As Mike mentioned, parking meters were outragously expensive in San Francisco. The following is a list of things that we bought to get change for the meters, because we never had enough.
1) By fisherman’s warf, a postcard. Mike managed to get an additional dollar from the lady.
2) On Haight St, a semsame honey candy bar. I managed to get an additional dollar from the guy.
3) Donuts from Happy Donut. Okay, this one we also just wanted donuts, but mike was able to get a dollars worth of change (which only got us 20 minutes on the meter).
The only nice thing about it is that mostly we had no trouble finding an open spot to park in. Oh, and Boston should take a cue from California (and other states) and have the meters take more than just quarters. Out here they take everything but pennies, gives new life to nickles and dimes!

We spent the middle of the week in San Francisco, and it was great. It’s really a beautiful city. It actually reminds me of Boston in some ways. The physical size is similar, and even some of the architecture is reminiscent. (The occasional brick building was very refreshing.) We drove around the city, wandered around Golden Gate Park, climbed the hills called Twin Peaks, and got an up close look at the Golden Gate Bridge. By the way, the bridge and the park are not next to each other. They’re actually a couple of miles apart. We also went to Chinatown and had some of the best Chinese food I’ve ever had. And the next night we went to Berkely for some Chicago-style pizza that was some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. (Thanks Colleen and Saskia!)
My only complaint about San Francisco is the parking. I thought it was bad in Boston, but there are meters in the city that literally give you 5 minutes for a quarter. Unreal. Still, we enjoyed it, and were sad to go.
We left on Friday and drove down to Monterey, which is a nice little seaside town. We got out at the docks and were met with the echoing calls of the seals that were all around the harbor. I took some videos that I will try to post soon, and I caught the seals playing around, swimming, and barking. I don’t think the sound on the videos really captures the way the sounds of their calls were just reverberating around the harbor.
We then drove down the coast a ways, with the intention of camping somewhere in Big Sur for the night. The first place we checked out was a state campground. We pulled into this dusty parking area, and went up to the booth that was manned by an unhappy looking park employee. (ranger?) He proceeded to tell us that the caping was in a field about a third of a mile away, the only facilities were the crappy looking bathrooms next to the parking area, and don’t drink the water. After pondering the rattle snake warnings signs posted on the booth, we decided to keep going. About a mile away we stopped at a privately run, very clean and very friendly campground. They had spaces for camping, showers, and even laundry rooms. We were sold. It was very nice, and also very cold, and the ground was very hard. So while we enjoyed ourselves, we were not well rested.
The next day was another long trek back to LA, and we got completely burnt out on such long drives. When we’re in New Zealand, if we have a car, we are going to limit the amount of driving we do in a day.
So this is it, we leave tonight, and soon we will be in New Zealand. I don’t think it will completely sink in until we are there, but it is very exciting.

We drove up the coast yesterday, from LA up to San Francisco. It was a beautiful drive (mostly), and it also took a couple of hours longer than I thought it would. I think it was because we did a stretch that I thought would be coastal, but in fact only went through farmland. See, there are two highways that overlap each other that run up either along or near the coast, highways 1 and 101. (and as Sarah mentioned in her last post, people refer to them as the 1 and the 101. They do that with all the highways, excuse me, freeways, here. I was often corrected when I lived here. I’d say route 10, and someone would say it’s called the 10. Weird.) Anyway, 1 runs along the coast most of the way, but overlaps with 101 through some stretches a little farther inland. The map showed one section that split off from 101 and ran towards the water. Well, it only wound slowly through these really flat farms. Some of the farms seemed to be growing grass(?) and some were growing lettuce and maybe cabbage. And they all smelled kinda funny. Like the veggies were a little dank.
The coastal parts were very beautiful. There are some places where you drive along beaches and there are ranches on the other side of the street. It must be incredible to live on one of those ranches: “I’m just going to ride the horse down to the water.” There are also passes through the mountains, which Sarah pointed out are not like mountains back home. They are not covered with trees and green, but are instead rocky outcroppings with only hiints of dry vegetation.
Then the really spectacular length of the drive happens in the stretch of coast south of Big Sur. (we’re not sure if Big Sur is actually a town, or an area, or a mountain…) This is a winding, curving road that hugs the side off the mountains that drop off in great cliffs into the sea. It was especially breathtaking, because we hit that area as the sun was starting to set. Of course, that also made for much more difficult driving, as we had to fight the sun from our eyes and try to stay safely on the road. The sun then sank behind a giant, solid bank of clouds that had the look of a mountain range far off over the water. Sarah said it looked like an enormous, slow moving tsunami.
The the sun went down. And it got dark.
We were mostly through the mountains, but not quite. And let me say that driving twisty roads next to a cliff with no streetlights in the dark is an excersise in concentration. It’s also very tiring. But we made it through, and finally reached SF, and now we are here and excited to go exploring.

As Mike mentioned in his last post, we’re about ready to leave LA. I’ve had a great time meeting Mike’s friends, everyone is so nice and welcoming, and it’s been really fun seeing where he used to work and live. I like LA, it’s pretty; interesting architecture, palm trees, catcti and bougainvillea everywhere, and the ocean is just breathtaking. I’m enjoying the visit, but I don’t think I could deal with living here. Aside from 70 being considered chilly and there not being any snow ever, it’s strange here. I’ve had a hard time putting it into words, but it’s a weird place.

