Last thoughts of the USA

So before I start writing about out time in Germany, I just had a couple of random things about the States that I wanted to write about…

Food:

When we were in Hollywood, we had a really hard time finding anything healthy to eat. Most of the places along the boulevard were fast food, including one place that we went into that called itself “Indian Masala Grill”. We thought ‘grill’ sounded like it could be healthy, but I think grill means something different in the States than it does at home! It was basically curries in a bain-marie, like something you would see at a mall, except even worse. Blergh. It wasn’t until we got to New York that we discovered the best places to eat (cheaply) in the States is at diners! Funnily enough, my lovely friend Chanell told me this a while ago, but I’d completely forgotten. We went to a couple of different diners and they were very similar in price/quality/service etc – delicious, home-cooked style food with really friendly waitstaff, and all at a really good place. I highly recommend diners if you’re heading that way! (Oh and also, HUGE meals! Salad or soup is usually included with your main – or ‘entrée’ if you’re American).

Tipping:

Speaking of eating leads me to my next topic – tipping. Before going to the USA, I’m pretty sure I’d never tipped anyone ever in my life. As I’m sure most people know, tipping is pretty much mandatory in the States. When I say pretty much, I mean that I don’t think anyone is going to chase you down the street if you don’t leave a tip, but some places include it on the bill, and I don’t think you’d have much luck getting served twice in a busy pub if you didn’t bother to tip your bartender. I had no idea how much you are supposed to tip, I thought maybe around 10%, since that seemed logical (and a nice round number). Turns out the ‘going rate’ is 18%! For starters, how are you even supposed to work that out off the top of your head – we usually just tried to round it to about 20%, or to an even number. Cam was pretty annoyed when we went to one place and they included the tip on the bill, because the service hadn’t been very good. So we paid the bill but rather than rounding it up to $50 (it was about $49.65) we used all our change and left the exact amount. Apparently the reason they tip in the States is because wages for hospo workers are really low (I have heard as little as $4hr, but that was from a few years ago). That doesn’t seem very fair to me, that restaurant owners can pay their staff ridiculously crap wages, and diners are expected to make up the rest. I understand tipping when you’ve had really good service, someone who has gone out of their way to provide fantastic service to you. But just tipping them for doing their job, and not necessarily very well? Isn’t that what their boss should be paying them for?

Taxes:

In the States, taxes aren’t included on prices you are given. For example, it might say $5 on the menu, but that doesn’t include the sales tax (GST). Sales tax is different in every state apparently – around 7 – 10% in California, and 9% in the States. This is definitely less than the GST we pay at home, but man is it a pain in the arse when you are paying for something. Most food tends to be pretty cheap when you go out for dinner, but it can be so deceptive. You forget that whatever you order, you need to add sales tax, and then an 18% tip. Gah! Not good when you are running out of money and calculating exactly how many dollars you have left.

Accents:

The last thing I wanted to say is quite short. I can’t believe how many people had trouble understanding us in the US! People thought we were Australian, English, Scottish even! I spelt my name to a receptionist in the Hollywood hostel, and when I said ‘Zed’ (instead of ‘Zee’) she looked at me like I had two heads, and was like “Huh? What??!”. Surely you’d think working in a hostel you would have encountered ‘zed’ before. Anyway. We didn’t really have a hard time getting people to understand us, but there was definitely a lot of repeating ourselves and trying different words. Really strangely, people had real trouble when we said that Cam’s bag had a bike in it – repeated this several times (including Cam doing actions haha) until we said ‘bicycle’ and then they got it.

That is all, Germany soon to follow….

Hot and Sticky

So much to say, so I’ll start at the beginning…

(Also, if you just skim read, I won’t be offended (cos how will I know???)) This is an incredibly long post, good luck.

My last post ended after I’d lost my camera at Santa Monica Pier. That wasn’t the best of days, the jetlag-hangover meant we both felt like crap and I got really homesick! Good thing I have my wonderful husband with me, he always makes me feel better J.

