Paco´s Life: Madrid

Istanbul II

All pictures from the second night of partying in Istambul are here!

The plan for the night was to seriously go out. Here it was when a group of people who would end up messing the situation was formed. Tel Aviv, Moscow, Bucharest and me got one of the apartments and started to drink the rum we had brought. Paris and Warsaw were lost with a friend of the second one and the girls were having a more relaxed plan so it was our obligation to get the night wild. Very serious drinking time we had, we ended up walking the center of Istambul with a huge bottle full of rum. The night had many anecdotes to tell about, but probably they are only funny if you were there to live them. Like the communication problems we had when I was trying to use Javi´s phone, that moment when I kicked mine directly towards the knee of a poor Turkish girl who was passing by or Moscow´s impressive ability to take pictures been drunk We got together in a nice Turkish place and the night happened to be very very funny :-)Great picture, the night punishers team almost complete, just Prague is missing

All pictures from New Year´s Eve in Istambul are here!

But Saturday´s though night had a high price: there was no way to get up on time for a cruise through the Bosforous we had planned. Regreteable, since I was left with the feeling that Istanbul has a lot to offer and I missed it. We spent the day doing nothing, smoking pipes, getting confused when meeting each other and with hangover. Absolutely nothing to remark about the day. For the night year´s eve Julia had arranged a very good plan, a typical Turkish restaurant had been booked and the idea was to eat some grapes in the house at 12 (Spanish tradition). But and this point things started to get wrong, the Tel Aviv – Moscow – Bucharest - Stockholm connexion had a messy result. While the rest of the people was heading for the restaurant, in which we had to arrive early, these four assholes decided to stay home for having the last drink. But this was not enough and, at a certain point, we had the nasty idea of forgetting about the dinner and just join them for the dessert. So we left the house very late and very drunk and here is when the mess started. Among with other ethylic state we had every kind of problems. Offline phones, confusion when finding the places to meet… A real mess, we pretty fucked up Julia´s dinner and ended up, the four of use, disconnected from the others. Eventually and seen it was impossible to get in touch with the others, we assumed we should spend the night at our own and, to be honest, in the end it happened to be very funny. We met three very friendly Turkish girls (hello Figen!) with whom we celebrated the entering of the new year with flares (apparently the typical thing to do in Turkey). They took us to the best places and the truth is that we had a very very funny night. As there is one hour time difference between Turkey and Spain we celebrated two times. We ended up in a very cool Turkish club where the lights went off for a while. The place had a few floor and there was a music band playing. One of the highest moments of the night occurred when I climbed to the stage and almost stole the microphone from the singer to offer my particular version of “Para bailar la bamba”. There is a video of this that I will only show to people willing to pay big money. By the time it was 12 pm Spanish time we were desperately asking the waiter for drinks that we needed in 2 minutes. No grapes, no nothing, this new year started with a drink on my hands. 2006 has definitely been an original year when talking of special dates: apart from the Turkish New Year´s Eve I just told you, I spent my birthday alone in Bangkok and Christmas night in San Francisco surrounded by globetrotters. But, thinking now, and even though the night happened to be very funny, I am very sorry we could not meet with the others. Besides, Nuria had a very bad time cause she needed to catch a flight early in the morning and we had the keys of the apartment and were unreachable. A little messy but luckily we reunited in the flat on time and, after the well deserved scolding, we could restore the good ICEX vibrations (at least I think so). As can be seen in the pictures we slept very close to each other

The fantastic 4

Javi fell in love

Hats

Turkish girls!

Before finishing the post, I have to speak about the turkish bath, better known as Hamman. Pretty curious thing, first you lay down in a huge and hot stone, like if you were a steak on the grill. Then this guy comes, puts soap all over your body and rub you with an special sponge to open your skin and all that stuff, at the same time he is massaging your body. The truth is that, once you manage to ignore that fact that the one touching you all over is a big guy with moustache, the experience happens to be very relaxing. In the end you get a shower and they take you to another room where you lay in a bed and you get another massage. It would even say I liked it more than the thai massage, I mean the “normal” thai massage, I didn’t try the “other” one So I ended up very “exfoliated” and clean.

