altitude of 39,000 feet. If you look out of the window to your left you can see nothing, and if you look out the window to your right I am assured that you can see new zealand. We have been flying for almost 12 hours now, and still have another hour or so to go. It is still pitch black outside as we chase the moon, though i'm sure the sun will catch up with us soon. Bizarrely we've lost a day. We took off on the 23rd, but it's now the 25th. Surreal. The flight's not been too bad, I have watched several films. X-men 3 was okay. Nacho libre (jack black, spandex, wrestling) was abysmal. I may even have got an hour or two of sleep but that would be debatable. We're in auckland for five days until we pick up the van staying in the surf and snow hostel. Odd considering auckland doesn't have facilities for either surfing or skiing... Looks nice enough though. Hmm, air new zealand need more toilets on the plane. I only want to clean my teefs...
Anyway, a brief sequence of events of what kasey and codey (our california names) have been up to in our last few days in LA.
18th - left san diego. Cruised up to the southern reaches of the LA sprawl. It is incomprehensible in its size. If you took the ten biggest uk cities and put them together they probably would be swallowed up by LA with room to spare. It's about 70-80 miles across and maybe 40-50 in length. Anyway, we started at the bottom of orange county - home of The OC's newport beach, and, laguna beach. Laguna beach is clearly home to some money. Look at me, i'm rich! Nice beaches too. Newport beach was not the same as on tv. Whilst the houses on the hills were nice, the beach itself was your average california ramshackle beach community. Sorry OC fans. All the beach communities up the coast are nice. Only long beach was a bit tatty and industrial. It's on the southern end of the "south central" LA area, famous for its gangs. Windows up kasey (or joey)! From there it was more nice beaches to venice beach - our LA home...
The captain has just announced that there will be a delay to the landing due to a technical fault. Crap.
19th - we explored venice beach and santa monica. There are surfers around the pier, but the water is pretty grim. There is an awful lot of rubbish, yet the rest of the california coast is very clean. It's cool to see all these places that you've heard of in songs and tv - santa monica blvd, sunset strip etc. Cool...
20th - today was joey's day. We went to beverly hills. Rodeo drive and the lifestyles of the rich and famous. First stop hollywood though... A completely underwhelming area just west of downtown. Mann's chinese theatre, the walk of the stars, and, erm, er... Nothing. Nothing but tat merchants. Really really strange. Needless to say we didn't stay long.
Rodeo drive (why do they pronounce it row-day-o?). Now this looked exactly like it does on tv... Pretty woman... We window-shopped and generally brought down the tone. No celebs though. Kasey/joey was muy disappointed... She had secret hopes of meeting paris and nicole, and being invited to a hollywood party where she would steal the show... It wasn't to be.
On the way back to venice beach we stopped at santa monica state beach to play a spot of beach footie, or soccer as I now insist on calling it... Anyway, turns out the wife is pretty good for a girl. A wasted career perhaps? I've called the big clubs out to send a scout: Real, Barca, Brighton, Athletico Deckchair, Sweet FA etc.
In the evening we went for a few shandies in santa monica at the library alehouse where we got talking to the couple sitting next to us. They were from boston and had sold their business to move to LA so that she could be an actor (apparently actresses are so last year). It is true what they say - almost everyone in LA wants to be in front of the camera. As our new friend frank described it, all the good looking people across america move to LA to make it. All the waiters and waitresses are just on the verge of their big break. Even the barmaid (who to be fair new how to pour guinness) kept ranting on about her theatrical training. That's great love, but get me another pint and make it snappy.
21st - Why oh why oh why. I'm a relatively smart man. I have a-levels. GCSEs. I'm even a chartered certified accountant. Common sense and fair judgement. Not known for risk-taking or poor decisions. So why oh why oh why did I let joey talk me into rollerblading? Honestly. Hire a bike? Yep. A skateboard? Defo. A tandem even? Why not. But, why did I agree to roller blades (with a slight hangover)? Objection 1. I've ice-skated twice before in my life. In two one-hour sessions I probably spent a combined time of 3-4 minutes not on my arse or my knees. Why would roller blading be any different? Objection 2. It just doesn't look that macho and I, after all, am a macho-man. Firstly rollerblading in itself is a bit girly. Secondly, a man with no balance in normal shoes is guaranteed to look a tool trying to stay upright in those blade things. But, when in rome (or this case venice)... And so $5 an hour each was laid down and off we went. Anyway, it turned out that i'm a natural at accelerating. I was not, however, so naturally gifted at decelerating. There are two recognised methods of braking. Firstly, with the stopper conveniently attached to the heel of the right boot. Secondly, by pointing your toes inward - like skiing. Well, I have created a third method. You point your skates at the nearest fixed dustbin and close your eyes. It's not glamorous, and it does hurt, but it prevents further injury. It also encourages you to learn method one a bit quicker. We managed to get from venice pier to santa monica pier in one piece when we foolishly took the boots off to rest our feet. Foolishly? Yes. Once off, joey's boots wouldn't go back on. A one hour walk back carrying the buggers. And it had got hot.
In the evening we went to watch basketball - the LA Clippers vs the Seattle SuperSonics. Clippers won by 4 points. Good fun alround, and joey bought a souvenir t-shirt. Afterwards we checked out downtown santa monica's late night scene. Even at 11pm there were loads of street dancers, singers and musicians all trying to loosen the money out of our pockets and in to theirs... The most interesting guy was a religious man who was presenting a powerpoint slideshow and taking Q&A from the crowd. The mic was only available to non-christians, and the point was to ask him questions for him to convince you that his religion was right and everyone else was wrong. Unfortunately he was a bit too much of a fanatic and was not good at criticism. If he got a question he didn't like he would mute the microphone or shout over them. It was interesting, but the guy was too ignorant/closed to discuss anyone elses opinion. Even joey had a crack at him, but he denied that subjectivity could possibly exist (when translating the bible over thousands of years). If he was any good as a debater (regardless of the topic), then he should have accepted things like this as a risk to his belief.
22nd - the Lyn dynasty! Today we met the LA branch of the Lyn/Lim clan. Joey's great uncle patrick and his family (4 daughters) and her great aunt betty. For lunch we went to one of the four daughters in malibu (also called betty). Not only was betty's house in malibu, but it was two doors from anthony hopkins and opposite martin sheen's! Joey's eyes lit up! After a very pleasant lunch with both betties and Steve, we went for a stroll on malibu beach. Nice. Betty's son jonathan and his wife (also joey) led us to thousand oaks, where great uncle patrick and his family live, for dinner. Dinner was basically a great big chinese buffet cooked up by the lady of the house (great auntie shaoman) for about 15 lyns and 2 hills! All in all, very nice food and nice to meet some more of joey's family, who were all nice and made me feel very welcome indeed.
23rd - packed our bags and took off for the southern hemisphere... Went for one last stroll on a LA beach and realised that despite it being a grubby old town with a severe homeless problem, we quite like it...
That's all for now. I think I owe you a couple of wingwatches, both in san diego, so I'll rack my brains...
Joey's musings:- Well here we are in the city of sails AKA Auckland.....not at all like the city of sin AKA Las Vegas! We are feeling a little jaded after the rather lengthy flight from L.A but hopefully another good nights sleep will do the trick. On first impressions Auckland appears to be a lovely city with water all around it, nice fresh food, temperate climate......great if you like being fit and outdoorsey! Unlike us whose 2 months of glutony are catching up! Where's the Cold Stone Cremery, that's what I say! Lots of love, jo xxxx
Anyway, a brief sequence of events of what kasey and codey (our california names) have been up to in our last few days in LA.
