Weekend in Monterey

Last weekend I went on a road trip with 3 of my close friends from exchange, Carmen, Lena and Victoria, and also met up with another friend, Ilene, and her boyfriend Jairo. We started in San Francisco and I finally got to see the scrapbook that Lena had made of Milan. It was incredible, she'd gone to a lot of trouble and it both beautifully decorated and thoughtful, with lots of photos and some text too. I wish I had something like that from my trip, but I guess I have the stacks of emails that I sent, as well as all the great photos and videos with so many memories.

We drove down to Monterey along Highway 101 (the non-scenic route as we were rushing to get there) and listened to Italian songs that Lena had on her Ipod and it brought back many of the exchange life memories. It was strange to constantly be flashing back to my life 2-2.5 years ago and constantly re-living everything but knowing that I'm here in the now and my whole life is different. But the friendships that I had are kind of the same, we're still essentially the same people that we were around each other, even if we aren't exactly the same people that we were two years ago. If that makes sense at all. We've all progressed down the road of life, but the bonds that we created feel the same. So it's this sense of familiarity and yet not at the same time. A very odd feeling. But really wonderful to still have that bond.

I can't say Monterey was particularly inspiring. It was full of very old people and was a bit hokey. You know the term one-horse town? This is a one-horse town and it's an old horse that's been put out to pasture. Service in restaurants was slow, food was mediocre and there was nothing to do after 10pm, not really. Our hotel was quite nice (and fairly cheap!) and we got to drive down Big Sur (coastline between Monterey and LA) which was gorgeously rugged and was a nice scenic drive and then we lazed on a beach.

On our way back to San Francisco we went through Santa Cruz which was much more alive and happening and we went on a roller coaster (I screamed) and we ate organic food (which I liked, but not everyone did) which was kind of vegan and had lots of raw food options. Very hippy-dippy but seemed kind of California. Also good to detox a bit and get some healthy food into our systems after all that eating out.

Today I just relaxed, mooched around online trying to plan things and generally did not get much done. Tanzila is joining me very soon! :o)

What's with the weather?

The weather in San Francisco is a little crazy - global warming strikes again!

I'm too lazy for a full post but the past few days have been very busy. I've been to:
1. Wednesday - Golden Gate Bridge - where I walked across it and then down to Sausalito. Very pretty view (amazing actually but I'm too tired to find good words to describe it - pictures will help!) but I'm really not fit enough for this as my back was pretty sore for days after this. Definitely worth it though... I had my first American hamburger there, not very good but the view from the window of the cafe was exquisite.
For dinner we had a nice feast at home that Carmen made. Chicken, salad and a pasta thing, really delicious!

2. Thursday - tour of the gay area called "the Castro" - interested and informative about some history of the area, but I came away thinking how strange it is how strong the sense of community, belonging and labelling everything is here.
I also checked out the San Fran Museum of Modern Art and was lucky enough to be here for the Frida Kahlo exhibition. Very intense but fascinating.

3. Thursday night - Sunday - road trip with girls from exchange! More on this soon, I'm too tired right now.

Shopping... and a museum

After a lazy day yesterday (after my bad dream I couldn't face going out and figuring things out in the city) I got up early to walk down Haight St, which is famous for being hippy land during the 60s and also near where the Grateful Dead lived. I missed the tour they have on Tuesdays, so I didn't learn much, but I did go shopping and bought a patchwork skirt, silk pants (Asian style) and a tie up muslin cardigan. All kind of hippy-ish and perfect for traveling through Central America in! I also walked up a hill and got some great views of the city. Worth every puff and sore legs (just because of my general lack of fitness).

I also walked through Golden Gate Park to the de Young Museum. I think I was offered drugs twice and an old homeless man might be in love with me (for no reason I can understand, maybe he'd bought some happy drugs). It's also where I think San Francisco's homeless people go to hang out. Here they carry all their worldly possession in shopping trolleys, which you see full of clothes (and not really much else). It was funny because the trolleys were all parked down the hill (like a parking lot) and the homeless people were hanging out on the grass, drinking, talking, doing whatever. And now I feel like I know what homeless people do during their days.