The next day was our last full day in LA, so we went to a few of the tourist attractions along the Hollywood Boulevard. We’d seen the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum on our travels, so that was our first stop. When we bought tickets the woman behind the counter offered us a 3-for-1 deal where we could go the Guinness World Records museum and a wax museum as well, we decided we might as well since we didn’t have anything else to do for the day.

Ripley’s was pretty cool, the first thing you seen when you get in there is a life-size model of the tallest man ever to live, Robert Wadlow. I remember reading about this guy when I was younger, so it was pretty cool to see this. He was 8ft 11in high (2.72metres), you can’t even begin to imagine how tall that is until you see the model. I tried to imagine what it would be like to see someone that tall walking down the street, it’s just insane! The model stands up and sits down so we got a couple of photos of Cam and I standing next to him for both. All photos from here are from Cam’s ipod, so they’re pretty crap quality, but it was all we had! Damn Santa Monica….

My mum bought my dad an edition of Ripley’s Believe It or Not book about the same time I was born, and growing up I used to read it regularly. I never realised Robert Ripley was a famous person until recently, and it was really amazing to look around the museum and see the different places he had travelled to and all the artifacts he collected. He lived from 1890 – 1949, and in that time he travelled to over 200 countries. That must’ve been pretty amazing back in his day! Anyway, I’m starting to bore myself, I’ve wandered off track…

After Ripley’s we went to Guiness World Records. That was really quiet compared to Ripley’s – which was really busy - and looked a bit rundown. Some of the records needed to be updated, and some looked like they needed a few repairs. After that we went across the street to the Wax Museum (these three places kind of form a triangle). Cam and I had our reservations about this place, we thought it would either be really good or really bad. It was the latter. Some of them were so bad we just cracked up laughing. Lots of the models had tiny wee pinheads on big shoulders, some of them bore a faint resemblance to the person they were portraying, but none of them would you have confused with a real person! Cam and I can’t agree over which one was worse – he says a Cameron Diaz who was posing as a Charlie’s Angel with the other two, I think one of Adam Sandler with a really contorted facial expression. We have some photos but the poor lighting combined with ipod camera means you can’t see very clearly. My recommendation – if you want to go to some of these attractions in Hollywood, go to Ripley’s, DON’T buy the 3-for-1 deal, and then go to Madame Tussaud’s just down the road. We didn’t go there, but it HAD to be better than what we saw! I’m definitely heading there when we get to London!

That afternoon, Cam and I had decided we wanted to go and see a movie while we were in Hollywood. We went to a place called Archlight Cinemas, about a 10 minute walk from where we were staying, on Sunset Boulevard, to see “Ted”. Just before the previews started an employee walked to the front of the theatre and introduced herself to everyone, gave us a rundown of how long the movie would run for (“and that includes previews and credits, folks”), and then told us they would be coming back in a couple of times to check the quality of the screening during the movie. Throughout the movie people clapped and cheered and at the end lots of people clapped. Americans are weird.

Monday morning we left LA to go to San Francisco. Checking through for our flight was such a rigmarole. We had to pay excess for Cam’s bike, and they had to check that his bike could go on because “only one bike can go on per flight, it’s a tiny TINY plane”. Tiny my ass, it was 76 seats and had a first class section!! Come to Nelson buddy.

The security checking through the airport was insane, we got into a massive queue that slowly worked it’s way through, and to go through the checks we had to take off shoes, belts, hats, everything out of our pockets, and then get body scanned. I wonder what the checks were like before September 11^th? You can understand why they are so vigilant, but man does it make you feel like a criminal.

San Francisco! Flying into it was so lovely, it was all hilly and green, much better than flat, grey and brown LA. We didn’t really like LA all that much, so it was great to be leaving. We checked into our hostel to be told we are on the edge of the druggie/homeless district. Greeeeat. As if we didn’t get enough of homeless people in LA.

