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‹ Previous (22/04/2010) MONTH Next (2010-06-21)› ‹ Previous (2010-10-08 - Canada) COUNTRY Next (2011-01-23 - Mexico)› US Staircase-Escalante National Monument (see on map) 01/06/2010:
That day we played and win in a lottery (10 lucky people of 30) the opportunity to visit the next day the restricted area of Coyote Buttes. So we had a more relaxed day visiting other interesting places in the area. Spain Orís (see on map) 10/06/2010:
After being touring almost non-stop for 4 years, much of Europe, Africa, Middle East and Asia, with Alexandra, we have been held six months at home, too long for a restless ass who wanted to continue taking the pulse to the world. Anyway, that was necessary, for Alexandra, with a Romanian passport, had trouble getting U.S. visas, the country where we wanted to start our American journey. So, the first step was to get married, something not so simple between two people of different nationalities. Finally, we obtained the necessary permits and we were married February 20 surrounded by friends and family. Few weeks later Alexandra had to fly to Romania to record the wedding and then request a new passport stating her residence in Spain. Thus, once received the passport three weeks later, finally we got an appointment to the U.S. embassy in Madrid. We arrived in mid-May, Alexandra full of nerves and I of papers, which were useless, because without verifying anything we where announced that we were granted a tourist visa valid for 10 years. It was not easy to repress the joy, but also didn’t lose time celebrating it, and the same day we got a plane ticket to California for the June 10, just one day after the date that I planned to present my first travel book. I would have preferred to have started before the next two years traveling around America, but I was good to past six months settled for another kind of journey, a journey inside the memory that has allowed me to write without haste the "Story of the first year of a long journey, taking the pulse of the world. Europe." Recently published in Catalan, this book tells transparently the thoughts and feelings of a novice traveler, amusing or irritating events that make him maturate, the contrasts between different countries and regions visited in Europe, the dreams and illusions of people knew on the way and interesting political and philosophical views reflected in the interviews of the project: "Taking the pulse to the world." This book, with a foreword by Toni Arbončs and illustrated with 20 pages of photographs, will be presented on Wednesday June 9 at 8 pm in the library "la Tralla" in Vic. During the presentation, I will also make an assessment of the last 4 years traveling in Europe, Africa, Middle East and Asia, while projecting photographs of the adventure. Finally, I introduce the final part of the journey through America, which I will travel with my wife Alexandra for two years from north to south, without autocaravan, that was sold when we arrived home. Then we’ll go to dinner in Vic all who have signed up in advance. You can buy the book for 18Euros in catalane bookstores or in Globetour Shop: "Story of the first year of a long journey taking the pulse to the world. Europe. Soon I hope to publish the book in Spanish. US Los Ángeles, CA (see on map) 15/06/2010:
- Hello! My name is Clarissa – we stop staring at the window of the airplane and a girl with a cheerful smile continues the presentation. – I am flying to Los Angeles, "you too? The anonymous passenger made the gesture of sitting in the empty seat next to Alexandra, as we both answered - yes - very surprised by this introduction. After the girl realized she had the wrong line, but no matter, because soon she became friends with another woman with whom she was speaking for the entire trip. Instead, together with Alexandra , we tried to sleep all the way to have minimal jetlag possible, but in my dreams I also kept wondering "American society is as open as this girl?". Judging from the few days in this new country I would say that americans are quite open, however, what most surprised us so far has been the diversity of the society. These first five days we have been hosted by a family from Argentina that has treated us great, apart from helping us find a second hand van to move across the continent. One of the vans that we saw turned out to be a young man who came from Iran, which was very happy when we explained to him that we had visited his country and its people and we had marveled. After the boy explained that in the United States had never felt discriminated, in contrast to Europe where he had lived for nine months in France. Listening to that comment I thought the U.S. had had to face the problem of multi-cultural and multi-racial long time ago, while in Europe, the problem was much more recent with the immigration of the recent years. Dismissing the Iranian's van, the next day I decided to go watch another van of a Mexican man who lived in another part of town. It took me three hours to arrive, having to take a bus, a subway and a train and it continued to amaze me the diversity of the population: an introverted Asian who shared a seat with a black man who never stopped talking with a chant that seemed to imitate a Rap song, a girl with mini skirt next to a decent man reading a book of Arabic characters, or a thick woman wrapped in a sari from India occupying the seat of a skinny mustached Latino. These images were very similar to those of the vehicle registration office, where I had to record the Chevy Astro van purchased for $ 2,000 from the Mexican guy. There, sitting waiting in line for three hours, an old woman of white skin and very white hair gave me conversation and provided a very different view of diversity, expressing concern at the increasing number of immigrants, and the the fact that many resources are diverted towards this. In any case, soon, my concern was second, because the mulatto man behind the counter informed me that I had to pay $ 400 to put the van in my name, because the Mexican who had bought it had failed to pay the registration of the vehicle for the last two years. We finally have the desired van that would allow us to move freely around the United States and Canada and have a place to sleep if necessary. The pity was that the search of the car did not allow me enough peace of mind to enjoy the wonderful hospitality of Sebastian, who had just returned from a motorcycle trip around South America where he traveled for six months. Sebastian and his family lived in the San Fernando Valley, a very broad area of family houses inhabited by one-third of the population of Los Angeles. It was a recurring feature throughout the city: Nearly all the houses were one story (perhaps a latent fear of earthquakes) and surrounded by a garden of lawns cut without walls that led to the quiet street where almost no one walks. In fact, at such horizontal land-the only way to get around Los Angeles and its environs is by private car (public transportation is scarce and slow with such long distances). So, we had to rely on the offers of Sebastian, who took us to Downtown one night, one of the few areas of Los Angeles where several small skyscrapers rise. The next day he took us to the beach in Malibu, where we met David, a friend of a friend, who invited us to a birthday party in a nice house anchored to a beautiful private beach. The party was good, but we felt a little out of place, with the guests dispersed in small groups open but they did not show much interest in our presence. 21/06/2010:
Knowing that we ought to be more than a week in Los Angeles, finding and buying a car and then visiting the city, we decided to find another host for not abusing the hospitality of Sebastian and his family, which already had helped us a lot. Thus, six days after we arrived we loaded the pretty Chevy Astro Van with our backpacks and headed to the famous Hollywood neighbourhood, where we hoped to meet Jordan, who turned out to be another fabulous host. Jordan ran the oldest restaurant in Hollywood Boulevard, Musso & Frank Grill, where he invited us numerous evenings to eat delicious meals or drink delicious martinis while talking with him. Jordan was very interested to know our travel experience, because very soon he had planned to hand over the restaurant to his cousin in order to travel for the rest of his life. Of course, all the stories and anecdotes that we explained opened his passion to travel, especially to Africa, where he decided to stay maybe a year, instead of a few months. The situation of the house of Jordan, was unbeatable, two blocks from Hollywood Boulevard, where we walked several evenings, hunting for the golden names of the celebrities that had their names written on the famous Walk of Fame of Hollywood . Although Hollywood Boulevard had an atmosphere not too glamorous, it was fun (especially for Alexandra) to walk through places with names as famous as the Kodak Theatre, or Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Hills and Bell Air to Malibu beach or Mulholland drive. And because of that we had the car and we had bought a GPS, also drove to the beaches of Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Palos Verdes and Long Beach. Of the four of them, the atmosphere of Venice was the one we loved, full of black (or African-Americans according to the currently accepted terminology), Latinos and Caucasian, all strolling, sunbathing on the beach or sweating playing basketball. More than once it made us smile the behaviour of African-Americans, with an expressive, uninhibited joy that seemed copied from an American comedy film. While Alexandra was going shopping with some friends the other night I enjoyed good views of the city from the observatory Griffith and the next day from the skyscrapers of Downtown. Among the many existing attractions, I entered the modern Catholic cathedral where a guide explained to a group that the cathedral was the largest in United States, surpassing by two foot length the St. Patrick in New York. The cathedral’s mausoleum, occupies the entire basement, where any Christian can be buried paying no less than one million dollars and for sure that would be enough to pay for all the sexual abuse lawsuits in which is immersed the American Catholic church (the guide mentioned that a small niche of a square inch is worth $ 300,000). One of the evenings we visited Jordan in the restaurant, he invited us to sit at a table where some of his friends, as well as a screenplay writer, the guitarist John Fogerty and a singer of a Californian group. The evening was very entertaining; we were interest in their lives and they were passionate about our trip. Later, as we explained our planned itinerary of nine months in the United States and Canada, Jordan said we wanted to spend too much time possibly because of differences within the country were not as pronounced and that a road trip was appropriate in America, knowing the continent through the window of a vehicle. I told him that probably was right, that perhaps there were too many months, but on the other hand, we wanted to know not only beautiful scenery but also we wanted to plunge into the world's biggest cultures. Till now we know the different European cultures, African, Islamic and Asian but still we needed to immerse ourselves into the Anglo-Saxon culture, partly because we could not reach Australia. Moreover, experiencing and visiting friends in the U.S. was proving fabulous, and 8 or 9 months did not seem excessive to continue discovering the country. After dinner, Jordan remained in the restaurant while we returned home accompanied by a friend who was a relief counsellor in hospitals (helped the relatives of a deceased), a work in which was important to have religious beliefs. Then he sparked my fascination with religion, explaining that he was an open-minded Christian and even liked learning about other beliefs and had done a course of Zen meditation. I asked him why he believed in God and he tried to show me it was because of the wonderful world we lived in, but I also believed that the universe was exciting and did not need to place a God behind it. The next day Jordan was interested in the religious views of his friend, with whom had never exchanged opinions. After Jordan explained that he had observed long ago that travellers tend to be atheists, according to him, because atheists do not believe in another life after death and the need to experience more, taking more risks to be happy. I was in complete agreement with his opinion, adding that travelling makes you open your mind, makes you discover new religions and beliefs and makes you realize that the subject is absurd and that some dogmas are simply cultural. The last day before leaving, Jordan took us to a forest picnic next to the Hollywood Bowl, a stunning modern amphitheatre with a capacity for 18,000 spectators, where that night was playing various African groups. After drinking a bottle of wine and outside became almost dark, we took the leftovers and we went down the forest to reach half crouched some toilets in the theatre, where we ran to feel fully protected from other spectators. Then we sat on a bench and enjoyed an exciting spectacle of music while we emptied another half bottle of wine. At one point, watching people dancing frantically around, I imagined that I was in Europe or even Africa, but the flags near the stage, I returned to reality: the typical American, the other with a bear above the words "Republic of California. " I asked Jordan asked why they felt their country a republic, but he shrugged and then explained that California was the best state in the country, its people friendly, because it has sea and beach, snow in the mountains, deserts, forests, .. . I still could not compare with any other state, but what was true, we felt wonderful here. ‹ Previous (22/04/2010) MONTH Next (2010-06-21)› ‹ Previous (2010-10-08 - Canada) COUNTRY Next (2011-01-23 - Mexico)› |
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