Istanbul

All first night pictures here

Istambul, nice city located in the union of the european and asian continents. I think I said many times this is a year for travelling and, as far as I can remember, I always spent New Year´s Eve in Madrid so I decided this was a good chance to break this rule. As usual, the ICEX steel partners were ready for the call and 14 of us attended the Istanbul meeting. Apart from the usual suspects: Guerri – Warsaw, Chelo – Dublin, Julia – Istanbul, Nuria – Vilnius and Manuel – Paris, we had new people showing up; a few big night punishers such as Beni – Tel Aviv, Jesús – Moscow and Javi Bucharest and some people who could not make it for the other meetings like Elena – Athens and Rubén – Teheran. Fortunately Julia had two flats available in the same building, at least in theory, so we fit. As soon as I got to the city, Beni was waiting for me with a drink already prepared. With a welcome like this you immediately feel at home, this first night out proved Moscow and Bucarest night skills and also gave us a taste of the Turkish night. The environment is kinda curious, plenty of bars everywhere and people on the street. However you have to negociate prices for the drinks so they don’t cheat you and the feeling is still a bit machist. For example, there was a moment I was dancing (yes, sometimes I do dance) close to a turkish girl without any evil intention of course and then there was this guy coming to me and saying very politely that I should not get so close, that his brother was around and that was not the way things work in that country. No hard feelings neither bad attitude from him but he makes clear YOU are foreign there and there are some things you can´t do. Anyway, it was already very late and there isn’t much to say about the night. We discovered a place closed to Julia´s home for eating Turkish food. Sort of kebabs but slightly different, we got adictive to something called urfa, like a roll with meat and more stuff inside. The place was funny, as soon as you sit down you were served a dish with the most spicy green chillies I ever tried. I don’t know if you were supposed to eat them alone or put them into the urfa. The next night, been very drunk, we challenged each other to see who could eat more, very bad for the stomach… We also met a funny local, very old and full of alcohol who took a seat with us. A pity he did not speak any English other ways I am sure he would have told us plenty of interesting stories.

Dublin, Moscow and me getting to Istanbul

Stockholm, Dublin, Tel Aviv and Moscow

Our turkish friend

All tourism pictures hereNext morning, been culture lovers people as all ICEX are, we went to visit the city that is definitely beautiful. Plenty of Turkish churches all over form Istanbul landscape, the view from a high point is awesome. It is funny also to hear all over the city the call for praying early in the morning. Funny but also dangerous if you are next to a guy like Beni – Tel Aviv that, been a little drunk, joined the chorus, showing Julia´s neighbors how faithful he is. Anyway, back to Istambul, the city is divided by the Bosforouso, a strait which marks the border between the European and the Asiatic part. On the other side you have the main Turkish churches and the Great Bazaar. We visited Santa Sofia church and the Basilica Cistern, amazing subterranean space, used in ancient times for storing the water which is filtered through the roof. Very nice… We ended the tourist itinterary at the Istanbul Great Bazaar, huge commercial area full of every kind of shops. Here the girls went shopping as it could be expected. Moscow, Bucharest and me thought it was a better idea to have some beers so we went to a bar Bucharest knew from a previous visit to the city. The waiter there happened to be a very great guy, he remembered Javi from the previous visit (which was one year ago), he was a very clever fella, he even remembered what Javi had drunk that day and who he was going with. Besides, he could speak a very correct Spanish that I am sure he had learnt only by speaking with customers and some other languages. From time to time he sit down to speak to us, without been annoying at all. The other waiter there was also very cool, every time he was serving us a beer he was having one himself so he had quite a few. Honestly, a great place, makes you feel at home. And they were not so friendly because of getting our money, the invited us to some French fries and the guy even refused the tip we tried to give him. Before leaving we took some pictures and got his email address. I would recommend the bar to anyone hanging around in the Great Bazaar.

California Dreaming: Conclussions

So this was, more or less, the itinerary we followed in this trip. About 3000 miles (4800 km) of driving through the californian geography:

The trip had everything and the planification was almost perfect, apart from the issue with the chains we didn’t get lost too much and there wasn’t any sort of problem. I would say that everything worked out so well that it got close to be boring, no funny stories nor problems to tell about. It was a “very professional” trip, we saw everything we wanted and the route was the best. Been only 2 people travelling, even having a very good relation, could produce some kind of routine: you drive to a place, you see the place, you take the picture and then you go to the next one. With a bigger group we wouldn’t had seen so many places but it would probably had been funnier. But the social moments we had during the trip (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco) helped breaking up this routine so it wasn’t boring at all. Besides, the area offers plenty of stuff to see. It is pity that the nightlife was not too good, probably because we tried to go out in small cities. That was probably the main problem since the only night we had in a big city (Los Angeles) happened to be much funnier. In conclusion, a great traveller experience more than social. A combination of big cities, cinematographic scenarios and natural landscapes. This more cultural tourism was very welcome after the last ICEX trips which ended up been big alcoholic parties.

About the country and from my point of view, it is a pity that the exterior politics of crappy Bush had damaged so much its reputation all over the world. People there is mostly very very friendly and welcoming. The standard of living of the medium class is very high, there is the bigger the better culture, big cars, big houses, big meals… That´s their culture and the way they live. There are quite a few bad things though. Firstly their luck of international culture, many of them don’t know further than their state. This, if not justifiable, is at least understandable having into account how huge the country is. With 50 states, a few different time regions and a size bigger than all occidental Europe, you could say they have enough with getting to know their own country. It is also a very gifted place from the geographic point of view: natural parks, coast, mountains… So the opportunities for national tourism are endless. It seems kind of logic that many Americans don’t see the need of crossing the Atlantic. The other face of the coin is how few history the cities have behind. Nobody expect to find big monuments or ancient cathedrals here. Most of these places are only a century and a half old in the best case, built geometrically as squares. There is not such a sing as historic center in the American cities as we have them in any European city. In general, they have little to offer apart from the surrounding landscapes.