Little bit of a sidenote here to talk about homeless people. There must be hundreds of thousands of them in the States. (I just found this article about homeless people in San Fran if you want to read it: http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/05/sf_homeless_count_2011.php)

There are so many of them around here, in fact the hostel people told us if you want to go somewhere, walk up two blocks away from this area and go from there, rather than going straight down this street. Cam and I have forgotten a couple of times and man, it’s a bit scary. I don’t know if they’d actually ever DO anything to you, but they can be quite in your face asking for money, or just generally all over the footpath meaning you have to step right around them. Where are their families? I know that there is pretty much no way I could ever be homeless, with all the family and friends that I have. So what about these people? Lots of them are old, some are disabled, do they have no one who cares about them? Anyway, sidenote over.

Aside from the huge amounts of homeless people surrounding us, San Fran is much nicer than LA. We went on a bike tour to the Golden Gate Bridge on our first full day here, and biking through the city was so nice. Kind of a mix between Melbourne and Wellington. But the hills. Oh the hills. We were given directions on how to get to Golden Gate Park,  and then onto the bridge. They gave us two ways, the ‘kind of hilly but beautiful’ or the ‘flat but you have to back-track way’. We figured ‘kind of hilly’ would be sweet. Nek minnit, divorce. Well, not really, but only because Cam is very kind and patient. I biked up the first few hills no problems, thinking about the fatty American food I have been eating (quick sidetrack, it is REALLY hard to get tasty healthy food in Hollywood!!) and how I need the exercise. Then we come to this freaking ridiculous MOUNTAIN climb around a rocky cliff face. At that stage we were having a good laugh, and Cam biked while I walked mine up to the top, having a good look at the view. We carried on, had a few more hills (some ridden, mostly walked), then we came to a nice big downhill bit. Sweet!!! I can do downhill! Turned a corner. And it’s a freaking slow incline for miles. I tried for a bit, then just threw a wee mini tantrum. Just a wee one. (Swear words were involved). Cam made the mistake of laughing, but he figured out that wasn’t a good idea too quickly! Anyway, we’re not getting divorced so it’s all good.

We FINALLY made it to the bridge, and it was cold and so foggy. Didn’t stop thousands of people from walking/biking over, it’s very crowded on there! It was so foggy you couldn’t even see the top of the bridge when were in the middle of it. We got over the bridge and rode down to a lovely seaside place called Sausalito (everytime I think of the name it makes me hungry cos it sounds like sausage – Labrador moment). We stopped and ate lunch and had a beer there – after riding for about 4 hours at that stage, I would’ve killed anyone that got in my way. Getting back on the bike was pretty painful – you don’t realise how sore your butt is til you give it a bit of relief and then get back on! Sausalito was lovely, kind of had a village feel, and it was right beside the sea. We were pretty knackered though so we didn’t hang around for two long before we caught a ferry back across the bay, and (slowly and painfully) found our way back to the bike hire place. Good god those hills were horrible.

Our second day here (July 11^th) we had an Alcatraz tour booked. We’d met a couple of Aussies in our hostel who didn’t have anything booked and said they were going to go down early and see if they could get tickets – I’m pretty sure they didn’t succeed as when we got there, there was a sign saying ‘Next available tour: July 30^th’. So if you’re going to San Fran and you want to go to Alcatraz – book far in advance! Apparently they get 4 to 5,000 visitors a DAY to Alcatraz (ferries leave every half hour) so it’s a pretty busy (and lucrative) industry. Alcatraz was actually the 3^rd discontinued prison visit I’ve done (Melbourne once and Fremantle twice) and while it was interesting and I’m glad we went there, it wasn’t the best of the three! We did the audio tour – you are given a headphone set (it’s free) and told where to push the start button and you are guided from there. It’s narrated by an ex-prison guard which makes it that much more authentic. That went for about 30 – 45 minutes and took you around the cellblocks. Did you know Alcatraz was only a federal prison for 29 years, and it closed in 1963? Well, now you do.