18th - left san diego. Cruised up to the southern reaches of the LA sprawl. It is incomprehensible in its size. If you took the ten biggest uk cities and put them together they probably would be swallowed up by LA with room to spare. It's about 70-80 miles across and maybe 40-50 in length. Anyway, we started at the bottom of orange county - home of The OC's newport beach, and, laguna beach. Laguna beach is clearly home to some money. Look at me, i'm rich! Nice beaches too. Newport beach was not the same as on tv. Whilst the houses on the hills were nice, the beach itself was your average california ramshackle beach community. Sorry OC fans. All the beach communities up the coast are nice. Only long beach was a bit tatty and industrial. It's on the southern end of the "south central" LA area, famous for its gangs. Windows up kasey (or joey)! From there it was more nice beaches to venice beach - our LA home...
The captain has just announced that there will be a delay to the landing due to a technical fault. Crap.
19th - we explored venice beach and santa monica. There are surfers around the pier, but the water is pretty grim. There is an awful lot of rubbish, yet the rest of the california coast is very clean. It's cool to see all these places that you've heard of in songs and tv - santa monica blvd, sunset strip etc. Cool...
20th - today was joey's day. We went to beverly hills. Rodeo drive and the lifestyles of the rich and famous. First stop hollywood though... A completely underwhelming area just west of downtown. Mann's chinese theatre, the walk of the stars, and, erm, er... Nothing. Nothing but tat merchants. Really really strange. Needless to say we didn't stay long.
Rodeo drive (why do they pronounce it row-day-o?). Now this looked exactly like it does on tv... Pretty woman... We window-shopped and generally brought down the tone. No celebs though. Kasey/joey was muy disappointed... She had secret hopes of meeting paris and nicole, and being invited to a hollywood party where she would steal the show... It wasn't to be.
On the way back to venice beach we stopped at santa monica state beach to play a spot of beach footie, or soccer as I now insist on calling it... Anyway, turns out the wife is pretty good for a girl. A wasted career perhaps? I've called the big clubs out to send a scout: Real, Barca, Brighton, Athletico Deckchair, Sweet FA etc.
In the evening we went for a few shandies in santa monica at the library alehouse where we got talking to the couple sitting next to us. They were from boston and had sold their business to move to LA so that she could be an actor (apparently actresses are so last year). It is true what they say - almost everyone in LA wants to be in front of the camera. As our new friend frank described it, all the good looking people across america move to LA to make it. All the waiters and waitresses are just on the verge of their big break. Even the barmaid (who to be fair new how to pour guinness) kept ranting on about her theatrical training. That's great love, but get me another pint and make it snappy.
21st - Why oh why oh why. I'm a relatively smart man. I have a-levels. GCSEs. I'm even a chartered certified accountant. Common sense and fair judgement. Not known for risk-taking or poor decisions. So why oh why oh why did I let joey talk me into rollerblading? Honestly. Hire a bike? Yep. A skateboard? Defo. A tandem even? Why not. But, why did I agree to roller blades (with a slight hangover)? Objection 1. I've ice-skated twice before in my life. In two one-hour sessions I probably spent a combined time of 3-4 minutes not on my arse or my knees. Why would roller blading be any different? Objection 2. It just doesn't look that macho and I, after all, am a macho-man. Firstly rollerblading in itself is a bit girly. Secondly, a man with no balance in normal shoes is guaranteed to look a tool trying to stay upright in those blade things. But, when in rome (or this case venice)... And so $5 an hour each was laid down and off we went. Anyway, it turned out that i'm a natural at accelerating. I was not, however, so naturally gifted at decelerating. There are two recognised methods of braking. Firstly, with the stopper conveniently attached to the heel of the right boot. Secondly, by pointing your toes inward - like skiing. Well, I have created a third method. You point your skates at the nearest fixed dustbin and close your eyes. It's not glamorous, and it does hurt, but it prevents further injury. It also encourages you to learn method one a bit quicker. We managed to get from venice pier to santa monica pier in one piece when we foolishly took the boots off to rest our feet. Foolishly? Yes. Once off, joey's boots wouldn't go back on. A one hour walk back carrying the buggers. And it had got hot.
In the evening we went to watch basketball - the LA Clippers vs the Seattle SuperSonics. Clippers won by 4 points. Good fun alround, and joey bought a souvenir t-shirt. Afterwards we checked out downtown santa monica's late night scene. Even at 11pm there were loads of street dancers, singers and musicians all trying to loosen the money out of our pockets and in to theirs... The most interesting guy was a religious man who was presenting a powerpoint slideshow and taking Q&A from the crowd. The mic was only available to non-christians, and the point was to ask him questions for him to convince you that his religion was right and everyone else was wrong. Unfortunately he was a bit too much of a fanatic and was not good at criticism. If he got a question he didn't like he would mute the microphone or shout over them. It was interesting, but the guy was too ignorant/closed to discuss anyone elses opinion. Even joey had a crack at him, but he denied that subjectivity could possibly exist (when translating the bible over thousands of years). If he was any good as a debater (regardless of the topic), then he should have accepted things like this as a risk to his belief.
22nd - the Lyn dynasty! Today we met the LA branch of the Lyn/Lim clan. Joey's great uncle patrick and his family (4 daughters) and her great aunt betty. For lunch we went to one of the four daughters in malibu (also called betty). Not only was betty's house in malibu, but it was two doors from anthony hopkins and opposite martin sheen's! Joey's eyes lit up! After a very pleasant lunch with both betties and Steve, we went for a stroll on malibu beach. Nice. Betty's son jonathan and his wife (also joey) led us to thousand oaks, where great uncle patrick and his family live, for dinner. Dinner was basically a great big chinese buffet cooked up by the lady of the house (great auntie shaoman) for about 15 lyns and 2 hills! All in all, very nice food and nice to meet some more of joey's family, who were all nice and made me feel very welcome indeed.
23rd - packed our bags and took off for the southern hemisphere... Went for one last stroll on a LA beach and realised that despite it being a grubby old town with a severe homeless problem, we quite like it...
That's all for now. I think I owe you a couple of wingwatches, both in san diego, so I'll rack my brains...
Joey's musings:- Well here we are in the city of sails AKA Auckland.....not at all like the city of sin AKA Las Vegas! We are feeling a little jaded after the rather lengthy flight from L.A but hopefully another good nights sleep will do the trick. On first impressions Auckland appears to be a lovely city with water all around it, nice fresh food, temperate climate......great if you like being fit and outdoorsey! Unlike us whose 2 months of glutony are catching up! Where's the Cold Stone Cremery, that's what I say! Lots of love, jo xxxx
21 October 2006
11th - 18th october 2006
18th october
I guess I should update this. I just need to keep reminding myself that if I don't update this then joey and I will have no diary of our trip to look back on when we're old and wrinkly. That, and of course any poor fool that stumbles on this won't get to keep up with us either... So, San Diego:
11th - was quite sad to leave las vegas. Any longer there and it could have become too intense, but I think we got it about right. We dropped the kids off at the airport (chris and a slightly tearful lu), they were off to san fran for a week. I hope the weather was kinder to them there than it was to us. From there we cruised down to san diego in the hope of finding some more sunshine and maybe even love, fame and fortune. Okay, just sunshine then...
