California

August 13-18, 2008

So we got to San Francisco-ish by train, but we needed to take an Amtrak bus to get to the Caltrain to get to the shuttle van, to get to our hotel. Somewhere along this foray into various forms of transportation, during a mad dash to catch said Caltrain, Aaron unfortunately left his camera on the Amtrak bus seat, never to be seen again. This was very upsetting, as he had had it since his 10th birthday :(. It was very late so we all hit the sac without dinner :( (again) Oh, but first we all washed up because we hadn’t bathed since the morning we had left Chicago (which was 5 days).
The first day in San Francisco, we took a shuttle to the airport to take the air train to a van which took us to a car rental place. Yes folks, despite our best laid plans to use only public transit, the various systems were going to be so cumbersome and expensive in San Francisco, that it turned out to be considerably cheaper and more convenient to simply rent a car for the three days here.
So, next we made our way down to Fisherman’s Wharf and took a Bay Cruise. It was a bit cheesy, and they probably violated several codes by jamming 100’s of people onto a small boat, but we actually liked it (especially the cheesiness). We learned a lot about the history of San Francisco, e.g., people from San Francisco hate the term “Frisco”, the Golden Gate was the first construction site that used a safety net, and Alcatraz means pelican in Spanish. There were windsurfers on the bay and it was a gorgeous day. That first night we went for dinner in China Town followed by Gelato on the way back. It was excellent. We could have had Budweiser beer flavoured ice cream, sesame flavoured, avocado, etc. but we all stuck to more traditional flavours, On our way back to the hotel we drove down Lombard Street. As a man we met on the train said “You haven’t seen San Francisco till you’ve looked down the hood of your car and not been able to see the road beneath you”.

After stealing oranges and bananas from our breakfast buffets and catching a few minutes of the China vs. U.S. men’s basketball game, (summer Olympics) we headed off to Berkeley to eat lunch at a restaurant called Chez Panisse. This was a very special experience for Aviva because when she was little she used to love to read this book called “Fanny at Chez Panisse” all about the owner’s daughter. Aviva had this book read to her so often by Rob and Diane that we all started calling it “the bible”. The restaurant had outstanding food, although pretty pricey. After eating they even let us tour their really nice kitchen. We spent the afternoon in Berkeley and saw a protest by Tibetans against China’s oppression of Tibet. Their have been a lot of such protests with the Olympics, but this one was quite large (and some of the speeches were in Tibetan). We had dinner at a Turkish restaurant and watched what we thought was “Turkish Idol”. We drove home via the “Golden Gate Bridge” Damn those aliens they’re at it again go away- away I tell you!!!!!!!!!!

The next day we headed straight to the Cable Car museum and saw how the whole cable car system runs from that building and we also learned about the history of the cable car. We then went on an actual cable car along California street. We rode the whole line hanging the side poles like the true tourists we are. It was not that long a ride so we walked back. Next we went to a fortune cookie “factory” in a sketchy looking back alley in Chinatown. This wasn’t really a factory sorta just three little old people at two fortune cookie machines; there hands whizzing away at hydraulic speed. Which reminds us, Aviva has discovered that she has hydraulic force; but that’s a different story. We got some samples of chocolate and strawberry flavoured fortune cookies and bought sesame cookies and fortune cookies. We opted not to buy the bag labelled “adult fortune cookies”. We went to little Italy and ate dinner with no dessert because we’d had some hydraulic flavoured cookies and mummy and daddy thought that was enough for one day.

The last day of San Francisco...otherwise entitled “Noah Gets His Cast Taken Off” (remember, he broke his pinky in a freak portaging incident in Algonquin). The doctor thwacked off his cast with a large jackhammer and replaced it with buddy taping. Meanwhile... Rob and Aaron tried one more time to find Aaron’s camera with Amtrak, while Aviva changed our GPS to shout directions at us in Spanish.

As you may know our sole passion and purpose in life is to destroy pollute and wreak havoc on the environment as much as humanly possible in our short time on this planet. Our reputation is at stake here people! So...we rented a non-hybrid SUV for our loooooong ride down the pristine coast to Big Sur on route 1 (This was where some of the fires had happened in Calif.). We just thought that now would be a good time to mention that everything up until now that we have written in this very blog that you few people are reading has been grammatically correct and not awkward in the least!!!!! That’s all.