Something which is also quite bad is the issue with the social differences. California is one of the richest states in the country but still you see plenty of homeless. And the immigration problem: the waitres serving your table is the typical good looking and smiling American girl, the guy cooking the hamburguers in the kitchen is almost in 100% of the cases a Mexican not looking very happy. Same happens with the people you see working to improve the roads and buildings. It is really exaggerated how certain jobs are exclusively taken by immigrants coming from the southern neighbour. I don’t know it this is the reality, but it would be quite hopeful to think that, right now, the children of these Mexican cooks and workers are been educated in the universities thanks to their parents effort and that, in a future, their integration in the American society will be better. That would be nice cause right now the impression you get is that this is not happening. In any case, I am just speaking for speaking, 15 days is not enough time to get a good picture of a country, just to get back with some impression about it, some of them are good and some of them are bad.

California Dreaming: San Francisco II

All pictures here!

When it got darker I started to feel weird about been there, walking alone on Christmas night, no family, no friends… So I went back to the hostel hoping to find more people in the same situation. Surprisingly the living room was pretty crowded, many people sitting there and watching Spiderman on TV, everybody seemed to be as lonely as I was. Funny situation, people looking around, like about to start a conversation: “eh, how are you doing?.. happy Christmas..:” At this point there was a guy who took a pack of cards and asked for players. Great, the ice was officially broken. A few of us got to a table and started to introduce ourselves, the game iniciator happened to be a guy from Stockholm who spoke fluent Spanish since he had lived in South America. The second one… a welsh guy, cool another coincidence, I spent 2 years living there. The rest of the people in the table were a couple of British guys and, of course, a representative of this country of travelers called Germany. For a while we also had a taiwanesse girl playing. And with these people the night happened to be very funny, is very easy to get well with this kind of characters, same profile, globetrotters and constant travelers who had been almost everywhere. People used to socialize, even more when a few bottles of wine are available. At a certain point, what was unavoidable happened, we moved to card drinking games. Quite a few ones were known in the table… Result: laughts and drinks until 3 am and a great Christmas night

Next morning I woke up with the taste of the crappy Spanish wine in my mouth but ready to walk around San Francisco typical neibourghoods. There aren’t actually too many monuments to see in this place, is more about feeling the atmosphere. Which must be great and very special as long as you don’t try it on Christmas day! Who the fuck is hanging around in the street this day? Obviously just the homeless and the stupid Spanish tourist. So I went through the gay neibourghood (The Castro). Yeah, another gay neibourghood here, is not that I am specially interested on that, is just that, for some reason, they are always recommended as a place for visiting in the guides. Who knows why… After that, I went to the Spanish area (The Mission), nothing special to talk about here. I ended my tour, after a few streets with plenty of posh houses, in the famous crossing between the Haigh and the Ashbury streets. Here, my friends, is where the hippie fashion was started. Here is where, in 1967, the Summer of Love was started, thousands and thousands of young people went to the street to smoke plenty of joints and have sex. Now there are just a few shops for buying t-shirts with the peace sign on them but… ops Christmas day, they are closed…

The Mission

The Castro

Haigh & Ashbury

So I went back to the hostel after my long and not too fortunate walk. At least a good plan was waiting for me there: a Christmas dinner had been organized for the sake of the family-less travelers. So we got together again, the same people from the previous night, with our pack or cards and two new members: another German girl and an American fella. When the dinner was over we took over a table and started the game marathon. I decided it was time for some serious drinking and got a bottle of rum (and ice cubes of course). Same deal dudes, hours and hours of card drink games and a very important drunkenness. I woke up next day without remembering when I went to hit the bed. A very important part of that night is actually missing in my memory. The most sadly thing is that my planned trip to Alcatraz fucked up. I had only time for running to the airport an take my plane back to my dear Stockholm. To make things even worse, Lufthansa suckers had the electronic system of my seat row offline so I had to spend 10 hours just waking around the plane, no sleeping, no TV, no reading, no nothing. A hell of trip. Just add 4 hours walking around Frankfurt, waiting for the next plane and you get a fucked up guy finally arriving to Stockholm. In any case, it was nice to get there and meet Henning, a german friend I knew in Cardiff who had been staying in my place a few days while visiting the city with his girlfriend. Very friendly people both of them but I was very very tired and had to hit the bed pretty soon. I did it, though, with a big smile due to the great end which San Francisco meant to an incredible trip.