Thursday day we just wandered into downtown San Fran and had a look around the shops, nothing too exciting. But Thursday night was fun! We met up with a university friend of mine that I hadn’t seen in 8 years, Owen. He is from Berkley and now lives in Oakland, which is just a train ride from San Fran, where he works. He and his girlfriend were heading to the Academy of Sciences (which is a museum) for their weekly ‘NightLife’ event. Basically, you buy a ticket for $12 and you get to wander around the museum at night and drink! (You pay separately for the booze). It was great, I like museums while sober so it was extra fun! They also had an small aquarium exhibit, and an albino alligator! A-maze-ing.

Owen took us to a small seedy-looking whole in the wall pub after the museum, located in the homeless/druggie area of SF (coincidentally around the corner from where we were staying). We were the only ones there, except for a very odd bald man wearing a tie-dyed windbreaker and dancing to the music like nobody was watching. We were. Thanks for the entertainment buddy.

The next morning (Friday) we were getting picked up at 4.05am to be taken to the airport for our 6.30am flight to New York. I couldn’t find my cellphone, so Cam set his ipod for 3.20am. I woke up a couple of time during the night, and then finally I woke Cam up to check what time it was. 4.47am. Ah crap. Cam hadn’t changed his ipod to California time, so it hadn’t gone off. I was pretty calm about the whole scenario, but Cam was like a headless chicken. (If it had been my fault the alarm hadn’t gone off I would have been kicking myself, but cos it wasn’t I wasn’t too stressed, neither was I pissed off with Cam). We dressed in about 2minutes and went downstairs. The very nice guy on the front desk sorted out a shuttle that was making pick-ups, and we were picked up about 10 minutes later. I really didn’t think we would get there – they recommend you are there 1 ½ hrs before your flight and it was already past that, plus factoring in the drive there. But – we made it! The drive was about ½ hr so we got there around 5.45am, the airport was fairly quiet and there were no lines. We made it! Saved ourselves some pingers!

New York had been really cool (we leave tomorrow for Germany). I think it has been my favourite city so far. SF was really nice, and I imagine would be a really nice place to live. But there is so much going on here in New York and I love it! Once you figure out the subway (which is ridiculously easy) you realise how simple it is to get around town, and to get right into the heart of New York City. Our first full day here we spent 2 hours wandering around Central Park – we didn’t meant to spend quite that amount of time there but we accidentally lost our bearings and did a loop, oops! It’s so lovely that there is such a huge expanse of green in the middle of such a busy city. We got quite excited when we saw our first squirrel (definitely tourists) and then spent a lot of time squirrel-spotting on the remainder of our walk. It was busy but not crowded, and definitely easy to find a space to yourself if you wanted to just sit down and chill out.

We walked from Central Park into Times Square. Holy crap. We thought Hollywood Boulevard was busy, this was insane. It is summer holidays here so I guess this is probably the busiest season of the year. The lights and billboards are quite overwhelming, it’s a little bizarre to see something in person that you have seen so many times in movies, and very surreal to realise you are actually there. It has been hot and incredibly humid here so walking long distances gets really old really quickly. As it did after we walked 60 blocks back to our hotel. My feet (I was wearing thongs) were almost black and very sore at the end of that trip! Luckily, we discovered the subway the next day and found out how easy and cheap it is (would have REALLY appreciated knowing that the day before) to get downtown.

Yesterday (Sunday 15^th) we took the subway to South Ferry – where the ferry leaves for Staten Island – and wandered around there. Came across a museum called the History of the American Indian (or something like that). It took us about 15 minutes to get in because they x-ray your bags and put you through a metal detector before you’re let in. God knows why, the exhibition was tiny – a couple of rooms at the back of a huge stone building – and I’m not sure what they think anyone wants to do that might be illegal in there. Have a nap in the corner maybe. After 20 minutes in there, we went outside and came across the Wall Street Bull. There were SO many people around it, posing and taking photos so we just got a couple of photos from across the street.

