California

After leaving Eugene, we drove down to the Redwood Forests on the California Coast. We wandered around this, in between listening to Biden annihilate Palin in the vice presidential debate. Apparently she came off better on tv and I figured we must have had the same sensation those listeners had to the infamous 1960 Kennedy v Nixon debate, where the result was different depending on what media type you were following it on. The forests themselves were almost haunting in the damp and the mist. Giant pillars, some carved hollow, that towered to the skys like skyscrapers from another era. We realised we were not going to make it to Arcada as Ollie was determined to push on as close to Yosemite as we could get. At this point we were running low on fuel again and while crusing with no air con we came across a sign in Orick for gas. At first we were confused. There did not appear to be any gas there at all. Then we realised they had the most expensive petrol ever, in an old school box that looked like it came out of the 1950s. The dials for the price went round at the same speed those chair lifts do in old peoples houses. Slow and painful. That night we stayed in Redding. It has nothing of note.

In the morning we carried on our imperious drive through Northern California, hitting Reno and Carson City, but having to skip past lake Tahoe. I was asleep at this point and Ollie informed me I had not missed much in either town. As we closed in on Yosemite we were pulled over for a California Inspection Station. Now what the hell was one of these? and what was it doing in the middle of a State? Bit like that odd one in New Mexico. The woman in the hut stopped us and asked "Do you have any fruit or veg?" to which we replied no and then the follow up "Do you have any mangos?" Erm firstly since when has a mango not been a fruit and secondly what the hell is so dangerous about a mango that it gets its own question. Are mangos officially the most dangerous fruit out there? Fucking Californians. We eventually entered Yosemite national park and with not even enough time for the valley, we skirted through the centre of the park. It was very rocky, very white and had a fair few trees and the odd lake. It was a nice park, but it came off like a smaller and less impressive version of Yellowstone. If its the only park you can make on a trip it would suffice. If you have options however, go for Yellowstone. On our way into San Fran we stopped at Oakland for some petrol. We did not actually get petrol as id did not have a street map and both of us had the distinct feeling that this was not the friendliest area we had ever wandered into. It did have an amusing sign on the outside of a film theatre as we entered though. 'Envision the future. Elect Obama you get Star Trek in 50 years, elect McCain you get Blade Runner'. I thought that was quite classic. We arrived late at our hostel in Union Square, that appeared to be nestled amongst some dust carts in a back alley. Anyway this hostel is called Union Square Hostel. Never use this turgid pile of shit. Firstly it looks like a shithole from reception. Secondly reception is all we got to see, because the stupid bastards had sold the room we had booked to other people leaving us with nowhere to stay. They said they would ring around and then got embroiled in an argument over laundry. This was going to go nowhere and it was approaching 11pm. Aware that motels shut then we drove out of town and eventually found a great little motel, with a really helpful owner, right by the BART station in Daly City. Ollie had still managed to have his fun taking the highlander up nearly 45 degree roads. San Fran is very hilly. This was not a good start for the city as it was reminding me of why I hate Los Angeles. Never a good thing.

In the morning we used the BART (a really good, efficient suburban rail service) to head into the Civic Centre downtown. Ollie had prepared a 25km walk for us both (the sickness was hitting me a bit for competence), which left me on the receiving end of what I usually dish out to travel companions. We started off by climbing the Coins Tower which gives you a great view over the city. Then we wandered all the way across town, past the 'world's least straight road´, which is just full of people driving down it as it zig zags like a giant slalom skiier due to the gradient and taking photos. A constant parade of smiling morons. The walk down to the Golden Gate Bridge was cool. It was here that Hunter S Thompson once said was where the wave of the hippy movement finally broke and if you look closely enough you can still see the tide mark. There was a beer festival on, but we could not enter as we did not have tickets. Can't imagine that happening in the 1960s. The bridge itself is somewhat of a disappointment. Again call it the Grand Canyon syndrome, but it looks better in photos. Its just kind of a flattish red bridge. The one we had driven over the night before had been much more spectacular architecturally and if you took someone to San Fran who had never been and said there was one engineering marvel of bridges here, the Golden Gate would not be the one they picked. We saw Alcatraz from the waterside, unable to tour it due the inconvenience of the 49ers game. The love parade was also on when we were there, but again there just seemed to lack some energy in the air. We had walked past the beaches and parks, just managing to catch the very last act in the Bluegrass festival. Eventually we made it to Haight (Hunters old hangout and the scene of the summer of love). What we found there was a kind of low grade Camden without any of the energy and a bunch of people crowded into bars. I also had to put up with some dickhead yelling at me for apparently spitting on his car. I wanted to yell I was sick you prick and are you going to beat up on a cripple but I thought better of it. Two things had strcuk me on this walk. The first was how unfriendly the locals were. Californians have that gruff indiference that you find on the east coast, but also with a smug sense of superiority and entitlement. The second one was how sad it was to see a city in decline. San Fran is a beautiful place and it still has many great things, but you get the impression it is stagnant and not vibrant. What had been fresh and invigoarting in the 1960s as it led the way in American culture had effectively become a museum to its own past. A theme park for nostalgia junkees, bums and those who haven't quite realised that the forefront moved a while back and may never return.

