I´ve just spent a little short of 2 weeks in London, staying with my brother Luke and his fiance Theresa who currently live there in a funny named suburb called Sidcup (sounds like a name for an icecream company). Also in London were my parents who also happened to be visiting at the same time. It was really good to see everyone!
Summer in London is living up to it´s reputation. I had three days when I arrived of nice sunny 21 degree weather. Then for the rest of my time it was at best overcast and at worst, raining and cold. I don´t know how the Poms can stand it! Yesterday I spent an hour and a half standing in a queue outside the Chinese consulate trying to get a visa to visit there and with the rain, wind and cold, it really sucked. Then I reached the front of the queue just before the 2 hour mark and the woman told me I was too late to get a visa processed that day! Why was I late? Because there was a freekin´slow queue! Whose fault? THE CHINESE CONSULATE!!! Who had to pay a kings ransom for a full day pass on the tube only to find it was a waste and will have to go through the same thing again another day? ME!!!! So yeah, still got a bit of anger left over from that one.
But the anger melted away somewhat when I was walking near Charing Cross station later that day and I stopped to pick up a Big Issue from a dude on the corner and he called me "Guv'nor". Twice! First and second time I've ever been called "Guv'nor"! Hopefully not the last.
Basically in my time in London I took it pretty easy. Visited some relatives one day, checked out some museums and galleries on other days, and spent a fair bit of time relaxing, reading the final Harry Potter book and refreshing my mp3 player with lots of new music. I probably should have been heaps more productive but I´ve enjoyed being a bit of a slacker.
Now I´m in Madrid. Just arrived today. All I've done is check in to the hostel and find a tapas bar where I enjoyed being given a small free snack with each beer. I´ve got 12 nights in Spain so am planning to head south in a few days to Andalucia (everytime I see the city´s name I think of The Clash´s "Spanish Bombs" song) where The Alhambra is. It´s a "palace and fortress complex" which I think was built by the Moors who I prefer to call The Moops in honour of George Costanza. Should be fun and I should see lots of sun for the next 12 days.
Oh yeah, I was just about to finish this blog entry and then I remembered... About 10 years ago, it was possible to stroll on in to a supermarket, saunter on down the ice-cream aisle and pick up a six-pack. No, I´m not talking beer, I´m talking a six-pack of Mars Bar Icecreams! An actual improvement on the original chocolate bar, they are melt in your mouth gold! But like Holly Valances singing career, they disappeared virtually overnight. Unlike Holly Valances career, I´ve missed Mars Bar Icecreams. But....THEY STILL SELL MARS BAR ICECREAMS IN LONDON!!!! I´ve eaten two now and I tell ya, they are just as good as I remember them!
So if you add up the fact that I ate two Mars Bar Icecreams, was called Guv'nor, managed to spend a fair bit of time with the family and I refreshed my mp3 player with new music, I´d say that easily cancels out the carp weather I´ve seen and has made for a fun time in London.
Friday, 24 August 2007
Friday, 10 August 2007
San Francisco, Las Vegas - tick 'em off!
Well I've just finished 4 nights in San Francisco and 2 nights in Las Vegas.
San Francisco - A really nice city that feels a lot like Melbourne. When in San Francisco you are supposed to do three things. Ride a cable car, visit Alcatraz and check out the Golden Gate Bridge. Well I only managed one of those. I wandered down to Fishermans Wharf where the boats leave for Alcatraz and found out that the next free space on a tour was in a weeks time at 2.20pm. So no Alcatraz for me. As a replacement, I ended up getting on a cruise for $10 that took us under the Golden Gate Bridge and then AROUND Alcatraz. So I didn't get on the island but at least I saw what it looks like up close. Kind of shabby. A girl in the hostel yesterday told me that going inside is awesome. I choose not to believe that. I reckon it was dingy, cold and probably harbouring bird flu due to the pigeons. :) In short, a health risk! I was wise to avoid the place!
The cable car I didn't do either. The queues to get on one were just ridiculous. So I decided that it was really only a glorified tram except that it goes up hills probably just a bit steeper than going east on a tram on Bourke Street so skipped it. I DID manage to see the Golden Gate Bridge up close when I hired a bicycle and cycled over it. It felt good to get back on a bike after more than 3 months. It was windy up the top and you couldn't see the top of the bridge due to constant cloud but it was well worth it and gave a great view of San Fran. I also walked just about everywhere including some parts of town that felt somewhat dodgy. A tourist with a map and no local knowledge is a danger to himself I reckon.
There were no moonie sightings either. Never even heard of them until today!