The 9/11 memorial was only around the corner so we followed the street signs to it. There wasn’t much to see there, a lot of people and a restricted area that you needed a pass to get into. We did see the new ‘Freedom’ towers they’re building to replace the Twin Towers, they are huge (of course) and look like they’re about 2/3^rds finished on the outside. It was nice to say we’ve been there, but really, there wasn’t a lot going on.

Sunday night (last night) we went to a stand-up comedy show. We were coerced into buying tickets by a very smooth-talking black guy called Jamar in Times Square the day before, who kept referring to Australia even though we told him we were from NZ. Anyway. The comedy show was great, packed full of tourists that the comedians took the piss out of (we were in the shadows). We met a couple of nice Canadians and ended up having a couple of drinks with them after the show. Bit of a headache today.

Today was our last full day in NY. I REALLY wanted to go to 5^th Avenue, where all the fancy shops are, so we took the subway downtown. I love the subway. It’s kinda grubby down there, but once you get on, the cars are air-conditioned. It doesn’t sound like much, but trust me, it’s amazing when you are walking around in the 30degree heat and humidity. (Side note: although we haven’t seen a lot of homeless people here – hardly anything compared to SF – we have had a couple of people randomly start singing on the subway and then go around trying to get money off people. One lady even had here own stereo with her. She was pretty good actually). We went to FAO Schwartz – a really big toy store, in case you don’t know – when we first got downtown, it has the big piano from the movie ‘Big’! Then – we found Tiffany’s. Oh, Tiffany’s. So swanky. We went up to the 2^nd floor (they have 6!) to look at the diamond rings (I say we, Cam just followed me around like a puppy). Holy schmoley. Some of the diamonds were as big as my thumb nail, and incredibly clear. I can see why all the celebrities have massive diamonds, if I had millions I would be a regular at that shop.

I know this has been an incredibly long entry, so if you actually bothered to read it all, I am impressed! Tomorrow night we are off to Germany, woohoo! The States has been an interesting experience but I can’t wait to get to Europe! And to catch up with all our friends over there! 2^nd wedding here we come!

P.S. If you missed it, my wonderful sister Jade got my camera back from the restaurant in Santa Monica!! She's sending it to our friend in Germany so hopefully I will be taking some good quality photos soon!

Lost In a Concrete Jungle

So, first off, I have absolutely NO photos to show because I left my camera at a restaurant on the Santa Monica Pier. Gutted! I’ve been really anal about taking heaps of photos too and had some cool ones!! Anyway…

LA is insanely huge. Way bigger than I ever could have imagined. Flying into it was so surreal, most of it is incredibly flat so it looks like it goes on forever. Seeing all the smog when we flew in was pretty gross, makes you wonder what is happening to the lungs of the people who live here all the time… “You can’t breathe the air in Los Angeles but 8 million people think they can…”

It probably took us about an hour and a half drive in a shuttle to get to our hostel, which meant we got to have a good look around. I miss green already! This place is such a concrete jungle. And it goes from really huge, expensive-looking houses with manicured lawns to really run down, shitty, graffitied places with homeless people wandering around with shopping carts. This morning I saw a homeless woman with a child sift through a rubbish bin and half-empty orange juice and then drink it. Urgh. Feel sorry for them but what can you do??

We’re staying at USA Hostels Hollywood, and it’s just off Hollywood Boulevard which is pretty cool. Last night Cam and I went for a walk around the block. The first shop we passed was a really awesome t-shirt store/tattoo shop, t-shirts kind of “illicit” style, so we had to stop and buy ourselves each a skull t-shirt! We then wandered into a Mexican restaurant, yum! There are so many Mexican places here it’s ridiculous, we’ve already had it three times in two days. It’s so nice and fresh and made by real-life Mexicans so it’s gotta be pretty authentic! I did have a photo of our first American meal but…