The next morning I picked up some Tylenol (did not actually have the desired effect) and started to steam my face with the tea pot in the morning. This illness (as yet still undefined) was beginning to really annoy me. We went to the 49ers v Patriots game and had to watch the ugliness and hostility of the 49ers fans, in contrast to the convivial atmosphere in New Orleans. Ollie asked one man where the 'will call' stand was and he just kept shouting "back of the queue" in his face until Ollie wanted to smack him. We got chatting with a few Californians, one of whom had been to the Spurs v Villa game and they were a couple of only a handful of Californians I actually liked. It was a much smaller stadium and the queueing system was shit. The only plus point was that my seat was UB40. That amused me. The Patriots one and that pleased me. I was still weighing up where I would want to study for a PHD in the States and Ollie had urged Stanford all holiday, but after we visited San Fran he conceded that Colombia in New York was probably a better bet. I wanted to know how respected the University of Colorado was. We swung by Palo Alto on the way south for dinner (where Stanford actually is) and it seems like a pleasant leafy town with not much happening. We ended up staying in Santa Cruz and I rested up while Ollie headed out. He came back informing me it was nice but you can't tell who are the tramps and who are the students.

We began our little saunter down the fabled Highway 1 in Monterrey. Its a really pretty little town, but still not as nice as Port Gibson. That blues highway had some spectacular places. Imagine what they would look like if they hadn't been hit by a hurricane. This internet cafe is now playing me instrumental Bryan Adams 'Everything I do'. Just had to drop that in. We went to Carmel and the Carmel Mission. Apparently really posh address and there were some funky houses. We passed Big Sur and Ollie maintained that he was all sceneried out at this point. There was a helicopter scooping up water in a bucket to help control the forest fires that were blazing in northern California. What the fuck is a bucket going to do? Its a bit like me putting out a house fire with a thimble. Bloody useless. Not surprised its still raging on. We eventually came across Heart Castle (sadly missing the Elephant Seal colony) and I decided it was too expensive and pointless. Ollie decided it did not have the tour he wanted and we looked at it from the 1000 miles away they leave you at the gift centre. In the photos it kind o flooked like something you might expect to find in Disneyworld. That night we stopped off in Santa Barbara and rested up again. It was having no effect and I agreed to see a doctor in LA (Ollie had been suggesting this for some time, but I resisted due to US medical fees).

The next day we were to return to my favourite place in the World. Los fucking Angeles. Uck. As we drove in there was a sign that said 'for Los Angeles stay uin the left 3 lanes'. There were only three fucking lanes. God damn I hate these morons. We hit up the Getty again complete with its smog and I don't think Ollie was that bothered. We drove up Mulholland Drive on the way in, but initially went up the wrong way and ended up on a bumpy dirt track. 13,500 miles we ended up doing in that car and LA was the first time we took it off road. At the top there was a woman whose face was falling off from too much plastic surgery. Very attractive. We saw the Hollywood sign and then went down to the Chinese Theatre. Apparently I have exactly the same sized hands as Arnie (to the millimetre), which was cool and if he needs any other casts done I am available as a stand in. We drove down Rodeo Drive (I kept hearing Rage Aginst the Machines ´I'm rolling down Rodeo with a shotgun, these people ain't seen a brown skinned man since their grandparents bought one´). We eventually found our hostel. Only it wasn't a hostel. It appeared to be a doctor's surgery. We enquired as to how that happened and naturally there were two buildings with this exact address, on this exact road (one for Venice Beach and one for Santa Monica). Goddamn these people are stupid. On the plus side the doctors surgery told me it was only 75 dollars for an appointment, but that they did not have one free until the 21st, which is two days from now and I have been in Mexico for a week.