Mark, Katia and Todd

Hampus and Karina

Rob

The american

It was quite clear this was gonna happen…

California Dreaming: San Francisco I

Travelling at my own is something I did only once, in Bangkok and it worked out pretty well so when I knew Giorgos had to leave the States on the 23th and, since I still had a few days off, I decided to use them for visiting San Francisco. So I got there, on the 23th morning, with my California guide in the pocked and carrying the big bag. The first feeling I got was very positive, you get down the subway at Union Square and you realize the city has little to do with any other in the country. It looks more like Madrid or any other big European capital, people all over, guys playing music on the street and a collection of the most weird and different characters: plenty of fucked up hippies, homeless, business men with their suits, a really colourful mix. Anyway, I head to one of the hostels recommended by the Lonely Planet, the Dakota hostel, typical place for backpackers, with a pretty big shared kitchen and living room. It was kinda expensive for a place like that but my idea was trying to meet some people there so I wouldn’t spend Christmas night alone. About accommodation search, the fact is that you have to be careful where you walk around in SF, at some point you are in a normal commercial street and after waking just a few meters you get into the Bronx, with drug dealers and very bad looking guys hanging around. This is one of the cities of the States with more homeless population, you see very fucked up people. Anyway, that first day I walk through the downtown (more skycrappers) and I visited the Bay Bridge. There are two main bridges connecting San Francisco with Oakland: the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge. The first one if the famous one, symbol of the city, even though the second one was actually built first and is longer. The pictures are not too good since I had to use my mobile phone (my camera had some trouble in the ICEX meeting in Stockholm). After the bridge I head to Chinatown, San Francisco a very multi-cultural city, there is a chinesse neibourghood, a spanish one, an Italian…Chinatown was the typical thing; plenty of shops selling every kind of stuff, chinesses all over. As I had been eating Mexican most of the trip I took my chance to taste a delicious bowl of nuddles. And that night I hit the bed as early as 10, after recalling my Las Vegas experience by watching Ocean´s Eleven on TV. By the way, very friendly people I met that day, in the restaurant I had dinner at my own, an Indian couple spoke to me when they saw I was alone. Just because I was exhausted I could not socialize too much, if not I would have probably tried to join their Christmas dinner But I definitely needed a rest, the jetlag was over so I could sleep a well deserved 12 hours.

Next day I woke up full of energy and looking forward a proper exploration of the city. I walked around the Italian area and, maybe recalling that great summer in Copenhagen, I go myself a bike to cycle the North area of the city and cross the Golden Bridge (the famous one). Very spectacular, it was quite a ride and I got the views from both sides of the bridge. It is a pity that, because of the bad camera, the city skyline on the back can not be fully appreciated. On the other side of the Golden Bridge there is a very nice city called Sausalitos, from there you can take the ferry back to San Francisco. This is the typical tourist itinerary but of course I complicated it a little bit getting lost, I ended up tired of so much cycling. It felt a lot of relief when I finally got ride of the bike. On the afternoon I head to one of the many panoramic points in the city, San Francisco is very famous because of its roller-coaster streets. Walking there is a good exercise and each street you manage to climb offers you a great view of the city. The most spectacular is supposed to be the one of the top of the Russian Hill. I don’t know if this can be appreciated in the picture but the street leading there is actually a zig-zag, it´s very funny to see cars going down there.

Alcatraz

Russian Hill

California Dreaming: Death Valley and Yosemite Park

All Death Valley pictures here!
All Yosemite Park pictures here!

This part of the trip was based on visiting the impressive natural landscapes that this country offers. There is not much to talk about in this post, is more about enjoying the pictures. There was no important city on the way back to San Francisco from Las Vegas but, instead, there were two of the most important American natural parks: the Death Valley and the Yosemite Park. The first one is, as its name says, a big dessert with dunes and mountains where the temperature in summer can rise from a minimum 39C up to 50C. Here it is also located the lowest elevation point with respect the level of the sea of the United States.

After the Death Valley we head to the Yosemite Park, second biggest in USA after the Yellowstone and here things started to get wrong. For starting, the roads we needed for getting through the park to San Francisco were closed due to winter so we had to get around the park, spending a lot of time. We had planned to visit the Sequoia Park, where the widest trees in the world are, but when we get there a friendly park guard, dressed like a boy scout, very politely told us we could not get in without putting chains in the car´s wheels. Shit… It was too late for getting chains, we were running out of daylight so we could only see the famous trees on the Internet. Next day we found the same problem entering the Yosemite Park but this time was early so we decided to get the fucking chains, no matter what they cost, we ended up paying 60 dollars for the chains and another 20 for the park entrance. At least I carried the chains back to Stockholm with me, maybe someday I would need them. Apart from that, driving with chains is a pain, you can not go faster than 40 km/h and it sounds like the car is going to break down. And yes, the road was a little icy but not that much, I am not really sure the chains were absolutely necessary. In any case it was worth it, even though we could only visit the parts of the park which were open in winter, the thing was impressive. It is very foggy when you drive up but then when you get close to the top the sun is shinning again, showing you an amazing view: a valley enclosed between two big rocks, the Half Dome and the Gran Capitan. There are plenty of camping areas and wooden houses in the park, hiking paths, climbing… Probably a great place for spending a couple of weeks in nature. And it seems that finally we visit a place in the right time of the year, they say in summer is just too crowed to be there.