The Hollywood Walk of Fame goes all the way down Hollywood Boulevard so we wandered along, alternatively looking at those and trying to spot people that we knew (most we didn’t!) and then looking at the buildings and the sights to see around us. We randomly saw Capitol Records, that was pretty cool. <Insert photo I took but no longer have here…>

We were pretty stuffed from the jetlag – I was starting to see funny things – so we had a big nap, waking up about 10pm. We decided to go out for a quiet beer and see the nightlife in Hollywood…nek minnit (especially for you Dad), drunk. We went to this Mexican bar that served margaritas and the girl talked us into buying this MASSIVE margarita for the two of us, instead of one small one each. Big, huge mistake. Turns out there were about 5 margaritas in that one big one, combine that with jetlag and exhaustion and we were schmozzled (hehe Mum). We went to another bar called Dillon’s – it’s an Irish bar of course, but the most Irish thing about it is that the bartenders wear small ‘Catholic school girl’ skirts…Anyway, we got talking to a couple of nice American-Hispanic guys there, they were really friendly so that was cool. Turns out they were both into punk music and one of them had a NOFX tattoo and had met Fat Mike so we had a great time chatting about that! At 1.30am the bars all do last call, and then they’re closed at 2am. We were gutted at the time but thank freaking god because we would’ve been dead on our feet today otherwise! We stumbled back in the direction of our hostel, got some Mexican on the way, and went to bed!

This morning we went to Venice Beach in a free shuttle that our hostel runs. Fucking hell. The trifecta of jetlag, hangover and Venice Beach is NOT a good combination. It’s a pretty seedy place, a great long boulevard with lots of shops selling all sorts of crappy shit on one side and freaky looking people peddling their own shit (paintings, jewellery, portraits of yourself, your name written in animal shapes etc) on the other side. The whole thing left me feeling a bit overwhelmed and homesick for little old Nelson (and my family)! First time I’ve really ever been homesick when I’ve gone away from home but I think that’s partly cos I know we won’t be back for a while. Anyway, Cam and I wandered down Venice Beach boulevard a bit like zombies, back towards Santa Monica beach where we had to catch our bus from. Santa Monica is way nicer than Venice thank god, so Cam and I walked down the famous Santa Monica pier, taking lots of photos. We then stopped at a restaurant on the end of the pier to have lunch (Mexican again, I think we have to branch out), and that’s where I’m sure I left my camera. Argh! I will get over it eventually…

From Santa Monica we had to catch two buses back to our hostel. This is where the enormity of LA gets you. The first bus took about 1 ½ hours, just driving through the city. Oh and I forgot to say, there is SO much advertising EVERYWHERE, it’s really in your face and gets a bit tedious. Ah little old Nelson and your bylaw against billboards, I love you. Oops I’m getting side-tracked. Yeah so it just takes forever to get anywhere, especially on public transport. Having your own car would obviously be a bit faster, but driving in LA would be my worst nightmare. Aside from everything being reversed since they drive on the right, the people here are really aggressive drivers. If someone forced me to drive here, I think would just curl up into the foetal position. We skipped getting the second bus cos it was only about a ½hour walk, which was cool cos we ended up going past the Chinese Mann Theatre, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum, and the Hollywood version of Madame Tussaud’s. Oh, and we also randomly passed Kat Von D’s LA Ink tattoo studio, which we’d been talking about this morning and wondering where it is. There are so many tattoo studios here, there must be a hundred down Hollywood Boulevard alone, so we were wondering why Kat Von D was so special. Anyway, we were just walking down a random road and realised we were standing in front of it. <I’d lost my camera by then>.

This concludes todays journey up until now. Cam is having a nap beside me, man, that boy can sleep. We have a single bed each but he’s yet to sleep in his. I might have to kick him out tonight though; it’s too hot to sleep next to anyone else! Our hostel is doing a $6 spaghetti dinner so we might hop on that bandwagon so we get to meet some more people from the hostel. Tomorrow we’re planning on going to Rodeo Drive, Ripley’s, and Madame Tussaud’s. Might have to buy another camera first!

Love ya’s

xoxo