still californiaaa, plus nevaaaada, due to tijuanaaa

ello elloooo,
so i left youz at san francisco... that feels light years away.
from there i got a free ride from an extremely kind and lovely BMW-driving stranger off craigslist.org to monterey. while waiting for him i had many people come up and talk to me.. from an old man who just came back from colombia who felt compelled to tell me the mayor was the best looking man in s.f. to the old hippy with heart-shaped glasses who asked me about canada... anyway, in the car we had really good chats and he listens to crazy music (from japanese drumming to old folk music) which was fun, and he was my tour guide (thought he admitted he was slacking and said many things post-hoc) and he drove me right to the hostel, which was lovely! met some people at the hostel that night, namely a girl named becca who camped for a month in big sur national park with her boyfriend in the winter, so she told me all about big sur, very excitedly! the day prior (actually, the day i wrote the last post) i had started feeling funny- i was a little dizzy, very tired, throat hurt a little, and after listening to becca without interruption for like an hour and a half straight my head was killing me and, as lame as it is, i went to bed at around 9 and woke up at 8... and still felt like crap. becca drove me to the bus stop for big sur the next morn (thank goodness she drove me because i would have had to wait 3 hours for the next one) and i took off with a very knowledgeable bus driver (he had lived in big sur 11 years- he had one super cool story about watching a forest fire and seeing a tree explode) and he tried to help me get south (the bus only goes an hour and a half into the park.. there's another 2.5 hours to the nearest town) without success. SO i got off at pfeiffer park because becca told me, knowing my "feel like death" situation, that it was the prettiest part of the park and i should go there because it was a short hike so it wouldn't be too strenuous. well she was right- even with my giant pack and my "feel like death"ness i got there in like 15 minutes. and to be honest it was so unimpressive that i didn't even believe i was at the falls. must be nicer in the winter?

anyway, at the falls i met three woman from florida and california... we chatted a little and then they offered me a ride to salinas so that i could catch a train to san luis obispo! beautiful. the daughter bought me a ritter sport chocolate bar.. which i wouldn't accept until her mother told me a story about being stranded in south africa and an older couple drove her to a hotel near the airport AND paid for her hotel- she ended the story with "so let us buy you a damn chocolate bar!" i finally accepted. amazingly the train happened to be 4 hours late, so i was right on time!! in san luis obispo (slo) i walked right down a main street and two blocks down i stumbed upon a cheap hostel with a canadian running it who kept giving me free stuff on account of my nationality. i tried to wander the quaint, adorable streets of slo but after like half an hour i gave up because of the sickness and fell asleep to two old guys playing piano and guitar and singing in the common room. they were really really good. i'm so glad i didn't get that sick in one of the developing countries or else i would have been really worried that i had caught something extremely serious. i had very nice vibes from slo. i was lovin the "slo seniors center" (first of all, hilarious name) that was blaring led zeppelin. old people rockin out.. wicked. i stayed two nights because all i wanted to do was sleep. the second day i took an uneventful bus ride around allll the surrounding area because my hilarious bus driver couldn't decide where i should get off (someone told me to go to los osos, but there were many stops in los osos and he didn't know anywhere in los osos that had hiking, so he eventually told me to give up). i ended up getting off at morrow bay (a town centered around a really big rock in the bay that apparently is covered in REALLY fat squirrels that can't even lift their arms up and no foliage, so no one knows how the squirrels survive).