I really enjoyed SF but what was a real surprise to me was the homeless situation there. Driving in to the city on the bus we drove through a couple of streets that had heaps of people on them and pretty much everyone was either pushing a shopping trolley with all their possessions in it or wandering around without any real place to go. The bus dropped me about two streets from there at my hostel. I then discovered that it's a fact of life in San Francisco that pretty much wherever you go, there are homeless people everywhere! It's often in the daily newspapers but the last time the mayor did anything about it, he just hired more police which is so obviously a bandaid "fix". It was very disappointing and sad to see really. I did get a laugh at one point when a woman came up to me (one of so many) and jokingly said "Right, all I'm asking for is your credit card, your pin number, and about half an hour." I think that approach was doing quite well for getting her some spare change. I don't know what else to say about it cos I have no answers or anything and there's homelessness everywhere but it was a shock to see it in such public view and in such massive proportions.
Las Vegas - Any city that has the likes of Celine Dion and Barry Manilow singing 5 or 6 nights a week is either pure evil or has a wicked sense of humour. I choose to believe it's the humour option. I really enjoyed Vegas. Neon and bright lights everywhere. The only way I could see so many bright lights in LA is to crawl out of my bottom bunk in my dorm here and smack my head on the iron bar above! I spent most of my short time just walking around looking at what a shipload of money can build. Great water shows, trapeze acts, pyramids, a sphinx, a castle...etc. I ended up spending a while at the Las Vegas Hilton where I found the Star Trek Experience which awakened my inner nerd. It was pretty cool. Out-of-work actors dressed as Klingons and members of the Borg...etc .
I didn't even end up gambling while there. At one point I felt like I should so that I could say I have gambled in Vegas but then decided that i couldn't really give a rats about whether I have or not so just skipped it completely.
And I paid $6.49 for a gelati. Was so suprised when I was told how much it cost that I actually paid it.
Now have one more day in Venice Beach before I catch a plane tomorrow to London where I'll be staying with my brother and his fiance and seeing my parents who are visiting them too. It'll be 4/7ths of Evans family reunion and I'm really looking forward to it.
San Francisco - A really nice city that feels a lot like Melbourne. When in San Francisco you are supposed to do three things. Ride a cable car, visit Alcatraz and check out the Golden Gate Bridge. Well I only managed one of those. I wandered down to Fishermans Wharf where the boats leave for Alcatraz and found out that the next free space on a tour was in a weeks time at 2.20pm. So no Alcatraz for me. As a replacement, I ended up getting on a cruise for $10 that took us under the Golden Gate Bridge and then AROUND Alcatraz. So I didn't get on the island but at least I saw what it looks like up close. Kind of shabby. A girl in the hostel yesterday told me that going inside is awesome. I choose not to believe that. I reckon it was dingy, cold and probably harbouring bird flu due to the pigeons. :) In short, a health risk! I was wise to avoid the place!
The cable car I didn't do either. The queues to get on one were just ridiculous. So I decided that it was really only a glorified tram except that it goes up hills probably just a bit steeper than going east on a tram on Bourke Street so skipped it. I DID manage to see the Golden Gate Bridge up close when I hired a bicycle and cycled over it. It felt good to get back on a bike after more than 3 months. It was windy up the top and you couldn't see the top of the bridge due to constant cloud but it was well worth it and gave a great view of San Fran. I also walked just about everywhere including some parts of town that felt somewhat dodgy. A tourist with a map and no local knowledge is a danger to himself I reckon.
There were no moonie sightings either. Never even heard of them until today!
I really enjoyed SF but what was a real surprise to me was the homeless situation there. Driving in to the city on the bus we drove through a couple of streets that had heaps of people on them and pretty much everyone was either pushing a shopping trolley with all their possessions in it or wandering around without any real place to go. The bus dropped me about two streets from there at my hostel. I then discovered that it's a fact of life in San Francisco that pretty much wherever you go, there are homeless people everywhere! It's often in the daily newspapers but the last time the mayor did anything about it, he just hired more police which is so obviously a bandaid "fix". It was very disappointing and sad to see really. I did get a laugh at one point when a woman came up to me (one of so many) and jokingly said "Right, all I'm asking for is your credit card, your pin number, and about half an hour." I think that approach was doing quite well for getting her some spare change. I don't know what else to say about it cos I have no answers or anything and there's homelessness everywhere but it was a shock to see it in such public view and in such massive proportions.