We stopped off at a town called temecula on the way down. It has an old wooden frontier town area which you can't help but think is somewhat contrived... Anyway, after a quick lunch we spotted a hairdressers over the road and decided to take advantage - after all my barnet hadn't been cut since we left blighty. Now being as this was a mainly mexican area of california, and they don't get too many balding blonde englishmen in there, they pulled out all the stops. I assume that was the reason, as I can only describe it as the world's most erotic haircut. The young lady who cut my hair, let's call her madonna, spent rather a long time stroking my head and neck whilst shaving my hair. She also dropped in comments such as "oh, it's so blonde", "such a manly haircut" and "I bet it doesn't take you long in the shower". Fortunately, joey couldn't hear madonna's ramblings and was unaware that her husband was being seduced by a rogue hairdresser. But madge wasn't done there! She lead me out the back to wash my hair. I barely have any hair! I don't think my hair has ever been washed by anyone but me (well, maybe by rosie when I was younger). Anyway, the washing involved ear and forehead stroking, not to mention more lewd comments. And poor wifey was blissfully unaware. It only cost ten bucks, so I gave her a rather generous five dollar tip. In retrospect this was perhaps not the smartest move, I think she took it as a come-on. Oops. We fled (joey and I, rather than madonna and I) and got down to san diego...
The evening involved dinner in the gaslamp district. An area once frequented by wyatt earp and co, and one of the few old areas not torn down to make way for high rises...
12th - san diego zoo is considered one of the finest zoo's in the world. We considered it our responsibility to see if this really is the case:
Reptiles - most unpleasant. Probably not the zoo's fault, more my phobias.
Monkeys and Apes - excellent, could watch them for ages.
Pigs and goats - all amusing, but a bit smelly.
Elephants, rhinos and giraffes - all excellent, soon moving to bigger pens.
Giant Tortoises - mating season. Traumatising.
Overall, a good zoo and a good day out. And at $22 much cheaper than sea world at $55.
On the way back from the zoo, it was joey's turn for a haircut!!! Fortunately we didn't go to the same hairdressers as I did. That would have been wrong. No, joey found some slightly fancy place in a nice area of town (no toni & guy - we are roughing it after all). So she went in and asked for a trim while I went for a stroll. It turns out that it was one of those places that only does one style - not sure that's because they only know how to do one style or they only get asked to do one style. You could go in bald, afro or dreads. You'd still come out with the same cut. I was a little shocked on my return to see that they'd turned jo into the all american housewife. A cross between martha stewart and the mum from the brady bunch. It was very difficult to keep from laughing. So I didn't. They had given her hair a LOT of volume! Photo to follow...
13th - hey amigo! Yes, we went to mexico. Tijuana to be exact. We got the tram from san diego to the border and just walked over. The US side at the border is quite barron, save for a petrol station and a bus stop. The mexican side is quite surreal as it's a huge city squashed right up to the border. Most americans only cross over to buy cheaper drugs (pharmaceutical) have dental work done or drink if you're under 21. The only areas of town reachable by foot are a mixture of chemists, dentists, bars, restaurants and tat merchants. And if you stand out in a crowd as not being mexican (such as my good self) then the merchants try to drag you in every single one. Add to this children selling jewellery and donkeys painted with stripes to look like zebras for photo opportunities and you've got a very unusual and un-mexican way to spend a few hours... It does not give a good impression of mexico which is a shame because it's probably all that most americans will ever see of it.
There is also a well known police scam in tijuana whereby you are accused of trespassing and 'fined' forty or fifty dollars on the spot or threatened with prison. Joey and I haven't had the best of luck in areas like this so it was no surprise when we got stopped by the old bill. First he wanted to see my ID then asked where we had been (i feel trespassing coming on). Then he wanted jo's ID. We spoke to him in Spanish and he realised we were Brits as opposed to Americans. He asked our ages and a few other questions. I'd just noticed that he didn't have a badge and I was almost dipping into my wallet to pay the anticipated 'fine' when he gave us our passports back and sent us on our way. Maybe because we were english or maybe because we tried to speak spanish. Who knows.
The crossing back took two hours or so with the department of homeland security showing their usual levels of efficiency...
Anyway, probably not the most realistic taster of mexico. If you didn't know better, it would put you off...
14th - went to the beaches! Still not a great deal of sunshine, but warm enough to visit pacific beach, ocean beach and mission beach; gnarly little surf obsessed towns where people live to surf. On that day there was a carnival on too which made for a nice day out.
In the evening we found ourselves in another gay bar! Doesn't that make us the brighton equivalent of the british holiday makers who go to marbella and head for the nearest "nags head"? This was in the hillcrest suburb of san diego, a generally gay/studenty area of town which, as usual, had a good mix of shops, restaurants and bars. We did actually stumble into the place erroneously. It was called Mo's. The owners name? No, short for homos! Still, dinner was nice.
15th - sunday was spent cruising the coast. La Jolla (pronounced "hoya") is a very posh suburb. The beaches here were small bays with grassy headlands inbetween. It appeared to be a popular spot for weddings and diving. Above and below the sea level respectively.
Not quite as ostentatious was the northern town of cardiff-by-the-sea! No miners here though. Just big surfers beaches and big big houses on the hills. It was almost as pretty as it's namesake.
We've discovered an ice cream shop here called cold stone creamery where they take basic ice cream flavours and personalise them by adding various biscuits and chocolates and sauces at your request. I am of course addicted. Anyway, we stopped by one near our hotel on the way back when something strange happened. Joey got stuck between the front seats of the car! We'd parked up and she was leaning over to the backseat to get her jumper, when she slipped and fell onto the tat tray that sits between the two front seats (you know, the one where you keep the coins and stuff - in england you'd have a gear stick and handbrake too). Anyway joey fell here and started laughing hysterically. I tried to lift her up, but I accidentally put my finger in her belly button which caused her to wriggle further, and yes, the tat tray collapsed, gravity took over and she slid further. Joey was now well and truly stuck between the seats along with all the crap that was previously on the tray - money, maps, drinks, pens even a guidebook. Of course by this point we were both hysterical. Picture if you will: her legs were bent into the front passenger foot-well, her torso between the front seats, and her head and arms in the rear passenger foot area. At this point (9:15), we realised that the cold stone creamery closed shortly (9:30), and so a struggle ensued. Unfortunately I was pulling joey's legs from the front whilst she was trying to climb into the back. After much seat movement and laurel and hardy type comic movements, the joanne hill 1 was finally freed, whereby we celebrated with ice-cream and fizzy pop. Awesome!
16th - monday was one of my favourite days in the US so far. At 11am I had my first surf lesson in the pacific. Joey chose to sit it out this time (i think that she was protecting her new haircut). The surf at pacific beach is perfect for beginners: clean 3ft swell, mild currents, no rocks or reefs and lots of lifeguards. It all came back pretty quickly and I was falling off the board left, right and centre in no time, just like I was during my lessons last year. This time I learnt to turn which was helpful, though I rarely stayed on a wave long enough to require turning. Every now and then a 6-8ft wave turned up and I got hammered. Most amusing. So after two and a half hours of pacific-swallowing, nose-diving, head-banging, foot-scratching, leash-rubbing, muscle-aching fun, I was done. Next stop, australia!
We spent the afternoon sitting on the beach building sandcastles, watching sufers and watching the sun go down. Followed up by happy hour in a nearby bar and a spot of thai. Sweet.
17th - boring job day. Laundry and accommodation booking/research for L.A. mainly. Only an awesome jerk chicken pizza in the evening managed to save the day from being a write-off...
All in all, san diego was pretty cool. Plenty to see and do, especially if you're a beach bum.