The coast line was spooky and SPECTACULAR!!!!!!!! That was an alliteration... heh heh heh. Actually as Aaron pointed out it was more on the eerie side than spooky. The waves were crashing against the rocks down below, the fog lingering in the cool air. This made it very difficult to navigate on the narrow winding roads. It quite reminded us of our drive in Scotland to Inverness (see summer 2006) except this time we chose to drive on the right side of the road. COWS! we saw cows grazing by the ocean. Cows are Diane’s friends.

We arrived in Big Sur and pitched camp in darkness, trying to find soft ground to put the stakes into. Eventually we came up with some pretty creative solutions to tie down our tents. Next we arrived at a beautiful cozy and overpriced pub style restaurant where Diane and Noah saw a small animal scurry across the rafters. After, we sat around a campfire outdoors (controlled) and met some french people who gave us some recommendations for some hikes. The next day we went to the beach in Carmel. We know you’re imagining towels, swimming, sunscreen, lifeguards, parasols etc. but no dice my friend; you are sorely mistaken. The water was bone-chillingly-cold, the beach, not much better. The guys went in up to their ankles, Noah played tag with the waves. Rob and Aaron chased ginormous flocks of various races of birds including huge-ass pelicans, while Diane and Aviva huddled together on the windy beach using their towels as blankets. The guys joined up to go rock climbing along the shore. We had a picnic with the birds on the beach which was rather traumatic for Aviva who conquered her fear of birds- a little- with the help of her Mummy.

The next day we went on a hike in a Redwood forest. Some of the trails had been burned during the wild fires that swept Calif. two weeks ago. In fact the region was only un-evacuated quite recently. We saw many Redwood trees on our hike that were spectacularly large, although apparently considered somewhat on the small side but we were impressed none the less anyway and needless to say. Of note, even though Diane has no problem with sleeping on the floor of an Amtrak train she had a hissy-fit about sitting on the ground to eat our lunch during the hike but we forced her to do it anyway. Apparantly it has something to do with her protest against the cows being held hostage by the martians- more on that later.

We left Big Sur, bye-bye. On our drive down to Los Angeles we stopped to admire thrashing whales in the sea, scenic coffee breaks and most importantly we saw Elephant Seals who are cool and look like seals, laze around, throw sand on themselves to keep cool with their flippers and look like they have socks hanging off of their schnozes. Apparently they only come to this beach once a year to deal with the birdsies and the beesies; and let us tell you, we saw some pretty awesome seal action going on in the water.

Hey, we should mention that place in Santa Barbara where we hit our max. on some pretty rad mexican food. It had a name. But that is not important right now. Our guide book and Julia Child conveniently both recommended it. It was this cheapo total hole in the wall, and we got a local to tell us what to order. YUM!

We arrived in L.A. where our S.U.V. fit in perfectly. Swimming pools, movie stars. Since we lost the family read aloud book, we all got into Aaron’s book called Fart Party by Julia Wertz. We f*$%ing love it. Side note: our family is irresponsible; we lose things. The list is infinite: a Croc, important classified documents (if found please memorize them, burn and proceed to eat), the family book, and a camera. We’ll lose more don’t worry.

The next day in L.A. we went on a v.i.p.tour of Warner Bros. studio. Everyone who takes a tour is a V.I.P., so we managed to fit in. Of course Warner Bros. is the home of the most gifted actor of the 20th century: Bugs Bunny- Rob’s hero. The tour was frickin’ amazing. We saw an entire fake town made to look like NYC, Philly, Chicago etc. We saw an Ersatz mini-Central Park, the city sets for “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan”, and E.R. and the set for the TV show “Chuck”. We even saw the now retired set of “Friends”. You would have to go on the tour yourself to grasp the awesomeness.

The next day we went to Beverly Hills, Rodeo drive, and Malibu. We went to a beach in the latter. This beach was more normal this time. The guys were able to actually play in the water; body surfing, while the girls worked on their tans. They can now graduate from ghostly pale to slightly pasty. There were surfers on boards all over the place, from as young as about 5 to as old as 60. We were struck by how suburban everyone looked in Malibu, and even in LA. For dinner we went to this place that also had a name, but that’s not important. What’s important is that we were told we might see movie stars there. We did see lots of very Thornhill-looking people (that can be taken however you would like to take it, if you’re from Thornhill - hey, it’s probably flattering to think you look like you come from Malibu to us). And....we saw.....or at least we think we saw.....two tables over.....talking very animatedly.....the woman who played “Coco” on the TV show Fame!!

These past days we have been watching the Michael Phelpslympics known to non- Americans as the Olympics of Beijing 2008. And now we are whizzing along on Amtrak, which surprisingly left only half an hour late. We’re off to see the Grand Canyon next.

Love,
RANAD (always capitalized).