The de Young museum had a really beautiful glass exhibit by an artist named Chihuly. I'll have to put up some pictures that I took (and normally I don't take photos of art that I see in museums) because it was incredible. Maybe just google it. The rest of the exhibitions were a bit underwhelming (should have seen them first!) but this was very cool. Then I went next door to the Japanese tea gardens for a nice walk around and some tea and cookies. If you ever go to San Francisco I don't recommend the tea garden except as a place to have a rest, but note that it costs $4 to get in, and another $5 for your tea and cookies, so you could go somewhere else for a break.

And tonight I went shopping with Carmen and we both bought a bit of stuff (I got two dresses, a pair of shoes and some shorts). It's been a spend-y day for me so I'm going to go easy on the shopping for awhile. I don't want my money to run out before I get to New York!

Now, mostly we've been eating at home because it's cheaper and more homely I guess, but last night Carmen and I went to the Mission (a kind of Latino neighbourhood in San Francisco - it's a slightly poorer area I guess, but it has a lot of bars and clubs and restaurants so it's a fun place to go) to eat at Andalu, a tapas style Mexican/Spanish/Asian style restaurant, which I recommend to everyone who comes here. The service was not great (just kind of slow and the front of house was a bit dopey - not rude or anything, just slow) but the food was incredible. So delicious! We had these "ahi tacos" (fish - tuna I think? - tacos) that were so more-ish and we got a cheese fondue which was divine and went perfectly with the toast and bread. And dessert was donut holes that you dipped in little cups of thick, dark hot chocolate with cream on top. It also has an extensive wine and cocktail list. I can only vouch for the sangria (yum) and according to Carmen they make good faux-hitos (virgin mojito). I will be posting photos of these when I get around to it, because it was so, so good.

Spooky malaria pill induced dreams

I just had the most horrible dream that I had to wrench myself out of. I'd completely missed my flight in my dream because I'd just forgotten about it. Completely forgotten. I was still working and I'd worked PAST my flight date. It doesn't sound THAT scary but because it just felt so real (you know how you're in dreams sometimes and it feels real but you know it's a dream so it's ok? Not like that... just felt real) it was such a horrible experience. And then I couldn't get out of it easily, I had to just wrench myself out of the dream and luckily my alarm went off. But I woke up 45 minutes ago and it's still really fresh in my mind, when normally dreams fade after 2 minutes of being awake.

I blame this weird chloroquin stuff. It'd better freakin' save me from malaria when I get to Central America.

Further proof that drugs are bad mmm'kay? I swear that I am now thinking in (my interpretation of) an American accent. Oh my god, how is this possible? I can't even think that without being all "gawwwd" instead of just plain "god" in a nice clipped tone. AAAaaaahhhh!!! And the thing is I'm not SPEAKING any differently, it's just all in my head. I'm going to go and eat some vegemite on toast and Australian-ise myself.

San Francisco #1

I've now been in San Francisco for a day and a half. I'm not sure if it's because I'm staying with my friend Carmen and not at a hotel or hostel, but it all feels so... normal. Just like me going to Melbourne or Brisbane or somewhere in Australia. Yes I'm hearing American accents, but Carmen's is familiar to me and I guess I hear them on TV all the time, so I'm kind of desensitized to that. There's no real culture shock (except the food, OMG the portion sizes! HUGE! It's such a WASTE of food, who eats that much? And this is in San Francisco, which is a rich city, in California, which is a relatively health state, I'm not hitting any of the mid-west states where apparently it's all just grease and massive everything - including people) because it's very similar to an Australian city. Looks-wise it's a little bit like Melbourne, with the trams and straight streets in the city and very minimalist style of architecture. It even has the slightly weird and changeable weather patterns. It's not so much the 4 seasons in one day, but it can be really chilly and then really hot within the same hour. Very odd. And confusing for my wardrobe because I didn't really plan for much cold weather!