Next instalment: The OC, L.A., and leaving america... Until then...
Ps - lu & chris, hope you enjoyed san fran and had a safe trip home.
No musings from mrs. H today. The sun goddess is preying to her god - working her tan!
I guess I should update this. I just need to keep reminding myself that if I don't update this then joey and I will have no diary of our trip to look back on when we're old and wrinkly. That, and of course any poor fool that stumbles on this won't get to keep up with us either... So, San Diego:
11th - was quite sad to leave las vegas. Any longer there and it could have become too intense, but I think we got it about right. We dropped the kids off at the airport (chris and a slightly tearful lu), they were off to san fran for a week. I hope the weather was kinder to them there than it was to us. From there we cruised down to san diego in the hope of finding some more sunshine and maybe even love, fame and fortune. Okay, just sunshine then...
We stopped off at a town called temecula on the way down. It has an old wooden frontier town area which you can't help but think is somewhat contrived... Anyway, after a quick lunch we spotted a hairdressers over the road and decided to take advantage - after all my barnet hadn't been cut since we left blighty. Now being as this was a mainly mexican area of california, and they don't get too many balding blonde englishmen in there, they pulled out all the stops. I assume that was the reason, as I can only describe it as the world's most erotic haircut. The young lady who cut my hair, let's call her madonna, spent rather a long time stroking my head and neck whilst shaving my hair. She also dropped in comments such as "oh, it's so blonde", "such a manly haircut" and "I bet it doesn't take you long in the shower". Fortunately, joey couldn't hear madonna's ramblings and was unaware that her husband was being seduced by a rogue hairdresser. But madge wasn't done there! She lead me out the back to wash my hair. I barely have any hair! I don't think my hair has ever been washed by anyone but me (well, maybe by rosie when I was younger). Anyway, the washing involved ear and forehead stroking, not to mention more lewd comments. And poor wifey was blissfully unaware. It only cost ten bucks, so I gave her a rather generous five dollar tip. In retrospect this was perhaps not the smartest move, I think she took it as a come-on. Oops. We fled (joey and I, rather than madonna and I) and got down to san diego...
The evening involved dinner in the gaslamp district. An area once frequented by wyatt earp and co, and one of the few old areas not torn down to make way for high rises...
12th - san diego zoo is considered one of the finest zoo's in the world. We considered it our responsibility to see if this really is the case:
Reptiles - most unpleasant. Probably not the zoo's fault, more my phobias.
Monkeys and Apes - excellent, could watch them for ages.
Pigs and goats - all amusing, but a bit smelly.
Elephants, rhinos and giraffes - all excellent, soon moving to bigger pens.
Giant Tortoises - mating season. Traumatising.
Overall, a good zoo and a good day out. And at $22 much cheaper than sea world at $55.
On the way back from the zoo, it was joey's turn for a haircut!!! Fortunately we didn't go to the same hairdressers as I did. That would have been wrong. No, joey found some slightly fancy place in a nice area of town (no toni & guy - we are roughing it after all). So she went in and asked for a trim while I went for a stroll. It turns out that it was one of those places that only does one style - not sure that's because they only know how to do one style or they only get asked to do one style. You could go in bald, afro or dreads. You'd still come out with the same cut. I was a little shocked on my return to see that they'd turned jo into the all american housewife. A cross between martha stewart and the mum from the brady bunch. It was very difficult to keep from laughing. So I didn't. They had given her hair a LOT of volume! Photo to follow...
13th - hey amigo! Yes, we went to mexico. Tijuana to be exact. We got the tram from san diego to the border and just walked over. The US side at the border is quite barron, save for a petrol station and a bus stop. The mexican side is quite surreal as it's a huge city squashed right up to the border. Most americans only cross over to buy cheaper drugs (pharmaceutical) have dental work done or drink if you're under 21. The only areas of town reachable by foot are a mixture of chemists, dentists, bars, restaurants and tat merchants. And if you stand out in a crowd as not being mexican (such as my good self) then the merchants try to drag you in every single one. Add to this children selling jewellery and donkeys painted with stripes to look like zebras for photo opportunities and you've got a very unusual and un-mexican way to spend a few hours... It does not give a good impression of mexico which is a shame because it's probably all that most americans will ever see of it.
There is also a well known police scam in tijuana whereby you are accused of trespassing and 'fined' forty or fifty dollars on the spot or threatened with prison. Joey and I haven't had the best of luck in areas like this so it was no surprise when we got stopped by the old bill. First he wanted to see my ID then asked where we had been (i feel trespassing coming on). Then he wanted jo's ID. We spoke to him in Spanish and he realised we were Brits as opposed to Americans. He asked our ages and a few other questions. I'd just noticed that he didn't have a badge and I was almost dipping into my wallet to pay the anticipated 'fine' when he gave us our passports back and sent us on our way. Maybe because we were english or maybe because we tried to speak spanish. Who knows.
The crossing back took two hours or so with the department of homeland security showing their usual levels of efficiency...
Anyway, probably not the most realistic taster of mexico. If you didn't know better, it would put you off...
14th - went to the beaches! Still not a great deal of sunshine, but warm enough to visit pacific beach, ocean beach and mission beach; gnarly little surf obsessed towns where people live to surf. On that day there was a carnival on too which made for a nice day out.
In the evening we found ourselves in another gay bar! Doesn't that make us the brighton equivalent of the british holiday makers who go to marbella and head for the nearest "nags head"? This was in the hillcrest suburb of san diego, a generally gay/studenty area of town which, as usual, had a good mix of shops, restaurants and bars. We did actually stumble into the place erroneously. It was called Mo's. The owners name? No, short for homos! Still, dinner was nice.
15th - sunday was spent cruising the coast. La Jolla (pronounced "hoya") is a very posh suburb. The beaches here were small bays with grassy headlands inbetween. It appeared to be a popular spot for weddings and diving. Above and below the sea level respectively.
Not quite as ostentatious was the northern town of cardiff-by-the-sea! No miners here though. Just big surfers beaches and big big houses on the hills. It was almost as pretty as it's namesake.
We've discovered an ice cream shop here called cold stone creamery where they take basic ice cream flavours and personalise them by adding various biscuits and chocolates and sauces at your request. I am of course addicted. Anyway, we stopped by one near our hotel on the way back when something strange happened. Joey got stuck between the front seats of the car! We'd parked up and she was leaning over to the backseat to get her jumper, when she slipped and fell onto the tat tray that sits between the two front seats (you know, the one where you keep the coins and stuff - in england you'd have a gear stick and handbrake too). Anyway joey fell here and started laughing hysterically. I tried to lift her up, but I accidentally put my finger in her belly button which caused her to wriggle further, and yes, the tat tray collapsed, gravity took over and she slid further. Joey was now well and truly stuck between the seats along with all the crap that was previously on the tray - money, maps, drinks, pens even a guidebook. Of course by this point we were both hysterical. Picture if you will: her legs were bent into the front passenger foot-well, her torso between the front seats, and her head and arms in the rear passenger foot area. At this point (9:15), we realised that the cold stone creamery closed shortly (9:30), and so a struggle ensued. Unfortunately I was pulling joey's legs from the front whilst she was trying to climb into the back. After much seat movement and laurel and hardy type comic movements, the joanne hill 1 was finally freed, whereby we celebrated with ice-cream and fizzy pop. Awesome!