A tribute to the ICEX family

Dusk at Yosemite

About the three nights within our marvelous natural tour, no big deal, we stayed in small cities where there was absolutely nothing to see. In the Death Valley, as its name says, there is not much fun, neither accommodation offer. We had to pay big money for staying in a sort of camp located there. The place had a climate swimming pool that we didn’t dare to try and a Saloon where we were playing snooker since, apart from us, there was only the waiter. Second night we stayed in a small town called Fresno where too much Mexican food and a cold made me fail, for the first time, to Giorgos who of course wanted to go out. Third night was more fun, we got to a place called Modesto where the guy in the hotel sent us to the local bars. There was quite a few people around and we got “friends” of the barman. A funny guy, full of tatooes, who was speaking quite a while with us when the place closed down, telling us about his plans. He even gave us his email address. Believe me fellas, a night like this in the States is a funny night, at least within our 2 weeks experience there.

And this was the end of the road movie, next day Giorgos was flying back to Eruope and I would be left alone, but not in a vulgar place: San Francisco was waiting, city of bridges, hippies and bohemian life in general. The “Cisco” adventures on the next post

California Dreaming: Las Vegas

All pictures here!

This post title is not accurate. Las Vegas is not in California but more to the East, in the state of Nevada. The gambling capital is basically a huge bunch of lights, isolated in the middle of the dessert. I recommend the movie Casino to whoever wants to know more about the history of this so particular place. The city is organized around a main avenue, Las Vegas Boulevard, rather known as “The Strip”. Here is where the main casinos are located and, believe me fellas, the place is amazing. Each of the casinos is inspired on a different topic. The Bellagio reflects the beauty of the Como Lake in the Italian Riviera and is the scenario in which the movie Ocean´s Eleved is based. The Paris Las Vegas is a perfect recreation of the French capital, including a replica of the Eifell Tower, Triumph Arch and Louvre Museum. The Caesar´s, one of the most spectacular ones, decorated in a roman style. The Luxor, a 100 meters crystal pyramid. The Excalibur, a white castle with multicolour towers. The show of lights and neon is pretty impressive, amazing how much money is invested on this place. This is a pure tribute to luxury and richness. We stayed at the New York New York, a perfect recreation of the city whose name takes, with the skycrappers and a lower floor which simulates the main avenues and areas of the city. We booked it on the Internet and the price was not expensive compared to what we had been paying in some other places on the way. In Las Vegas luxury hotels are more reachable to low budgets, makes sense, what they want is you to spend the money gambling so the more comfortable the make you feel the better. In theory you get drinks for free if you are playing in a table but in practice the thing didn’t work out so well for me. There I was, with my limit of 60 dollar for spending on the game, hoping to get drunk for free while playing and save money but I wasn’t successful at all. It takes a lot of time for waitress to deliver the drinks so if you want to get one you have to spend quiet a while in the table, in this time, of course, you will spend a lot of money gambling. As Rober de Niro said in the movie I mentioned before, it does not matter how but they want people to play and play. And finally, casino always wins. In my case, first day I lost the 60 dollars and second one I won 20. In any case the ludopatia feeling you get in this place is fucking dangerous. Let´s say for example, you are playing the roulette, if you bet for a colour you can double the money you risk. It´s a 50% chance, you start thinking, “what if I put 300 dollar there and in a second I may get half of my trip paid…” You really need a strong will there, the gambling can become addictive. There you are, playing Black Jack and every time you win you get this euphoria feeling. And many people can´t stand it, even the people playing in the cheap tables I was (10 dollar minimum bet) was loosing shitloads of money. You could see the frustration in their faces but at the same time you could see they were not able to stop. Not to mention those tables where the minimum bet was 100 dollars, every small chip they were putting there had this value. The funny thing about this is the good atmosphere between the players, is something like we were all together against the casino. Every time you got good cards they were congratulating you as if was your skills and not the luck what got you the price. The place is, by the way, huge, plenty of rooms for playing and plenty of this triple 777 gambling machines. The direction of the Casino is not stupid and they keep displaying faces of previous winners on the tv screens all over the place. And as I said, every place has a different atmosphere, for example, at the Caesar´s all waitress are dressed up like romans. OK, enough talking, here some pics…

It is said that Las Vegas is the city that never sleeps, not for going partying I say. At 2 or 3 as the latest, all the casinos discos close down. The first day what we did not know here to go we ended up just watching the big poker games going on at that time of the night. The bars close but the crupieres remain working and the stay spending money on the tables until the next morning. Apparently, some casinos don’t even have locks since they are always open, willing to get all your money. About the night that first day, nothing too extraordinary, the funniest thing of the place we were was a piano challenge between two really good pianists (piano duel as they say). On the second day I managed to speak a lot with a guy in the hotel Jacuzzi (no gay thing ok?). A big fella, rugby player who had travelled quite a lot in Europe. Amazing guy, you could talk about any sport with him and he would always knew the important Spanish players. This friendly guy recommended us a few places to go for partying. We were even supposed to tell his name to the bouncer of one of them, apparently he was a popular guy there, but unfortunately we finally didn’t go there. We went to another one he recommended, a disco on the top of a high building with amazing views over Las Vegas. Here, once again, we could have a test of the American way of partying. Women are really funny here, they dance very dirty with a guy for a while, get him hot and them go to another one. Of course, excluding us, we were still transparent there. The thing is that most of the times I saw them leaving alone after getting everybody very horny… Weird.