So far Carmen has taken me around, which has been really great because I firstly haven't had to navigate my way around and could just kind of settle in nicely and it's been really nice to have some company to see things and explain a bit. From tomorrow (Tuesday) I'm on my own to see the city, which is also good because it'll give me some independence to really see a lot of stuff without boring her by my tourist-y ways! :P

I'll post more impressions and thoughts of San Francisco when I've seen more of the city, this is just a first impression, and all good Austenians (Austenites?) know that first impressions can be so wrong, just like we know that all men with a good income are looking for a wife. ;o) So far all I've seen is Carmen's place (nice!), the Bay Bridge (just a big concrete bridge, but good views, from what I could see from the car), Union Square (huge billboard of David Beckham's abs - it's HUGE and his abs look very delicious), Chinatown (rather like Chinatown in Sydney, you know, they're always kind of the same) and Berkeley (not as hippy as I thought it'd be, kind of small with a few hippies strolling around. Not more hippy than the South and Central Coast in Australia can get). Plus we went to an Italian "festival" in North Beach, which was ok, just a lot of stalls selling stuff (mostly not Italian weirdly enough) and some not particularly good bands playing on the grass. The food was all just fried stuff (not a food festival *sad*) so Carmen and I I got some very greasy garlic fries (good but a handful was ENOUGH) and deep friend calimari with lime to share. And it was nice and relaxing and not too tourist-y (with the main tourist element being ME because I took a few photos, which I'll put up on Facebook eventually, but I can't upload my photos because I forgot a cable so I need a computer with an SD slot - mine's waiting for me in China so you might not get photos until September).

Edit
I completely forgot but yesterday I also went to a kind of look out near Carmen's place and we saw all these hang gliders. It looks like so much fun, I think I might try and take a lesson. It's a bit pricey but you get to fly like a bird!

Delayed, delayed, delayed

I'm waiting in the Sydney airport for my flight.
It's already been delayed by over 3 hours, and now there's no news. Last I heard I was meant to be board about 20 minutes ago. No call. I've heard one flight has been delayed until 10pm tonight and it was meant to leave MUCH earlier today. They're claiming "maintenance" issues. On so many aircrafts?

At least I have internet now... and it's free!

This is a particularly in auspicious start to my trip. I'm hoping that it's like rehearsal dinners before a wedding, the worse the pre-event, the better the actual event! Here's hoping!

Pre-trip posting

I feel like I should solemnly declare this to be my travel blog or at least do something to formalise this migration away from LiveJournal for a blog. I've had that blog for years and years now, so this is somewhat foreign, somewhat. I guess it's really same same but different.

I'm jetting off this Saturday, which is coming up very quickly. It seems just yesterday that I was driving up to Sydney (actually 1.5 weeks ago) and just counting down the days, but now I've barely got any time to wait for at all! My packing is... not going that quickly, but there aren't THAT many things that I need to pack. Toiletries are done (although I need a loofah/sponge), important documents are printed out (still need to photocopy my passport) and all that's left are electronic things (chargers mostly) and clothes and then I'm done!

I'm going to insert my itinerary here, just FYI if anyone is interested:

1. 14 June (Sat): Arrive in San Francisco

2. 20-22 June (Fri-Sun): Trip to Monterey/Big Sur

3. 23-27 June (Mon-Fri): Yosemite + San Fran (again)

4. 27June-3July: Arrive in LA - hang out, see the city

5. 4-7July: 4th July long weekend - San Diego
6. 7 July-mid August: Central America - Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica etc.
7. 14 August: arrive LA/Vegas

8. 15-17 August: Las Vegas weekender

9. 18 August-24August: Trin in NYC
10. 24-25 August: in transit to Milan
12. 25-28 August: Visiting northern Italy (including Torino, Valle D'Aosta)
13. 29-31 August: Weekend trip to Marseille
14. 31 August - 3/4 September: Beach trip to Amalfi coast
15. Early September: Flight from Milan into Shanghai - date being changed
16. 5 Feb 2009 - Home time - Arrive in Sydney, Australia