16th - monday was one of my favourite days in the US so far. At 11am I had my first surf lesson in the pacific. Joey chose to sit it out this time (i think that she was protecting her new haircut). The surf at pacific beach is perfect for beginners: clean 3ft swell, mild currents, no rocks or reefs and lots of lifeguards. It all came back pretty quickly and I was falling off the board left, right and centre in no time, just like I was during my lessons last year. This time I learnt to turn which was helpful, though I rarely stayed on a wave long enough to require turning. Every now and then a 6-8ft wave turned up and I got hammered. Most amusing. So after two and a half hours of pacific-swallowing, nose-diving, head-banging, foot-scratching, leash-rubbing, muscle-aching fun, I was done. Next stop, australia!
We spent the afternoon sitting on the beach building sandcastles, watching sufers and watching the sun go down. Followed up by happy hour in a nearby bar and a spot of thai. Sweet.
17th - boring job day. Laundry and accommodation booking/research for L.A. mainly. Only an awesome jerk chicken pizza in the evening managed to save the day from being a write-off...
All in all, san diego was pretty cool. Plenty to see and do, especially if you're a beach bum.
Next instalment: The OC, L.A., and leaving america... Until then...
Ps - lu & chris, hope you enjoyed san fran and had a safe trip home.
No musings from mrs. H today. The sun goddess is preying to her god - working her tan!
17 October 2006
More Photos..................
San Diego Zoo - Who's neck is the longest?
Tijuana, Mexico - Queue to return to the land of opportunity!
Jo and Lu - Cocktails in Vegas Baby!
Death Valley - California (Lots of valley but little death...)
Sunset in Death Valley
Tijuana, Mexico - Queue to return to the land of opportunity!
Jo and Lu - Cocktails in Vegas Baby!
Death Valley - California (Lots of valley but little death...)
Sunset in Death Valley
14 October 2006
monterey to vegas...
Well, well, well....what a long time it's been! Hope you are all still reading and haven't got...
A. Bored of the content
B. Bored of waiting
C. Just bored!
If anyone's reading perhaps you could just give us a little tickle to let us know you're there! (AKA a comment on the blog!)
The last 2 weeks have been very busy indeed, I think last time we spoke we had just left Monterey, home to Steinbeck and Jack cheese! After leaving said town, we journeyed south (like 2 English pseudo wannabe cowboys!) to the town of Baywood Park. Before I launch into the delights of back bay, I must tell you that the journey down Californian route 1, through Carmel and Big Sur is beautiful....we're talking waterfalls on the white beaches, wild elephant seals and high cliffs that look out to the bluest ocean.
Baywood park is a tiny town about 10 miles west of San Luis Obispo (or SLO as the locals call it). We stayed in a place on an inland bay behind the beach which was very peaceful and a welcome change from the hustle and bustle of San Francisco. We walked right around the bay and through some sand dunes to a deserted beach....it was lovely but too cold to swim. In the evening we went to SLO for a delightful veggie dinner (California provides the U.S. With most of it's fruit and veg so consequentially has loads of fresh veggie options - a far cry from those 14oz steaks back in the Mid West!)
I won't hover for too long as have a lot of ground to make up but the next few days consisted of a day out in Santa Barbara (lovely) and 2 days in Camarillo (north L.A) - no celeb sightings as yet!
After leaving L.A, we drove inwards to Nevada towards the bright lights of Vegas. It was here that we spent 3 hours driving through the Valley of Death AKA Death Valley. Now we are on the subject, I will quickly get a little story in before Matt resurrects his (currently resting) literary might and puts a spin on the whole issue! Death Valley is one of the most inhospitable, inhuman, scary places in the world...temps regularly top 100F, it is desolate, remote and you wouldn't want to get stranded across the 80mile stretch of desert. As a result of this, all guidebooks suggest drinking plenty of water to avoid dehydration....given that the day we visited it was only 85F and our car has air con, the 6 litres of water I drank during the trip mearly served as somewhat inconvenient in an area free of habitation, nevermind toilets! I don't know why Matt thinks I should use my own discretion when reading guidebooks! Aside from the toilet situation, the valley was great, especially as we were there during sunset. There is a place called Dante's View, named by the Mormon's and used to describe Death Valley's hell like qualities...I can certainly see the potential resemblance..
I will leave you all now and let the captain (or Blogtain) take his helm and lead you all through a literary minefield of humour, puns, text, and delights.......I introduce Mr Mattie Hill! (No pressure there then!)
Love to you all - Jo xxxxx
Howdy all, long time no speak. To be honest I've had no motivation to write anything, as we've been having such a nice time and have been so busy. For example on the first night in baywood park, it was a choice between updating the blog or looking at the stars through a telescope on a cool crisp evening from our patio on the edge of a huge lake. Tough choice! But, due to wifely pressure, I'm updating again. I think Joey missed out a couple of key points. Firstly, it's not possible to explain in words just how stunning big sur is. Secondly, it's not possible to explain in words how much time we wasted in Malibu looking for Jennifer Anniston or any other 'celebs'...
Vegas was superb. Whoever named New York as the city that never sleeps had obviously never been to LV. It's just mad. The hotels and all their features are all larger than life. From new york new york's roller coaster to bellagio's fountain and Rio's dancing girls. It's madness, 24 hours a day... We stayed in the luxor for a few nights, and saw people playing slot machines whilst drinking shorts early in the morning. Who knows how long they sit there...
We met up with lu & chris for four days in LV. Not only was it really nice to see a couple of familiar faces, but somewhere like vegas is better in numbers! Whilst there, our guests took us out for a big curry and took us to see a show - Penn & Teller. For those that don't know, penn and teller are magicians who include comedy and also explain all their tricks. Most excellent.
Lu was also thoughtful enough to plan a little scientific experiment (she is a scientist after all). Her plan was to see how much ice cream I had to eat in order to be sick on the NY NY rollercoaster. Unfortunately, the experiment did not get past the ethics committee (joey). So, the revised experiment was whether I would be sick on the rollercoaster after consuming the following breakfast items: orange juice, granola, yoghurt, tea, croissant and a banana. I had to be careful not to be sick just eating those items together. Anyway, the rollercoaster swept to the left and to the right. It went up and down. It even went upside-down, but my stomach refused to budge. Experiment result: Failed. The hill stomach would not be so easily beaten...
I don't have time to mention the build your own burger bar, the bodies exhibition, the shopping, or even the horrific cover version of phil collins' "land of confusion", but I will update you on our gambling successes:
Jo = About $10 up over four nights, mainly playing blackjack.
Matt = About $150 up over the same time. Could've been about $70 more, but I got cocky...
Lu/Chris = An undisclosed loss. Let's put it down to experience...
Rosie = $5 loss on roulette. It did not land on 5.
Henry = likewise, it did not land on 14.
Andy = it did land on red, but we did not take your advice and "put it all on red".
We're down in san diego now, but these adventures will have to be saved for another time...
Until then... Hasta luego...
A. Bored of the content
B. Bored of waiting
C. Just bored!
If anyone's reading perhaps you could just give us a little tickle to let us know you're there! (AKA a comment on the blog!)
The last 2 weeks have been very busy indeed, I think last time we spoke we had just left Monterey, home to Steinbeck and Jack cheese! After leaving said town, we journeyed south (like 2 English pseudo wannabe cowboys!) to the town of Baywood Park. Before I launch into the delights of back bay, I must tell you that the journey down Californian route 1, through Carmel and Big Sur is beautiful....we're talking waterfalls on the white beaches, wild elephant seals and high cliffs that look out to the bluest ocean.
