TravelBlog #1 - The US of Wa-hey

Lets begin.

Lynn drove me to the airport in what is a new tradition (she drove me to the airport for one of my other O/S trips) and we had McDonalds which is never a good idea before a flight because something they put in the special sauce "at altitude" turns in to a scientific experiment of turning a solid into a gas and several hours later, a super sized solid. Fun hey? I opened my travel blog with a fart joke.

Leaving for a big holiday is always stressful, and the major source of stress more often than not is "what have I left behind?".

Despite the stress of packing up and leaving, all along I was told by my friends that houses, jobs and posessions can easily be replaced. If i leave something behind, no worry, buy it again.

As I discovered on Saturday morning, a forgotten drivers licence is INCREDIBLY hard to replace. Especially when the drivers licence is in Melbourne, I'm in Sydney and in 24 hours I would be in San Francisco. Shit.

What really annoyed me is that I had to show my drivers licence and lie to buy Codral at the chemist. I wanted the Codral with pseudo ephedrine incase I came down with something overseas that required medication, and the over the counter non pseudo ephedrine stuff claims to make one "drowsy".

I don't want to spend my holiday "drowsy" in bed, at major landmarks, in LA traffic, or at nightclubs (i do enough of that at home) so that is why Codral was an absolute must.

As I was technically "not sick" the Pharmacist refused my request stating that I needed an 'immediate need' for Codral and it can't be given out for "preventative purposes" and so when I said "ok, i have a little sniffle" the medicine chest was opened! I was free to buy pseudo ephedrine.

The downside to this incredibly unnecessarily exercise in bullshitting is that I left my licence behind in the confusion of the situation involving me, a bored and unfulfilled pharmacist and his dumb fuck pharmacy assistant, and ended up breaking several more laws including driving without a licence several times. Go that! It seems pointless to have all these measures in place so that (for arguments sake) law-abiding citizens are required to make up lies to get medicinal assistance.

While i agree that Meth is bad and that measures should be put in place to make it less available, this game of charades at the pharmacy is like the Australian Government taxing 'alco-pops' to try and deal with the problem of underage binge drinking. A 6 pack of Bacardi Breezers has gone up? Its almost worth buying a whole bottle of Bacardi! Next they'll be taxing Red Cordial.

Thankfully, despite the initial stress and anxiety that I would not be able to legally drive in far away and exotic places I managed to locate my licence at the pharmacy in Chadstone, Melbourne. They told me I had forgotten to take the Codral as well, so I formulated a plan involving Australia Post, Fed Ex and the services of a Columbian Cartel so it all arrives safely to me somewhere in the USA. I should specify here, i'm referring to my drivers licence AND THE CODRAL.

The flight to the USA was half empty (or half full, which is actually the pessimistic way of looking at it) which was great because it meant that we were able to stretch out. My aunt had 2 seats to herself and I moved 2 rows back and had my own two seats. This meant that I was able to feign sleep for about 5 hours despite having my legally-obtained-but-somewhat-questionable Valium but the absolute horror of a 14 hour flight means that when you reach the 6 hour mark, you are really and truely over it and want to get off.

My feet were itching, but it was more of a psychological itch than a tinea itch, which was great because my tinea cream was in the hold.

My aunt commented that Qantas flight attendants are "getting a bit long in the tooth" after one of the ladies, who I should say performed her job amazingly, announced to an older couple that she was a "war baby, born in 1945".

I wondered aloud, maybe too a-loudly, whether she was member number #00000001 of the Mile High Club and is now spending her time serving chicken or beef on the long haul before she qualifies for some profoundly amazing retirement package.

This, of course, would involve first class flights and all the long service perks the airlines would loathe to offer new recruits citing oil prices or 9/11 or any of those politically motivated excuses that someone speculated about on a cable news network and we have collectively accepted as "fact".

Good on her!

We got to San Francisco Airport and the wheel chair I had organised for my Aunt really paid off as we were wheeled through Dept of Homeland Security Immigration ahead of everyone else, including a former boss of mine whose name I will not mention, but he recognised me and I recognised him - standing in a queue! HA! It goes without saying that he was probably flown all expenses by the company we worked at, but I skipped the queue - so i win.

I'm now thinking up creative excuses as to why I need a wheel chair in *every* airport, but given that I am able bodied I figure I'll not ask too much of the universe.

Tania, my travel buddy, not so lucky - say she should accidentally and unfortunately "trip" somewhere in the airport, i'd hate for her ankle to get twisted...

One thing I noticed in America is that a lot of taxi drivers are of Eastern European decent. This made me think of "The American Dream (TM)" and how big budget Hollywood has developed this image of America as the Land of Opportunity. It made me wonder whether Murials Wedding and Pricilla were hugely influential in places like India and Pakistan and the freakonomic analysis would say that having seen and met the people of the not-so-fictional Poipoise Spit ("he's a good man, charlie chan") and the talented Ping Pong champ from Bangkok in outback Australia (*pop* *pop*) that some of our Australian taxi drivers thought "Fuck America - Australia is the land of Opportunity!".