The hostel itself was in Venice Beech and had cool saloon style doors on the toilets. It also had a very cute Polish girl operating the desk. We unpacked and learnt that we would have a Russian cyclist named Dimitry as our roommate. He was a strange man and on the first night kidnapped my shoes to hide them outside. On future nights he would also insist on leaving the windows and doors open despite the bitter cold coming from outside and our utter lack of duvets etc. He also had a slight go at me because the adjective he wanted in English was not the one I suggested. We had dinner in a Thai place across the road, where they failed to add up the bill correctly so we left no tip. Ollie wandered down to the beach while I watched Obama mince McCain in the second of the debates. A Yorkshire lass named Caz then invited us to join a bunch of people drinking on the patio. She was travelling with her mate Emma (from Wales, but lived in London and studied in Coventry) and there was also Jay (nicknamed the 'Syrian desert' who disappeared halfway to piss in the corner), Ben (another northerner who had travlled round the world for 11 months) and Enrique (from a bordertown in Texas). Enrique was destroyed at this point on half a bottle of rum and had a job interview in the morning. People fell away one by one due to the drink, until it was just Emma, me, Ollie and Ben drinking (or not in my case) and playing card games till 6am, annoying the cleaner and swapping stories of Amsterdam. Ben had the best one about visiting a prostitute and falling asleep in her bed for two hours. He did not get anything in the end and had to pay for the time to ward off the pimp. As we got into the room, Dimitry asked Ollie if he was drunk and then started talking to him about what he was doing for breakfast. Ollie was not amused as he just wanted to sleep.

We limped up the next day and took the car back to LAX. It was sad to leave the car behind and we would once again have to become travellers that were effectively our own pack mules rather than just ditching it in the car as we travelled. LAX drop off was actually in Inglewood, but we only lingered there briefly. I made Ollie come into downtown so I could prove how shit the tube was, but it operated better than last time. We then spent time tracking down a bookstore in one of the neighbourhoods that had a Lonely Planet Mexico for when I crossed the border. Eventually we took the hour long bus back to the hostel and I decided to head off to the cinema. Ollie stayed behind as Kurre was cooking a curry. Caz loved that. I walked down to Venice Boardwalk in the dark, got chased by shadow dogs and cruised by the LAPD who were obviously perturbed by my hood. Venice Boardwalk is full of a few oddball, but mainly just looks dilapidated. Eventually I made it to Santa Monica and immediately loved the place. From the hedges styled as dinosaurs, to the awesome musicians playing along the main street. There was a guy playing sitar I would love to score a film if I ever made one, a very talented violin player and a woman playing melancholic songs on the guitar. This is by far the best area of Los Angeles and if you do come to this cesspit, you must stay here. You may even like the city. I watched Meirelles' new film Blindness that was incredibly powerful and then walked back to the hostel. I stayed up chatting with Enrique till about 3am about Monterrey and its clubbing scene. He told me about a place called Schizo, where people go after 4am when the other clubs chuck out. They party here till 2pm and then sometimes the owner will take everyone up into the hills to his mansion to carry on clubbing. Occasionally he used to let a lion lose in the club as well. Sounded weird, but also sounded very cool. Will have to try and go there when I am in Monterrey.

The next day I began writing this thing and broke off in the afternoon to take a wander down to Venice Boulevard. In the evening we saw off Caz, Emma and Ben who had spent the day at six flags theme park. I was still dying at this point, but Emma had given me a few antibiotics which seemed to clear up the infection part at least. Then we chatted with Jay about Katrina. He was an engineer and had been sent there after Katrina, but could not work in the water as it was infected and the health and safety was not as good as it should have been. We found out he got his nickname the Syrian Desert because he could fix any machine that was broken and was often called in as the specialist.