Baywood park is a tiny town about 10 miles west of San Luis Obispo (or SLO as the locals call it). We stayed in a place on an inland bay behind the beach which was very peaceful and a welcome change from the hustle and bustle of San Francisco. We walked right around the bay and through some sand dunes to a deserted beach....it was lovely but too cold to swim. In the evening we went to SLO for a delightful veggie dinner (California provides the U.S. With most of it's fruit and veg so consequentially has loads of fresh veggie options - a far cry from those 14oz steaks back in the Mid West!)
I won't hover for too long as have a lot of ground to make up but the next few days consisted of a day out in Santa Barbara (lovely) and 2 days in Camarillo (north L.A) - no celeb sightings as yet!
After leaving L.A, we drove inwards to Nevada towards the bright lights of Vegas. It was here that we spent 3 hours driving through the Valley of Death AKA Death Valley. Now we are on the subject, I will quickly get a little story in before Matt resurrects his (currently resting) literary might and puts a spin on the whole issue! Death Valley is one of the most inhospitable, inhuman, scary places in the world...temps regularly top 100F, it is desolate, remote and you wouldn't want to get stranded across the 80mile stretch of desert. As a result of this, all guidebooks suggest drinking plenty of water to avoid dehydration....given that the day we visited it was only 85F and our car has air con, the 6 litres of water I drank during the trip mearly served as somewhat inconvenient in an area free of habitation, nevermind toilets! I don't know why Matt thinks I should use my own discretion when reading guidebooks! Aside from the toilet situation, the valley was great, especially as we were there during sunset. There is a place called Dante's View, named by the Mormon's and used to describe Death Valley's hell like qualities...I can certainly see the potential resemblance..
I will leave you all now and let the captain (or Blogtain) take his helm and lead you all through a literary minefield of humour, puns, text, and delights.......I introduce Mr Mattie Hill! (No pressure there then!)
Love to you all - Jo xxxxx
Howdy all, long time no speak. To be honest I've had no motivation to write anything, as we've been having such a nice time and have been so busy. For example on the first night in baywood park, it was a choice between updating the blog or looking at the stars through a telescope on a cool crisp evening from our patio on the edge of a huge lake. Tough choice! But, due to wifely pressure, I'm updating again. I think Joey missed out a couple of key points. Firstly, it's not possible to explain in words just how stunning big sur is. Secondly, it's not possible to explain in words how much time we wasted in Malibu looking for Jennifer Anniston or any other 'celebs'...
Vegas was superb. Whoever named New York as the city that never sleeps had obviously never been to LV. It's just mad. The hotels and all their features are all larger than life. From new york new york's roller coaster to bellagio's fountain and Rio's dancing girls. It's madness, 24 hours a day... We stayed in the luxor for a few nights, and saw people playing slot machines whilst drinking shorts early in the morning. Who knows how long they sit there...
We met up with lu & chris for four days in LV. Not only was it really nice to see a couple of familiar faces, but somewhere like vegas is better in numbers! Whilst there, our guests took us out for a big curry and took us to see a show - Penn & Teller. For those that don't know, penn and teller are magicians who include comedy and also explain all their tricks. Most excellent.
Lu was also thoughtful enough to plan a little scientific experiment (she is a scientist after all). Her plan was to see how much ice cream I had to eat in order to be sick on the NY NY rollercoaster. Unfortunately, the experiment did not get past the ethics committee (joey). So, the revised experiment was whether I would be sick on the rollercoaster after consuming the following breakfast items: orange juice, granola, yoghurt, tea, croissant and a banana. I had to be careful not to be sick just eating those items together. Anyway, the rollercoaster swept to the left and to the right. It went up and down. It even went upside-down, but my stomach refused to budge. Experiment result: Failed. The hill stomach would not be so easily beaten...
I don't have time to mention the build your own burger bar, the bodies exhibition, the shopping, or even the horrific cover version of phil collins' "land of confusion", but I will update you on our gambling successes:
Jo = About $10 up over four nights, mainly playing blackjack.
Matt = About $150 up over the same time. Could've been about $70 more, but I got cocky...
Lu/Chris = An undisclosed loss. Let's put it down to experience...
Rosie = $5 loss on roulette. It did not land on 5.
Henry = likewise, it did not land on 14.
Andy = it did land on red, but we did not take your advice and "put it all on red".
We're down in san diego now, but these adventures will have to be saved for another time...
Until then... Hasta luego...
06 October 2006
03 October 2006
PLACE YOUR BETS LADIES AND GENTS. We're in vegas on saturday with lu and chris for a few days, so i'm taking bets by email between now and saturday. Let me know your game, bet and stake and i'll post the results on here... Good luck!
Back to the blog:
26th September - very very late...
"Do you know the way to San Jose?" sung Dionne Warwick in 1968 or Burt Bacharach in 1967. The answer is "yes, i do know the way to San Jose", since that's exactly where i'm writing from! To be fair, it's just south of san francisco, so you'd have to be a bit of a tool not to know the way...
You may have noticed that I have recovered my position at the top of the blog. Don't worry, it was a peaceful coup that overthrew the previous regime, and normal service will now resume. I'm not saying that jo was any kind of blog dictator (blogtator?), but the public uprising was overwhelming...
So, we left salt lake city yesterday and after 550 miles or so, we arrived in Reno. Despite it being a dull dull drive (no disrepect to duane-lee, she's a pleasure to be in the car with - I can't believe we've been together 24hrs a day for over a month and not had one argument) it went pretty quickly and we got to reno by 6ish...
Reno is best described as "Americana". It's incredibly tacky, full of casinos and tourist tat. In case you didn't know, gambling is only legal in Nevada, Atlantic City and various indian reservations. As such, Nevada only has sizeable towns near the borders - Reno on the road to San Fran and Vegas on the road to LA - other than that there is nothing in Nevada...
So, since we were only in Reno for one night there was only one thing to do... Check out the casinos... Let's just say they were dated! They were clean and tidy, not worn, but were a little 80's. Joey and I hit the blackjack tables in the El Dorado and were a little taken aback when we momentarily thought we'd arrived in silicon valley a little early. We soon realised that it was only one of the "cocktail waitresses" with their excessive silicon wares... Despite this setback we soon turned $40 in to $80. Much whooping and high fives all round... Bring on Vegas baby! I was sat next to a couple of hulking great russians who were blind drunk and losing a few bob. Very amusing.
Today we left Reno and went to lake tahoe. An extremely pleasant and tranquil place. Apparently it's one of the highest, coldest, deepest, largest lakes in the world. The wife & I opted for a little paddle and were quick to discover that it's also heavily populated with baby lobsters. They're nippy little things which fortunately don't bite!
After lunch at Lake Tahoe, we started the relatively short (200 miles) drive to San Jose. I say relatively short since we've now chalked up 4,500 miles, and had done over 500 miles on the previous day. Yet, this was the most boring drive we've done so far. I don't know why it is, or what was so wrong, maybe we've just done too much driving, but it was an unbearable journey.
It may have been that it was our induction to california traffic. The roads on this side of the country are solid... The only upside is that they have "car pool" lanes, for any cars with two or more pasengers. The frightening thing is that nobody uses them. At times, there were four or five lanes of solid stationery traffic, with only us using the car pool lane, so we flew along! That reminds me, there was an article in one of the local rags slating Germany for not meeting their kyoto agreement targets. Ironic since they themselves refused to sign up for it!
1st October
First of all HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY SIMMO & KINGS. Hope you both have good days!
Secondly, HAPPY 27TH BIRTHDAY RIK for Friday... You've only three years left to take the mickey out of me for being over 30, so you'd better make the most of it...