There is not much to do in Las Vegas during the day unless you are gambling sick so we decided to vist the Red Canyon which was close by. First approach to the magnificent landscapes you can find in this huge country, later on we would have many of them. We also got to the Hoover dam, for a long time the biggest in the world. If you have seen the first Pierce Brosman’s Bond movie, it appears at the beginning, he actually run all the way down. Apart from all this nothing else to say about Las Vegas, I had one of my very usual absent-mindedness, loosing my credit car either in the hotel, a gas station or a Mexican restaurant. But I cancelled it straight away and fortunately nobody had time to use it. Next stop: Death Valley…

California Dreaming: Tijuana & San Diego

All pictures here!

San Diego was the next stop in our route.This nice south Californian city had an added interest because of been the place of residence of an old friend of mine, Sergio. I met this great guy during my Erasmus year at Newcastle (United Kingdom), back in 2003. I would say this Erasmus experience started my need of travelling and living in different places. If I hadn´t done that I wouldn’t probably be in Sweden right and the idea of spending Christmas travelling in the States would be out of the question. But the fact is I did it and since then I could not stop. Once you leave home you just can not be back. Apparently the same thing happened to Sergio, he spent quite a few periods abroad until he got the chance to get to San Diego for teaching Spanish. This is his second year there and it was time for me to pay a visit. The trip from LA was a pain, traffic jams and bad weather got us there much later than expected. At least we did not have too much trouble finding the address and meeting Sergio who was hanging around with a couple of friends, also Spanish teachers. Christian and Enric, another two great guys to add to the collection of characters we found in this trip. The first one gave us accommodation for a couple of days and the second one offered us a very tasty Spanish omelette

Erasmus reunion

Christian, great guy

Wellcome to Tijuana, tequila, sexo y marihuana, Manu Chao says. Well, the truth is that the city seems to be the real chaos. From San Diego we drove to the border, left the car there and crossed walking. In the pocket just a bunch of dollars and the passport, well kept, loosing it would result on not been able to get back to the States. So you pass this mechanical door along with all the Americans looking for getting very drunk and you get into another world. Mexicans all over the place offering taxis, liquor shops, sex shops…As we were going with Sergio who had already been there a few times we knew where the more Mexican and less yanqui area was and there we went. What to say about the place… Plenty of people all over, very loud music, bars everywhere. Absolutely the opposite than what we had experienced in the States, an atmosphere closer to what a typical party area in Europe could be. Appart from that, believe me, there was nothing too extraordinary that night. Maybe that epic moment, right after we got into the first place, when they started playing “La Chispa Adecuada”, one of the best songs made by Heroes del Silencio. The Mexicans got craxy with the song, these guys were very popular there. Appart from that, we could check out that in Mexico every woman has a man behind, looking around like a lighthouse and that, even though we could speak the language we would pay same price as the Americans. But, my friends, this is not USA, here you can party until 6 am and we really appreciated that. Something to remember about that night is the best hotdog I ever ate. Unfortunately there are no pictures of the mexican experience, after all we had heard, it didn’t seem such a good idea to bring a camera with us. However I didn’t really feel the place was extraordinary dangerous, nothing unusual at least, maybe because our friends knew where to go so we didn’t get into the wrong places. In any case, only a few hours there but another country to add to the list.

After the mexican gap it was time to get to know San Diego, nice coast city. We started the visit in the center, the restaurant area and continued to the gay area (Hillcrest). According to the Lonely Planet guide, the reason why there is a gay community in San Diego is that, after the II World War, many soldiers ended up there and, of course, so many men so close… By the way, having this guide is very adviceable for a trip like this. You get plenty of information about the places you are visiting, maps of the main cities and recommendations about accommodation and restaurants which were most of them successful. I would say is a must to buy it. Anyway, San Diego has, of course, a skycrappers downtown and close by there is a reconstruction of a typical western village. Very fake but anyway, it was the tourist attraction and we were tourists so we had to go. Buying the Mexican hat was part of the plan for properly fooling around. After that we went to the beach, the most famous one there is La Jolla but we did not made it so far and stayed in the closest one. Not much to do there in winter and also, for the first time in this trip, we get pretty lost driving around and missed a couple of interesting places because we got there too late. Still, we could get a couple of night pictures of the californian sunset.

For dinner, the locals took us to a great place where you get very full eating meat you cook yourself in a grill they have in the middle of the restaurant. Talking about restaurants in the States, is unbelievable how well you can eat there or, been more precise, how much you eat there. They really load the dishes not like some other places I know (yeah I am been critic with Stockholmagain). It does not matter if the place was Mexican, chinese, Italian…you weren’t hungry afterwards. The prices are affordable and the service is great, all the staff is very friendly and nice and you hardly wait for your meal. There is a trick here though. In the States the customer is supposed to leave tip, between 10 and 20% of the meal. You can get away without leaving the tip but that would be extremely unpolite. The waitress who served the table gets the tip so he/she better be nice. In fact, the basic salary these people get already reflects that they are supposed to get plenty of money in tips, they normally get around 1,5 dollars per hour. If they are reasonably friendly they will highly raise this amount, ending up with a more than decent salary. In my opinion, this is a good system, you give between 10 and 20%, depending on how good you feel they threat you. This way you normally get a very good service, chezcq waiters here wouldn’t make business. The negative thing is that as soon you finish your food they are already looking forward for you to leave so they can give your table to someone else and in some places they tend to rush you. No Spanish after – lunch – talking here.