Dimitry kepy insisting that we have a cup of tea, but we kept declining and after an argument with the hostel regarding keeping his bicycle in the room, he finally told me that he thought he wanted to stay in the US. I asked at the hostel regarding doctors and they sent me down to the local hospital. Here I was initially told they did not know how much it would be and then told me between $100 and $700. That seemed extortionate and I did not trust the insurance company to pay up fast enough. I was then sent by the hostel to the 'free' clinic, but they would not see me because I was a foreigner and they figured I should be able to use my travel insurance in a hospital. This was going round in circles. I gave up and played the long haired dude who worked in the hostel at pool. He'd beaten everyone, but then I beat him in a sloppy match and then lost to the Japanese dude next game. Jay came along and me, him and Ollie played pool. Jay thought I was hustling him because I did not lose a game after that in which I didn't pot the black ball. Jay told us about the strip pool he played with mates up in Pennsylvania that used to turn into orgies and said if we were ever in that part of town we had to join him. Sounded like it would be interesting. Ollie and I went up to Santa Monica and grabbed dinner as in the morning our trips would diverge.

We said goodbye to Jay and I gave Dimitry my thirs back as that would prove too many moving under my own steam. Ollie and I grabbed breakfast in McDonalds. You have to end with a classic and then we departed at the corssroads. Hmm for a brief moment it felt a little lonely solo travelling and I figured without couchsurfing it would probably be even tougher. So then I slammed my mp3 player on and got 'Baba O'Reilly´ and everything was alright with the World. It was back to public transport and I would take the Greyhound bus down to San Diego. It was the first time I had used one since they fucked up with Coachella. I had texted Brianna that I would meet her at half two. I'd forgotten that this phrasiology was odd for tha Yankees and Brianna had interpreted it as half past one as in German. So while she was an hour early, I was an hour late because I was on a greyhound and they suck. I met Brianna and we went out for a Mexican. We had a long walk along the beach and I met her housemates Veronika and Helen. Brianna had informed me that they did not know about couchsurfing and would probably be wary about it, so to all intents and purposes I was a friend of a friend from San Francisco who had met me travelling. Ah clandestine dealing, but luckily I never really had to lie as I am always uncomfortable with that. Briana had to turn in early because she had rowing at 5 every morning. So I headed with Veronika and Helen over to their friend Hayleys. She had been in need of a cockblocker for the evening and we joined her and her friend Grant from Texas. He had been studying up just outside LA. We had to take his jeep convertible out to grab some ice and got some cool dance music blazing through the Diego evening. Hayley had decided to make her fabled White Russians and we draknk up in her room for a while before heading back down. They loved the English accent and Hayley was attempting her best Keira Knightley impression. Somehow the conversation edged into a quasi domestic as Grant and Hayley had dated when they were younger and personal stories were flying from all angles. This tied to the cock chair and the raping of the cuddly bear by Helen, complete with little red stains made for an interesting night. Then Sharon, Hayley's housemate came back from her sorority party and I met two sorority sisters in Diego. Was interesting as they said they were kind of like the films, but not as depraved. Which is kind of what I figured. They all have older and younger brother and sisters adopted within the frats and sororities though, which I am sure makes for some very Imperail Roman incestual relationships.