The fact that i'm bloggin' again can only mean that we're back on the road. A short drive from san jose to monterey, but enough time for me to update y'all on what's been goin' down on the grimy streets of north cali'.
27th - drove into san fran. I think that SF is the kind of place we could live in. It's incredibly busy, like all california appears to be, but it certainly has character. We walked through downtown, chinatown and fishermans wharf, then got one of the famed cablecar/trams back. Chinatown was absoloute madness, whilst fishermans wharf was a bit tacky. Pier 41 is however home to about 100 sea lions! They moved in after the '89 quake and just sit around basking in the sun barking all day. A lifestyle that I think I could cope with... We also saw a jimi hendrix tribute busker who got 10/10 for looking like him but 0/10 for sounding like him. 11/10 for sounding like the cookie monster though...
28th - we cruised down to santa cruz for the day. Apparently santa cruz is so cool that neil young decided to make it his home. We didn't see him. It was however so cool that we could neither sunbathe nor swim. We did however check out the resident sea lions and even spot a rare wild sea otter. The little critter was hilarious. They swim down to collect shell fish, then swim back up and float on their backs while they crack open the shells with their fangs. After a while the sun came out. So did the bronzed beach volleyballers. They were running round like a scene from baywatch in their bikinis and trunks hurling themselves round in the golden sand. If you can't beat them... We bought a volleyball and decided to have a go. After five minutes joey was complaining that her hands hurt, and I was too frightened of getting sand in my eyes so we moved on to sand gymnastics, quickly followed by sand injuries...
29th - back to san fran. The main purpose of this visit was threefold: 1) get out to alcatraz 2) get out to the golden gate bridge 3) see the windy road that's always on TV (lombard street). First up, alcatraz. We arrived at the terminal only to find that the ferries were fully booked up for the following 36 hours. Oh. Not a good start 0/1. Next up, the golden gate bridge. Almost as challenging as alcatraz. $28 for the tourist bus but you only get ten minutes there. No thanks. Public bus $1.50. Wham bam thankyou mam, job done. Quite impressive though absoloutely bloody freezing... 1/2. Finally, windey lombard street. Easier said than done as our bus had dropped us back to the town centre. So a brisk walk ensued, but we arrived there and weren't dissapointed. It's probably the windiest (as in windey turns not windy gusts) residential street in the world... Photo to follow as i'm neither discribing it well nor entertaining you. Anyway, job done and 2/3 goals met. Alright, yeah, woo...
30th - a bit of a doss day. We decided to go to cupertino for the day. It's a san jose suburb in the silicone valley. First of all, it has a "whole foods market" (like an all organic waitrose with awesome sandwiches). Then we went to the local moon festival. The bay area has an enormous chinese population and the moon fesrival is a big deal. It was like a cross between a fayre and a fete. Food, drink, stalls, entertainment etc. Good fun. Finally we went to visit the britannia arms pub. Sounds dodgy right? The reason that we went there is that our good friends Andy pipkin and gaby met there some ten years ago. Andy used to drink in there all the time when he lived here, and so we went in there and met a couple of his old mates! They told us stories that unfortunately we can't repeat here...
So that pretty much brings us up to date.
Later that day...
Well, we are now in monterey. This afternoon we browsed "cannery row" (named after the steinbeck book as opposed to vice versa) and spent a couple of hours at the awesome aquarium... They have a baby great white there. They had previously had an adult one but it had to be removed as it kept eating the other exhibits!!! Dinner was proper mexican (proper cheap too). Muy bien, muy bien...
Matt's Ramblings.
#1
TV - there are two types of tv here. Trash tv and non trash tv. Trash tv is phenomenonal. Jerry springer and a million other chat shows that make the british equivalents seem as rubbish as they actually are. There was one lady the other day who wanted to confront her childhood tormentors who had named her "poop-mouth"!!! Perhaps the funniest thing i've ever ever seen. Then, thanks to "Airport" docu-soap-drama-tat, joey and I have learnt some new language - C.O.S. Any guesses? It means "customer of size" and is used to describe a customer who requires two seats due to their girth. They had one guy who'd just had his car stolen and then his flight delayed, only to be told he had to buy a second ticket. They interviewed him after whilst he was getting a 'snack' - the equivalent of four mcdonalds meals and a gallon of coke. He couldn't understand why they were persecuting him. It was tough to refrain from leakages. Sadly joey wasn't so lucky...
As for non-trash tv, if it's not sport (which 50% is) it's some pro-bush 'news' crap. Back to jerry springer...
#2
Next up is another new word "boodydo". We were taught this by the guy we met from louisiana. It's suitable for males and females like C.O.S. In his drawl he described it as "when tha gut sticks out more than tha boody do"...
#3
We went to a krispy kreme donut factory attached to a shop. Wow! If you arrive when they're baking you get a free hot one right off the rack. I tried to keep leaving the shop and coming back in to get more, but mrs H put a stop to that saying i'd become a C.O.S. in no time...
#4
Whilst in san fran I challenged joey to see how long she could last without talking (i think she was moaning about the cold at the time). The result? 40 seconds... Very poor. Anyway it reminded me of the challenge that lou nichols and I discussed. A well known one where you take one imodium and one laxative tablet and see which one wins... Whilst i'm not yet willing to waste a day on that just yet, I am open to other challenges. Preferably ones with a financial incentive. Ideas to the usual address and i'll see what I can do...
That's all from me from now. I'll let the boss muse a while...
Joey's musings....
Well, we are now in Steinbeck country.....the home of John Steinbeck it certainly is a nice part of the world, if a bit touristy! Matt, the literary genious that he is, claims to have read several of the novels and as I have read none, I can't really argue when he tells me that Crispy Crème Donuts was where "Of Mice and Men" was set so he really needs to go in for atmospheric purposes! Love to you all - jo xx
P.S Gaby - Cupertino was a lovely town indeed, nice park too....
P.P.S off to back bay now, near San Louis Obispo
P.P.S photos to follow - bit tricky at the moment as we need to find a P.C with a memory card compatible part !
Back to the blog:
26th September - very very late...
"Do you know the way to San Jose?" sung Dionne Warwick in 1968 or Burt Bacharach in 1967. The answer is "yes, i do know the way to San Jose", since that's exactly where i'm writing from! To be fair, it's just south of san francisco, so you'd have to be a bit of a tool not to know the way...
You may have noticed that I have recovered my position at the top of the blog. Don't worry, it was a peaceful coup that overthrew the previous regime, and normal service will now resume. I'm not saying that jo was any kind of blog dictator (blogtator?), but the public uprising was overwhelming...
So, we left salt lake city yesterday and after 550 miles or so, we arrived in Reno. Despite it being a dull dull drive (no disrepect to duane-lee, she's a pleasure to be in the car with - I can't believe we've been together 24hrs a day for over a month and not had one argument) it went pretty quickly and we got to reno by 6ish...
Reno is best described as "Americana". It's incredibly tacky, full of casinos and tourist tat. In case you didn't know, gambling is only legal in Nevada, Atlantic City and various indian reservations. As such, Nevada only has sizeable towns near the borders - Reno on the road to San Fran and Vegas on the road to LA - other than that there is nothing in Nevada...
So, since we were only in Reno for one night there was only one thing to do... Check out the casinos... Let's just say they were dated! They were clean and tidy, not worn, but were a little 80's. Joey and I hit the blackjack tables in the El Dorado and were a little taken aback when we momentarily thought we'd arrived in silicon valley a little early. We soon realised that it was only one of the "cocktail waitresses" with their excessive silicon wares... Despite this setback we soon turned $40 in to $80. Much whooping and high fives all round... Bring on Vegas baby! I was sat next to a couple of hulking great russians who were blind drunk and losing a few bob. Very amusing.