LA is a huge sprawling city, block after block, traffic light after traffic light. The roads go on seemingly forever, in completely straight gridmarked blocks. Then there are these weird little corner strip mall things every so often, and they all look exactly the same. The stores in each may differ, but they all have the same basic architecture. I usually navigate by landmarks, without mike’s help I’d be completely lost here. I’d have to memorize what stores each mall-thing contained, like “left at the one that has the supercuts, right at the one that has the laundromat”. Maybe that’s how it’s done, but it would take me forever to figure out.

Other than being very spread out, LA is odd because it’s mostly shorter buildings. The houses on the side streets are almost all single story, with the occasional two story apartment building like Neal’s thrown in. I love small houses and think they’re very cute, but it makes me homesick for the two and three families I’m used to. Also, absolutely everything is built right on top of the next thing. I know we do that back home, but it seems too weird to squeeze a bunch of one story buildings into a block, with barely a driveway between them, rather than having a couple of several story ones all spaced out. Even in the downtown areas there aren’t many taller buildings, just a handfull of skyscrapers, and a bunch of 4-5 story buildings. There’s got to be some ordinance or something limiting building heights, I can’t understand it. You could climb a palm tree and be able to see for miles.

Also, the main thoroughfares are typically 2-3 lanes wide depending on the time of day. Two lanes if parking is allowed along the curb at that hour, three if there’s no parking and then you drive through the metered spots. These wide main roads are lined with one or two story shops, and they go on straight and flat for as far as the eye can see. (I found a road that didn’t line up properly with an intersection yesterday and was delighted.) Driving here gives me this odd anxious feeling, it’s too open. I think I actually might have urban-agoraphobia. Seriously though, if they made LA more vertical and less horizontal, it probably would fit in the back bay. Okay, maybe not, but someone should really consider importing some brownstones, switch it up a little. I wonder if Boston would make LA people claustrophobic?

Then there’s the near-constant traffic, weird parking rules, and regular drone of low flying helicopters, but I think I’ve ranted enough. I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t like LA, and I think it’s important to visit other places and see different things. But I don’t feel too bad pointing out the negatives either, it seems like most people we’re talked to here have the same opinions. Maybe if we stayed longer I could get used to it, but right now I’m just really excited to drive up the coast, see some seals, and explore San Francisco again. We’ll be leaving for “the one” (what we’d call Rt. 1) in about an hour, and the drive up the coast should take a good part of the day. We’ll be back in LA later this week and then it’s off to New Zealand a week from today!

So it has only taken a few days here in LA for me to want to get out again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we came out here, and it has been good to see my old friends. It’s been fun catching up with them, seeing the old apartment, visiting the studio; it brings me back. At the same time, it reminds me of why I left: too much noise, traffic, and people. And it’s a city so wrapped up in image, that image is the most important thing. Sarah and I walked down Melrose Ave, which has lots of clothing shops, and the super-ultra-mega trendiness was very tiring. And there are some cool places and activities, but they are few and very far between. Literally. Going 5 miles can take you a half hour on an average day. What a strange city.

underwater

Originally uploaded by nutty bunny.

this is what Neal’s apartment would look like to a fish

Many Fishes

Originally uploaded by nutty bunny.

there are fish in the fountain at the grove, which is a Disney-esque open air mall next the the farmers market

And they’re off

Originally uploaded by nutty bunny.

Turtle racing at a pub in LA. Seriously.

So we woke up this morning to the sounds of screaming coming from outside. We opened the door to the deck to see a couple of people gathered around two dogs. The larger, orangeish/brownish dog was attacking the little black dog, and a couple of the people were trying to pull them apart. One woman was standing off to the side, screaming. Within seconds, the crowed had doubled, including someone who pulled up in his car, and there were three or four people wrestling with the dogs. And the woman was still screaming, a high pitched, horrible scream.
Fortunately, the dogs were seperated, and the little one was fine. He was given back to the screaming woman, who was his owner, and she calmed down when she saw he was alright. One of the people who had rushed over was still holding down the bigger dog, presumably calming it down. At this point, the crowd was starting to disperse. The woman holding the little dog started talking about how she was “fine, don’t worry about me.”
The man holding the dog finally let it up, and was talking with its owner about different leashes and handling advice. The two owners started talking and joking, and the one with the little dog even said something about “I don’t feel guilty, it’s my fault.” At this point, it looked like a couple of friends just hanging out, walking their dogs. The big one was even wagging his tail, almost as if to say “that was fun! what can I chew on now?”
And then everyone just went on their way. The whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than ten minutes. Good morning, LA.

actual snippet of conversation heard through the window of Neal’s apartment: “So I was walking down Melrose, and I see this fine-ass girl with big boobies, and she’s obviously very young, and she’s on the payphone. So I go up to her and say ‘what’s the deal?’ and she says, ‘I’m trying to call my boyfriend, but he won’t answer’ so I say ‘how long have you been calling?’, and she says ‘about an hour’ so I ask her if she thinks he’s cheating on her…”
and then he was out of hearing range.