In the morning I got up late and Briana had left me some breakfast. I decided against going into town the next morning and stayed in to watch the mental Bears v Falcons games. The Bears scored in the last few seconds to win the game. Then they kicked off with 12 seconds left, the Falcons returned 50 yards and hit a field goal. Weird as four games had ended insanely that weekend. I decided to book my flight from Cancun to Puerto Rico and settled on the 24th December as that was the cheapest. Then my confirmation came back as congratulations you have booked a flight for the 24th october. Shit. I figured the computers had fucked up, but it looked like a rookie error. I knew I had to fix it, but first I joined the girls and their other housemate (the very cute one in the sorority) for some authentic El Salvadorean food in one of the neighbourhoods. I got back and had pulled a muscle in my back, but by now I thought this illness was going to kill me and that I shouldn't really have been drinking. Nobody in the San Diego shops could understand my accent and when I eventually got credit, the stupid phone would not call expedia's English number. I managed to speak to my mum and my sister for the second and first time respectively, but I was buggered. In desperation i called the US number and they transferred me to the British one. If you ever have to call a company abroad do it this way. They pay the international call and you just pay domestic as you called a domestic number. Brilliant. They informed me they would check into the machine to see if it had made an error and that I could change my flight for $150. Painful but not as expensive as a new one so I took it. I thought my lung was collapsing at this point so vowed to go to a hospital.

The following day I went downtown where a tramp greeted me because he thought London was cool. Some weirdo then shouted out 'Arizona' for no reason. Maybe he was a Republican. I wandered down to the waterfront and so the convention centre which is really impressive and then the little touristy sea town. From there I headed over to the aircraft carrier and figured I did not have time to go on board, but it was impressive to look at. Then I wandered through the gas light district and up into Balboa Park. By this point I was walking around San Diego barefoot, because I had cut them up a bit and had run out of socks. At some point I needed to find some socks or some sandals. Balboa Park is really impressive (full of fountains and ornate buildings) and the gallery was sadly closed. I realised I would need a lot more time to see San Diego (did not even get to go to the world class zoo) and I had not realised how pretty it was or how much there was to do there. Definitely far better than LA and possibly better than San Fran. Technically it can't make the top 10 though as it was not on the roadtrip, but it would be somewhere in there around 6ish. I walked all the way to Hillcrest barefoot, which confused a lot of people and wandered into the hospital. Here they told me that I would have to pay an undisclosed fee that they would not tell me until after I had had the treatment. By this point I was fucked off with the shitty American system and said that they had better elect Obama so they get real healthcare (lots of people laughed at that). The Yankees are really amazed at what we get for our healthcare. Why one of the American politicians does not just stand up and tell people what this 'socialised' healthcare would get them is anyones guess. I got back up to Briana´s and she gave me a lift part way to town. Somebody asked me in Wendys if I could sell him any weed. Yep thats right. Often as a drug dealer I go out with two rucksacks and sit in Wendys where I will look inconspicuous and sell loads. Idiot. Some friendly Diegans told me how to operate the tram system and while I waited for it to come a horse drawn carriage wandered across the tracks. After being threatened at one stop I made my way to the border and followed the crowds as they walked up and round and round like a multistory carpark and I crossed over into Mexico (Like in Tijuana but this time for good).

As a footnote me and Ollie picked out top ten cities and best regions of the trip´.

Mine were: 1.Denver
2.New York
3.New Orleans
4.Austin
5.Seattle
6.San Francisco
7.Charleston
8.Philadelphia
9.San Antonio
10.Memphis

His were: 1.Seattle
2.New York
3.Denver
4.Austin
5.San Francisco
6.New Orleans
7.Charleston
8.Philadelphia
9.El Paso
10.Portland

Now Portland had a rough time as it may have been higher if we had seen it. Our top 8 were the same so that seems a lock as we like different things. We figure Chicago and Minneapolis (meant to be like Austin) look like the best bets to shake this list up. We had covered 13,500 miles, 29 states, 2 Canadian provinces and one Mexican so we figured we had some authority.

For regions it was for me

1.Rockies
2.The South
3.Texas
4.Pacific Northwest
5.Mid Atlantic
6.Southwest
7.California
8.Chesapeake

For Ollie:

1.Rockies
2.Pacific Northwest
3.Texas
4.The South
5.Mid Atlantic
6.California
7.Southwest
8.Chesapeake

So it seems that we might be right. Most Europeans visit very much the wrong parts of the country. The normal areas of California, Florida, New England and New York are much shitter (with the exception of New York itself) than the regions that are less explored. Dig in and throw yourself into the middle. I would not be surprised if the Lakes, the Plains, Hawaii and Alaska (the only regions left as I have done New England and Ollie Florida) stuck high up in that list as well. Fuck I love Colorado.