Today we left Reno and went to lake tahoe. An extremely pleasant and tranquil place. Apparently it's one of the highest, coldest, deepest, largest lakes in the world. The wife & I opted for a little paddle and were quick to discover that it's also heavily populated with baby lobsters. They're nippy little things which fortunately don't bite!
After lunch at Lake Tahoe, we started the relatively short (200 miles) drive to San Jose. I say relatively short since we've now chalked up 4,500 miles, and had done over 500 miles on the previous day. Yet, this was the most boring drive we've done so far. I don't know why it is, or what was so wrong, maybe we've just done too much driving, but it was an unbearable journey.
It may have been that it was our induction to california traffic. The roads on this side of the country are solid... The only upside is that they have "car pool" lanes, for any cars with two or more pasengers. The frightening thing is that nobody uses them. At times, there were four or five lanes of solid stationery traffic, with only us using the car pool lane, so we flew along! That reminds me, there was an article in one of the local rags slating Germany for not meeting their kyoto agreement targets. Ironic since they themselves refused to sign up for it!
1st October
First of all HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY SIMMO & KINGS. Hope you both have good days!
Secondly, HAPPY 27TH BIRTHDAY RIK for Friday... You've only three years left to take the mickey out of me for being over 30, so you'd better make the most of it...
The fact that i'm bloggin' again can only mean that we're back on the road. A short drive from san jose to monterey, but enough time for me to update y'all on what's been goin' down on the grimy streets of north cali'.
27th - drove into san fran. I think that SF is the kind of place we could live in. It's incredibly busy, like all california appears to be, but it certainly has character. We walked through downtown, chinatown and fishermans wharf, then got one of the famed cablecar/trams back. Chinatown was absoloute madness, whilst fishermans wharf was a bit tacky. Pier 41 is however home to about 100 sea lions! They moved in after the '89 quake and just sit around basking in the sun barking all day. A lifestyle that I think I could cope with... We also saw a jimi hendrix tribute busker who got 10/10 for looking like him but 0/10 for sounding like him. 11/10 for sounding like the cookie monster though...
28th - we cruised down to santa cruz for the day. Apparently santa cruz is so cool that neil young decided to make it his home. We didn't see him. It was however so cool that we could neither sunbathe nor swim. We did however check out the resident sea lions and even spot a rare wild sea otter. The little critter was hilarious. They swim down to collect shell fish, then swim back up and float on their backs while they crack open the shells with their fangs. After a while the sun came out. So did the bronzed beach volleyballers. They were running round like a scene from baywatch in their bikinis and trunks hurling themselves round in the golden sand. If you can't beat them... We bought a volleyball and decided to have a go. After five minutes joey was complaining that her hands hurt, and I was too frightened of getting sand in my eyes so we moved on to sand gymnastics, quickly followed by sand injuries...
29th - back to san fran. The main purpose of this visit was threefold: 1) get out to alcatraz 2) get out to the golden gate bridge 3) see the windy road that's always on TV (lombard street). First up, alcatraz. We arrived at the terminal only to find that the ferries were fully booked up for the following 36 hours. Oh. Not a good start 0/1. Next up, the golden gate bridge. Almost as challenging as alcatraz. $28 for the tourist bus but you only get ten minutes there. No thanks. Public bus $1.50. Wham bam thankyou mam, job done. Quite impressive though absoloutely bloody freezing... 1/2. Finally, windey lombard street. Easier said than done as our bus had dropped us back to the town centre. So a brisk walk ensued, but we arrived there and weren't dissapointed. It's probably the windiest (as in windey turns not windy gusts) residential street in the world... Photo to follow as i'm neither discribing it well nor entertaining you. Anyway, job done and 2/3 goals met. Alright, yeah, woo...
30th - a bit of a doss day. We decided to go to cupertino for the day. It's a san jose suburb in the silicone valley. First of all, it has a "whole foods market" (like an all organic waitrose with awesome sandwiches). Then we went to the local moon festival. The bay area has an enormous chinese population and the moon fesrival is a big deal. It was like a cross between a fayre and a fete. Food, drink, stalls, entertainment etc. Good fun. Finally we went to visit the britannia arms pub. Sounds dodgy right? The reason that we went there is that our good friends Andy pipkin and gaby met there some ten years ago. Andy used to drink in there all the time when he lived here, and so we went in there and met a couple of his old mates! They told us stories that unfortunately we can't repeat here...
So that pretty much brings us up to date.
Later that day...
Well, we are now in monterey. This afternoon we browsed "cannery row" (named after the steinbeck book as opposed to vice versa) and spent a couple of hours at the awesome aquarium... They have a baby great white there. They had previously had an adult one but it had to be removed as it kept eating the other exhibits!!! Dinner was proper mexican (proper cheap too). Muy bien, muy bien...
Matt's Ramblings.
#1
TV - there are two types of tv here. Trash tv and non trash tv. Trash tv is phenomenonal. Jerry springer and a million other chat shows that make the british equivalents seem as rubbish as they actually are. There was one lady the other day who wanted to confront her childhood tormentors who had named her "poop-mouth"!!! Perhaps the funniest thing i've ever ever seen. Then, thanks to "Airport" docu-soap-drama-tat, joey and I have learnt some new language - C.O.S. Any guesses? It means "customer of size" and is used to describe a customer who requires two seats due to their girth. They had one guy who'd just had his car stolen and then his flight delayed, only to be told he had to buy a second ticket. They interviewed him after whilst he was getting a 'snack' - the equivalent of four mcdonalds meals and a gallon of coke. He couldn't understand why they were persecuting him. It was tough to refrain from leakages. Sadly joey wasn't so lucky...
As for non-trash tv, if it's not sport (which 50% is) it's some pro-bush 'news' crap. Back to jerry springer...
#2
Next up is another new word "boodydo". We were taught this by the guy we met from louisiana. It's suitable for males and females like C.O.S. In his drawl he described it as "when tha gut sticks out more than tha boody do"...
#3
We went to a krispy kreme donut factory attached to a shop. Wow! If you arrive when they're baking you get a free hot one right off the rack. I tried to keep leaving the shop and coming back in to get more, but mrs H put a stop to that saying i'd become a C.O.S. in no time...
#4
Whilst in san fran I challenged joey to see how long she could last without talking (i think she was moaning about the cold at the time). The result? 40 seconds... Very poor. Anyway it reminded me of the challenge that lou nichols and I discussed. A well known one where you take one imodium and one laxative tablet and see which one wins... Whilst i'm not yet willing to waste a day on that just yet, I am open to other challenges. Preferably ones with a financial incentive. Ideas to the usual address and i'll see what I can do...
That's all from me from now. I'll let the boss muse a while...
Joey's musings....
Well, we are now in Steinbeck country.....the home of John Steinbeck it certainly is a nice part of the world, if a bit touristy! Matt, the literary genious that he is, claims to have read several of the novels and as I have read none, I can't really argue when he tells me that Crispy Crème Donuts was where "Of Mice and Men" was set so he really needs to go in for atmospheric purposes! Love to you all - jo xx
P.S Gaby - Cupertino was a lovely town indeed, nice park too....
P.P.S off to back bay now, near San Louis Obispo
P.P.S photos to follow - bit tricky at the moment as we need to find a P.C with a memory card compatible part !
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