The woman at the back of the picture is a regular customer of the place

And here some funny pictures form San Diego zoo

California Dreaming: Los Angeles

All pictures here!

The next stop of our trip could not be more cinematographic: Los Angeles, capital of the cinema and one of the most worldwide known cities. Once you pass the cliffs I was talking about in the previous post, the road 1 continues through the wine region of California, most of the wine produced in the States comes from this place. Which actually we did not really care about since we didn’t stop here but in Santa Barbara, a place I guess you all heard about. This is the funny thing about the american supremacy in cinema, you come here and all the time you see names that sounds familiar. In any case, we hang around for a while there, nice city with a beautiful beach which must be great in summer. But it was not summer and the weather wasn’t good enough to take a bath so we just visit a couple of historical Spanish buildings.

Patriotic moment

What the fuck he was talking about?

One hour after that we hit LA. The first impression you get about the city is pretty negative, the neibourghoods in the outskirts are very ugly, lot of homeless walking around and pollution everywhere. The city is huge and you don’t know where to head. But, an ICEX guy always has resources for this kind of situations, before we started this trip I got in touch with one of the interns in the commercial office of the Spanish embassy in LA, María, who happened to be a very friendly girl who told us the route we should follow. So we called her asking for advice on finding accommodation in LA and she recommended us to go to the Santa Monica area. Hotels there are pretty expensive so we ended up in a youth hostel, not very luxury but close to the beach. The ICEX help did not stop there, they were so nice to take us out that night. Around 10 pm the plan was already organized, they picked up us in the hostel and it didn’t matter we were six in a car. We had dinner in a Chinese place and then we head to a club they knew. The place was really cool already from the beginning when these two huge black bouncers asked us for passports. When they saw we were Spanish they did some jokes. Same as the Swedish ones eh? So, the night passed very happily inside there, chatting and laughing with all the LA ICEX interns and another visitor, a very funny guy coming from New York. We even managed to socialize a bit with the locals. However, at 2 o clock the place closed down and then they took us to a libian place, opened till very late, to smoke pipes. Kind of weird place, it was not the total party but ok for been there smoking and chatting. When we felt too tired we took a taxi back to the hostel. Thanks a lot to Montse, Juan Andrés and cia, very welcoming people!

I just realized I dint speak about the jetlag yet. There is a 9 hours time difference between the USA West Coast and Stockholm and you can feel it. Is a funny effect, you can´t sleep longer than 7-8am which is actually great for doing tourism so we were on the road pretty soon. However, at 6 pm you are totally fucked up. So we spent this first week having to sleep a 1-2 hours nap every day.

Anyway, let´s continue with LA. After the great night it was the time to get to know the city. As we only had one day we decided to hire one of these tours you get into a bus and they show you around, the driver explaining about the city. He was, of course, a very friendly guy (working for his tip) and was saying funny stuff at the same time he was describing the different places. We started in Sunset Boulevard where the rich guys and the cinema stars live. We saw Spielberg´s house, Kurt Russel´s and a few more whose owner I don’t remember. We ended this first part of the trip in Beverlly Hills were poor people go shopping. Everything very touristic. During the trip the guide was saying interesting stuff, for example “that corner over there is where Hugh Grant got a blowjob” or “this is where Michael Jackson got arrested”. Very instructive. No, we didn’t see any famous people but we did see some guys going to the shops by limousine. Exactly the same that I do when I get down to my local supermarket to get some frozen pizzas… After that the bus left the city and started to drive up to a hill and… opps there it was, the very famous Hollywood sign. The view over the city from there is pretty impressive too, you can see how big it is.

After the hill, the bus stopped in the Universal Studios where I could not resist the temptation of getting a couple of stupid pictures. You may be wondering why usually I am the one to show up in the pictures, well Giorgos does not like it too much and I thought so many lonely landscapes and monuments would end up been boring. Therefore I fool around as soon as I got any chance. We did not get into the studios cause it was very expensive and we didn’t have time either but I don’t think we missed much. Instead, we got down the city to the very famous “Walk of Fame”, yes where you find the starts with famous names on it all over the floor. Drinking all the rum in the world is not enough for getting a start there, you are required to have a certain amount of success and also, of course, to send a very big check to the LA city hall. There was plenty of people dressed like Elvis, Donald Duck and stuff like that hanging around over there, trying to get some dollars. So, the typical place, compulsory to visit, you get the pictures, hang around for a while and leave.