We had a rather spunky Latvian driver drive us from SFO airport to Fishermans Wharf and given that I had just arrived and not yet mastered the art of Tipping, rather than giving him a monetary tip I thought I'd offer to do something involving another tip, but lets face it - after a 14 hour flight from Australia and having being served food that I would not offer my worst enemy (maybe I would but with bodily fluids), i had about the same chances at "tipping" the hot Latvian as the Pakistani or Indian would have at independent wealth and success outside of the taxi cab in the progressive and racially tolerant fictional backwater of Porpoise Spit.

San Fran was great - the day we landed my aunty and I checked into the Holiday Inn Fishermans Wharf which did not offer a wheel chair service and involved far too many hoops to jump through and a more thorough interrogation and a longer walk than San Francisco Airport could ever dream of.

Once we found the room and worked out how to use the US phone service (hint: call the operator, ask for connection) we were starving, so went out and sampled the local seafood fare at Fishermans Wharf. The memory of that calamari still turns my stomach and how anyone could manage to fuck up a salad like they did is beyond me - but the point is we ate.

After that we walked around a little bit and decided that we were pretty tired, so we would buy a 3-day tourist bus pass for some exhorbitant amount of money, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I had neglected to realise that I have been to San Fran a few times and being jetlagged and bored I ended up sleeping for most of the ride. It was a nice, sunny day on an open topped bus - who wouldn't?

I eventually woke up and my Aunt told me I'd been sleeping and I made more of an effort to stay awake, then I realised she had fallen asleep. Later in the trip when it came to recalling what the guide had said about various parts of the city, we had to piece it together based on who was awake for that district and we realised that the bus tour guide really sucked because all he seemed to do was tell us which Irish bars NOT to drink at, like that was all we came here to do.

Later that night when we were peckish and judging by the appearance of the place (think Sizzlers Poor Cousin without the Buffet) the Denny's 24 hour restaurant in the foyer defied eating, so I suggested we go for In and Out burgers. That place is AWESOME and I would consider giving everything up in Australia to open my own franchise of this amazingly cool fast food restaurant.

We ended up back in Denny's for dessert and the quality of the pancakes and cake said to me that the rest of the food there was going to be awful, as if I couldn't already tell that by the dreadful smell in the lobby shared by Holiday Inn and Dennys.

When I refused to get out of bed the next morning due to jetlag, my Aunt went down to have breakfast and by all reports my predictions of unsavouryness were proven correct.

San Francisco has the best public transport I have seen in America, cept for NYC and its sewer trains - San Fran have busses that run on electricity ("Zero Emission Vehicle"), trams, and a metro style train called BART. The trams are amazing - the city has restored trams from such far away places as Philadelphia and Italy and restored them to the former glory, usually the 1950's style, and run them up and down Market St linking the Castro (gay town) with Fishermans Wharf.

For $1.50 we were able to ride all public transport up until 4pm, meaning that the workers had to pay the $1.50 twice but for tourists, it worked out to be a fantastic way to see the city and get around. The Castro is amazing by day, by night I imagine it to be a little seedy, but its nothing like Darlinghurst or Oxford St and has some really amazing book stores, antiques, furniture and of course, the architecture for which San Francisco is famous for (think Full House opening credits but without an Olsen spoiling the view).

I met up with my parents that evening and we went to the San Franciscan China Town and had a really pleasant meal, then I went to bed early as I had to be at San Francisco Airport at 6am for a 8am flight to Los Angeles.

The Moldavian who drove me to SFO airport at 5am after I missed the affectionatley known "PEASANT SHUTTLE" entertained me with stories of the motherland, including what was, in his eyes, the greatest accomplishment associated with the downfall of the Soviet Union: The speed limit in Moldavia was increased.

Apparently to visit his wife in Odessa, across the border, he was restricted to driving 90km/h however after the downfall of all things Bloc the speed limits in Moldavia were no longer under Soviet control, and they went a little crazy.

Clearly many decades of an iron fist makes one want to push that Skoda to the limits and it took him one hour less to travel to Odessa for a little 'somethin' somethin' (i believe - my Moldavian is not up to scratch but i am sure that is what he was saying) and clearly this was a good thing.

Slow and steady does not necessarily win the race!

I guess old habits die hard and he seemed to drive at 90 km/h to the airport while everyone else (including the aforementioned Latvian) drove at speeds more comparable to 140 km/h.

I hope the Latvian is not so much of a fast lover as he was driver but he certainly knew how to get me where I wanted to be and bloody fast.

COMING UP!

- Los Angeles
- Meeting a Celebrity
- Attending Jimmy Kimmel LIVE! including N.E.R.D and Seann William Scott (American Pie)

Qantas Dave

San Fran Tram

No Beaver

Gay Trash

Bay Bridge