Timo and me in California (English version)
As I said in the spanish version, I left Hoboken (New Jersey) at about 11 a.m. Mario stayed one more day in New York. In the way to the airport I met Yuan, from China.
We got on very well and we´ll meet in Pekin! She flew to Miami and me to San Francisco, there was Timo. I came one day before to give him a surprise cuz he was thinking I was coming in the same flight as Mario, but I changed in purpose.
So good our meetings and so hard the saying goodbyes..
We were in San Francisco from that Thursday till Monday, so we left those days to visit the town. We walked a lot! Pass by Chinatown, took the cable car to Fisherman´s Warf, the harbour, the financial center, Aukland Bridge, the tipycal hills from San Francisco, some of them..they are soo soo huge!!
Fron the harbour we could see a small island surrounded by rocks, the island was home to Alcatraz, the prision. After that we took a bus along Market Street and stopped in Castro, the famous CASTRO! What a nice place, so cosy. The atmosphere there was great!, looked like ¨gayland¨, a gay paradise. Rainbow flags were hanging in each street light. The gyms, the theatres, the shops, bars, everything was for gays!! But really, it was so nice that place, I loved it. It was so calm.
We walked through High Asbury, the hippy streets of the town, it is full of very nice shops nowadays. We were there till we met Mario and Pedro to have dinner with them.
We went out in Colombus street, other day with poeple from the hostel, we went to the cinema to see ¨No country for all men¨, and we were planning our trip at the same time.
On Monday we rented the car in Dollar, it was a convertible Chrysler. We decided to start the trip driving to the north to Calistoga in Napa Valley, a vineyard region. We got our head down for one night there.
On Thursday we visited some of the wineries and we left around 3 p.m to Santa Cruz in the way to Los Angeles. Santa Cruz is well- Known cause of the surf. It´s a student town too. It´s so beautiful and peaceful and again Timo found a really nice motel to cross the night: swimming pool, sauna, nice bedroom, breakfast!
Next day, 3 p.m: we drove again to Los Angeles. California coast is gorgeous, we saw the sunset, so nice that we had to stopped many times in the way.
We arrived in L.A at about 11 p.m. Passed Malibu, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, along Lincoln Avenue finding a place to sleep. We were so tired.. But the police stopped as cuz we did a mistake with the car. Nothing serious.
We finally found a place where to stay. It was closed to the airport.
When we woke up we had breakfast a tasty sandwich from Subway, Timo´s choice.. mmmm… delicious! And then, to Venice Beach! we walked along all the way, It was full of shops for tourists. The walk was interesting, after a while we could realized there was a special atmosphere over there. We were in Venice till the sun went down, so good…
During the evening we walked along Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Avenue, just for a short while. We decided to finish the walk the next day.
The following days we went again to Hollywood and Sunset area, Beverly Hills, went up to Holliwood Hill. In the night we tried to go to Viper Room and Whisky a Go Go, but they were expensive. We went to Roxy for a couple of beers and we went to party to another not famous place on Friday.
Next destination: San Diego and Tijuana! It´s amazing the thing that just crossing the border, life it´s already so different, just in a 10 minutes way! but well, it´s another country.. It´s Mexico!
We stopped in the american city closeest to Mexico, I think it was something like San Isydro. We park the car in a special parking place (there are many of them for the tourist they want to cross the border, like us), and we took just the necessary things we needed for those 3 nights in Tijuana. We took a bus and in 10 minutes we were already in the mexican city. we didn ´t have to pass any border control.
The most important thing to visit in Tijuana is the main street called Revolucion. After leaving the bus satation we had that amazing street in front of us. The music from the bars and discos was so loudly! I could feel already we were in a latinamerican place, of course! the typical streets full of life, you know? There were lots of shops for tourists.. poor Timo, cuz you can see he is not from there they didn´t let him go: come here! you are my friend!, cheap cheap!, bla bla bla…
And why not, we tried the real night of Tijuana, you can imagine what we found there, right? Anyways, it was nice, I enjoyed a lot! In Sydney, in the street where we had the hostel, it was much more denigrating.
After Tijuana, directly to Las Vegas!! a world of brightness, neon lights, nght life, casinos, money, luxury… amazing universe.
We stayed there in 4 and 3 star hotels. Wow! they were great and fater travelling around southamerica and part of USA sleeping in hostels, it was so good, and with Timo.. much even better. During week day you can find cheap 4 and 5 satr hotels. We were in Palms and Stratosphere. We passed those days in the casinos, walking around the city and the last day I took Timo in an organized tour to the Grand Canyon. It was a whole day tour but the views it worth it. It was wonderful, amazing, I loved it.
After the Grand Canyon we got ready and went to a show in the casino. It was an erotic vampire show. We were invited but it was no good, it was a bit shit.
But we had a lovely time in Vegas! Time pass so quickly there, you can not realize about the time there.
We came back to San Francisco on Saturday, we were all the day driving. At 1 p.m we were leaving Las Vegas. We drove to Barstow and Bakersfield. And at 10 p.m we were crossing Aukland Bridge.
When we arrived to the International Hostel we met Mario and his roommate, Marcus. We went aout with him a bit, cuz all the bars they close at 2 a.m in San Francisco. Then we said goodbye and at about 6 we left the hostel and Timo there.. was so hard..
But we had an amazing time together and I will never forget those magic days with him in California.