Driving in rental cars

Okay, so I am currently sitting in a motel room in this place called San Luis Obispo, which is more or less half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles on the West Coast. Since my last posting obviously plenty of things have happened but I have made a bad job at keeping track of these so we will just have to focus on the more recent highlights, which undoubtedly there are plenty of.

So last week I played this weird card game with Winnie, Sadra and Ben (Euchre, I lost, i.e. my partner and I lost and don't wanna blame anyone here, but...) and I also played Squash on Wednesday with this British guy. I won comfortably enough and we went to a pub afterwards and I also beat him at pool to really pull off a day of glorious victory! I also went to the Japanese Tea Garden with Winnie which was very enjoybale, but that was like 10 days a go and I really should have written about that earlier.

Anyway, on Friday my friend Annika arrived in San Francisco for a 16 days and you can see some pictures (taken by her mainly) of our undertakings so far at the top. Friday we went for some Chinese food (she was rather jetlagged), Saturday we went shopping for most of the day in and around Union Square and watched some of Ben's friends play in a local Taqueria after. Sunday we hung out with Winnie and Ben and went to Haight St. etc . Monday we set off with some travelling and had organised a rental car, more or less the cheapest one which in hindsight wasn't the cleverest thing to do, but it is fine, it is a Chevy Aveo . I am not doing any driving anyway since I lost my driving licence (as in losing the card, not cause I am a shitty driver) but Annika is doing a good job despite some weird rules they have up here and some strenuous mountain passages.

On Monday we drove to to Santa Cruz which is a fun coastal town with roller coasters etc. and we drove on further to Monterey where John Steinbeck it appears used to hang out. Tuesday, as in yesterday, we drove down by the coast down some very winding roads which was fun if you weren't the driver. The weather wasn't that great so the clouds were low which didn't help. Nonetheless we came passed some cool places like Big Sur, which seems like a big hippy hangout spread out in the woods over a few miles.

We ended up our day in where we are now, SanDriving in rental cars Luis Obispo, which seems nice enough and friendly and we are heading on further to Santa Barbara. Have to be back in SF by Sunday so we might check out Malibu and Venice Beach etc., but we are trying not to plan too much. Anyway, that is it really, internet access is limited so enjoy the picture for who knows when the next may arrive...

Drinking in LA

More pictures from LA as you can see, many thanks to Ben's photography skills! Any comments etc are as always more than welcome!

B-Ball

Went to watch the Golden State Warriors play the Chicago Bulls on Thursday with a bunch of other people from work, mainly people who were visitors in SF like me. Some nice moves to watch and there was a bit of a hype around Chris Webber returning on court and there was a big roar. Anyway, they lost by six points mainly due to this one Bulls player absolutely kicking ass. Game was fun but a bit boring at some points due to the amount of time-outs. But I kep myself entertained by queueing for beer and hotdogs, which were even for rich Europeans like me (!!) overpriced. Plus I was sitting next to this Japanes girl who I was talking to and she had this really funny Japanese/British accent, which made the conversation even more fun. ANd there was this fat guy behind us who just kept on shouting abuse at everyone, including Warriors fans and players, like "you suck, go home to ya mama man, y'all shouldn't be playing b-ball you f***in' losers! Yo, watcha doin man? Ya can't shoot from there man, you couldn't evne play junior league homie...". And the guys sitting in front of us were wearing some interesting jackets as you can see.
Unfortunately we got home pretty late cause instead of going home right away people kept on chatting and I was so tired and therewith in a bad mood, but I was home by midnight and managed to get to bed by 1 and had to get up at 6. Yeah, I know, poor me...

Doing things in L.A.

Okay, don't really know where to start as the whole trip was a bit overwhelming. Got to Burbank in the evening on Monday and we drove to LA (we were actually staying in Anaheim). First we had Tapas in this nice Spanish place and then Liz took us to this really really cool rooftop Bar, which was part of a hotel called The Standard (you should check the link out, you get a 360° view of the place). The place is expensive but really cool and as Annika said, it looks like it doesn't actually really exist. They also project old French movies on a building opposite to the bar and it is really just the coolest place ever (and yes, they did let me in, no problem!).

The next day Winnie, Sandra, Ben, Liz and I drove into LA again and hung out by the beach for a bit before doing some more driving around. We also drove to Venice Beach were the were a bunch of hip hoppers trying to sell us their CDs, but Winnie got rid of them with some funny comments. I also bought some sunglasses as I tried to look as cool as Liz in hers but I guess I never really stood a chance. Later on we got caught in some horrible LA traffic after which we made our way back to Anaheim and went to Disneyland, as that was the true purpose of the overall trip. Went on Space Mountain and some other rides and most were good fun, apart from the Indiana Jones one, which was just really annoying. Winnie and I also went on the Lift of Horror or so (a free-falling thing) which was the best of the lot. After a few drinks we went back and hung out in one of the hotel rooms, tried to play some ficticous card games to trick Sandra, drank some beer, and watched a movie with Kate Blanchett, in which there were supposed to be some shocking sex scenes (much to my disappointment I never saw them). Next day went back to SF by plane and just hung out for the rest of the day and got some food at some Mexican place, which was okayish, nothing in comparison to my wet Burritos in the Mission.