Of course, Captain Flint´s legend made it this far

The visit ended in LA downtown, that means, the bunch of skycrappers in the centre of the city, nothing new here, once you have seen one you have seen all. I like more a small street with Mexicans shops close by. I was about to buy a very cool poster with all the mafia guys of the american cinema until I understood there wouldn’t be any way to get it into the plane. In the meantime I was chatting with a couple of local Mexicans, funny thing, they were switching from Spanish to English all the time without realizing themselves. Here they started to scare me about our next destination: Tijuana, “be careful there”, “don’t get drunk”, “stay with more people”. I had already heard it was the most dangerous city in Mexico and these guys seemed to agree. We would see…

California Dreaming: Route 1

All pictures here!

The adventure begins with some complications, the plane which will take me from Stockholm to San Francisco, via Frankfurt, is departing at 6 am. The link with the aiport is difficult at that time and the only choice happens to be a bus leaving from a neighbourhood next to mine. The map says is just a 10 minutes short walk, the fact is that it happens to be a mess of parks that I have to cross. Panic time, I am lost in the middle of a cementery and the bus stop does not show up, time is passing and I am walking around with my bag. In the end, I crossed a highway and found the stop, it was just a post with a plane on it. The thing did not get serious and when the plane left I was inside.

15 hours after that…wellcome to USA, here I am in San Francisco, a city I will not visit for the time been since the plan is to do it by the end of the trip and now leave towards the South. No problems here, I pass the passport checking without been annoyed too much, the guy is even friendly. Giorgos is waiting for me at the terminal and the car we have rented at the agency. Nice one, a Chevrolet that, even been the Budget´s cheapest looks good. If you are interested, the rent of this car for 10 days was 340 dollars. And here it comes the first challenge of the trip: get used to the automatic change. There is no embrage and you basically use only two gears: one for going forward and another one for going backward. I guess this is convenient so these Americans can drive at the same time they eat their hamburgers or use their cell phones (apparently in California doing this is not forbidden). But in my opinion this gets driving terribly boring. It is the car the one who decides when to change the gear so many times you lack the power you would like, for example for passing someone. The key to drive this kind of cars is to forget you have a left foot, unconsciently we tend to hit the embrage when we are about to stop, in an automatic car this results on a strong stop, there was a few of those but luckily without consequences.

So we start the itinerary in the famouse California´s route 1 which surrounds the Pacific from San Francisco to Los Angeles. This is not the quickest way but it is the most interesting to enjoy the view of the cliffs and the ocean. We set two stops on the way down to LA: Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo. Both cities have not much to see, in fact once you have seen an American city you have the picture of all of them, apart from a few exceptions. The structure of the neighbourhoods is always the same: squares and squares of houses which extend the city from the center (downtown) which, for big cities will be a bunch of skycrappers and for the small ones nothing special. As U2 said, the streets here have no name, they are named with numbers (1^st street, 20^th Avenue…) or even with letter (P street). Not original but convenient to get orientation. The motels our budget could afford were always in the outskirts. These were the typical places we are used to see in the movies where the husband goes to fuck the lover while the detective is outside watching. Small apartments with their own entrance and a place for the park. However it is fair to say that, paying between 60 and 90 dollars so get a very decent room, with two big beds and very often the breakfast included.

In both cities we tried to experiment the american night, been the results horrible. For starting there was only two or three open places, to continue they closed down at 2 and to finish we did not manage to socialize with anyone. The feeling was that everybody knew each other there and we were kind of transparent. Nobody paid attention to us like if we were part of the furniture. And maybe it was better this way cause the times we managed to speak with someone the result was not exactly nice. There was a guy who asked me, after I said where I come from, if that was the place where bulls are tortured. The worst thing was not the question itself, which sadly is the truth and will continue been the truth as long as we keep this nice tradition we have. The sad thing was that this guy could not say anything else about our country and the condescencion face of him. Giorgos´s experience was even worse, or better depending on how you see it. When he was saying he came from Greece they did not even know what was that. OK hold on, American friend reading this, I am describing characters you can find in your small villages there, actually we had the chance to meet many people in this trip and most of them were very nice. I would say this was the exception.

So, what was good then about this itinerary? I specially liked a small village called Carmen, in the outskirts of Monterrey, if there was ever a symbol of the American dream this is the place. Beautiful houses and quiet atmosphere a few meters away from the beach. Everything there is clean and good looking and you only find antiquities shops all over the street. People there are definitely not poor… In this special village, whose mayor for a few years was Client Eastwood it is forbidden to have big lights, cheap motels or any other thing which may affect the view. There are no mailboxes in the houses so the people have to go to the post office to collect their letters. An artificial and fake place? Of course, but is nice to walk around there.

We also visited the Monterrey aquarium, within the “Get the know the nature” section of our trip. It is said to be one of the best in the world but, in my opinion, it was not so spectacular, you pay 20 dollars to get in and in one hour you are done, even not rushing. The best attraction they had is when the feed the fishes and that becomes kindergarten so noisy that you have to run away. So, not pass for Monterry where there is nothing else apart from the aquarium.

Have you ever seen a fish like this one?

To compensate the Monterrey´s fail, the Pacific coast is amazing, the designo of the road is great and there are incredible view of the rocks, here you have a few of them…