Las Vegas - Any city that has the likes of Celine Dion and Barry Manilow singing 5 or 6 nights a week is either pure evil or has a wicked sense of humour. I choose to believe it's the humour option. I really enjoyed Vegas. Neon and bright lights everywhere. The only way I could see so many bright lights in LA is to crawl out of my bottom bunk in my dorm here and smack my head on the iron bar above! I spent most of my short time just walking around looking at what a shipload of money can build. Great water shows, trapeze acts, pyramids, a sphinx, a castle...etc. I ended up spending a while at the Las Vegas Hilton where I found the Star Trek Experience which awakened my inner nerd. It was pretty cool. Out-of-work actors dressed as Klingons and members of the Borg...etc .
I didn't even end up gambling while there. At one point I felt like I should so that I could say I have gambled in Vegas but then decided that i couldn't really give a rats about whether I have or not so just skipped it completely.
And I paid $6.49 for a gelati. Was so suprised when I was told how much it cost that I actually paid it.
Now have one more day in Venice Beach before I catch a plane tomorrow to London where I'll be staying with my brother and his fiance and seeing my parents who are visiting them too. It'll be 4/7ths of Evans family reunion and I'm really looking forward to it.
Wednesday, 1 August 2007
Los Angeles
Well after a couple of sweltering days in congested and Gold Coast built-up hotel-style ridden Cancun, it was goodbye to Craig and hello LA! In my time in LA I've been called Sir, Dude and Bro. I've seen lots of loud people and have upped my donut consumption in order to more properly assimilate into the culture. They'll make me an LA copper if I keep this up!
Arriving in LA was weird. My major understanding of LA comes from owning too much old-school west-coast hip-hop. Ice-T, Ice Cube, NWA etc have given me a great education in LA street names. I was on a city tour today and I was just hoping the guy would take us down through South Central so I could see what that area looks like. One example of the real tour was comments from the tour leader like "See that tunnel we are driving past now? That's the tunnel where in the movie Independence Day, they blew up 300 cars!". I could have been just as happy if the guy had taken us down to South Central and said "Ok, we are now going to follow the original route driven by Evil E as described by Ice-T in his classic song 'Let's Peel Their Caps Back'". But it wasn't to be. We did get to see lots of interesting stuff un-rap-related though.
We drove past Santa Monica beach which was the home of Baywatch. The driver, after announcing this then hit play on the cassette deck and we got to hear the whole Baywatch theme song. Way corny! We drove up into the Hollywood hills, Beverly Hills, Belle Aire etc and saw what obscene amounts of money can get you in the way of a house these days. Impressive. We went to Hollywood Boulevard and saw the stars on the sidewalk with famous people's names. I couldn't find my name anywhere! We got dropped off at Rodeo Drive and that was boring. I hate shopping. I could walk around the more expensive end of Collins Street and look at stores with stuff I can't afford and don't want so for me to be dumped out of a bus in front of the most expensive stores in California is a waste. Longest 20 mins of my life waiting for the bus to pick us up! :)
San Francisco is tomorrow. For those who don't like or don't know their west coast rap, I hope the above wasn't too confusing. :)
Arriving in LA was weird. My major understanding of LA comes from owning too much old-school west-coast hip-hop. Ice-T, Ice Cube, NWA etc have given me a great education in LA street names. I was on a city tour today and I was just hoping the guy would take us down through South Central so I could see what that area looks like. One example of the real tour was comments from the tour leader like "See that tunnel we are driving past now? That's the tunnel where in the movie Independence Day, they blew up 300 cars!". I could have been just as happy if the guy had taken us down to South Central and said "Ok, we are now going to follow the original route driven by Evil E as described by Ice-T in his classic song 'Let's Peel Their Caps Back'". But it wasn't to be. We did get to see lots of interesting stuff un-rap-related though.
We drove past Santa Monica beach which was the home of Baywatch. The driver, after announcing this then hit play on the cassette deck and we got to hear the whole Baywatch theme song. Way corny! We drove up into the Hollywood hills, Beverly Hills, Belle Aire etc and saw what obscene amounts of money can get you in the way of a house these days. Impressive. We went to Hollywood Boulevard and saw the stars on the sidewalk with famous people's names. I couldn't find my name anywhere! We got dropped off at Rodeo Drive and that was boring. I hate shopping. I could walk around the more expensive end of Collins Street and look at stores with stuff I can't afford and don't want so for me to be dumped out of a bus in front of the most expensive stores in California is a waste. Longest 20 mins of my life waiting for the bus to pick us up! :)
San Francisco is tomorrow. For those who don't like or don't know their west coast rap, I hope the above wasn't too confusing. :)
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