the next morn was once again a fateful meeting- i was eating breakfast when i met a lovely little mexican by the name of diana who was determined to help my poor, poor spanish. eventually i found out she was driving to l.a., so i paid for her gas and took the ride with her! we stopped a couple times along the way in some cute towns and look-outs along the coast. i was feeling reeaaalll crappy by this point. diana advised i have lotsa of hot sauce to clear my sinuses.. so we grabbed a bag of chips and a bottle of hot sauce and i COVERED every chip in it... like.. COVERED. since i couldn't taste a thing i could only judge it by the tingling of my dry lips and my tongue. it did help the sinuses a little, but they were too congested for it to work completely. between the two of us and half a bag of chips we finished half the bottle of hot sauce. we drove through hollywood (i went to great lengths to get a picture of the hollywood sign) and i got my picture taken with the "rodeo drive" sign (three of them actually.. one of just me.. then me turning around talking to the suited men in the fancy store, then the last one of one of the suited men standing with me at the rodeo drive sign... it was kinda funny). i saw an apparently famous mexican actor. forget his name- think it was gorge something. she then offered a room in her house and to take me salsa dancing (she has TAUGHT salsa in the past)!! i felt obliged to eat her mother's food so as to not be rude, and i'm suurreee it was delicious (i have no idea because i had no sense of taste), but my stomach DIED that evening. which was actually kindof good because by "going out salsa dancing" i didn't realize it meant that everyone there was like SUPER good and there was this whole interesting community dynamic about it and everyone knew each other and whatnot... so i sat and watched the amazing dancers and had to reject a million and one men (the men outnumbered the women by a long shot i believe) by saying i wasn't dancing because my stomach hurt (a better excuse than "oh yea, i can't dance like this to save my life"). one old guy was super persistent... i don't think he believed my stomach story.
anyway, diana was a lovely angel and she made her family speak spanish to me so that i would learn more. it was a lovely introduction to mexico!

after l.a. i headed to san diego, still feeling like i'd been run over by a truck, but going on nonetheless. i managed to get the LAST available bed in the hostel, and i used it well- i slept a LOT. other than the "gaslamp quarter", i didn't find too much interesting about s.d. on that round.

next morn i headed to the infamous tijuana, mexico. on the subway ride there this guy asked me why i was going to mexico and told me i should stay in the states instead and started making a ton of racist remarks about the hispanic population and sh*t went DOWN!! i was shocked and the subway was of course filled with latino people and one guy in particular told him off so bad he got off at the next stop. i was proud of him for telling him off. in tijuana i eventually found my way to the bus stop and got on the bus to the transit central. somewhere between getting off that bus and attempting to pay for my next bus, i was robbed. passport, all ID, all money, credit cards, bank card, not to mention pretty earrings i made with rachel!! anyway, i had no idea what to do and my lame spanish wasn't helping either. after frantically calling my mother (sorry mom) and trying to get a ride to the consulate from people that worked at the bus station (i got two offers but neither followed through for some reason) a greyhound driver offered me a ride back to the border and, magically, customs accepted photocopies of my ID as proof enough. the greyhound driver was terribly sweet and gave me $5 (all the american $ he had) and bought me a grape juice. at mcdonalds i asked a customs officer where i should go and she bought me fries and water and printed off consulate #s. while crying at the pay phone some guy gave me $10, his #, and a little note saying he'd be in san diego for the night if i needed help. i was so touched by all of it!! anyway, eventually i made it to downtown san diego again (i asked the subway driver if i could get on for free and he said he couldn't do that but gave me $5!) and was trying to find the homeless shelter the consulate gave me an address for when i was directed to a different one by a guy at the subway station. there was no room there, but someone directed me to david ross, a man who had just driven up and was surrounded by people, handing out water and little hershey's kisses to kids. he had an arm in a cast and was covered in bandages. i later found out that while handing out water to homeless people (it's his thing.. he's called the waterboy or something) he saw a girl trying to knife her sister! he got in the middle of it and ended up getting 36 stitches, among other things, but the girl's in jail now, and her sister's fine, so he considers it worth it. anyway, so i asked him where the rescue mission was and he said it was way far and he'd drive me there. in the meantime i met a homeless guy named darryl who was the most peaceful, serene guy i have ever encountered. turns out darryl's just down on his luck- his wife divorced him, he lost hos job, but he had hope for the future- he had a plan. it was really amazing meeting him. you know you're touched when, after meeting someone for like 15 minutes you give them a hug and don't want to leave. anyway, so david (he says he's 100, but only because he's lied so many times bout his age that he doesn't remember what it is anymore) and i have a great chat on our way to the rescue mission- about the work he does, being homeless in general, the situation i was in. this guy is like my hero. he's living off social insurance or whatever, and yet ALL he does all day is drive around town handing out water to homeless people. he's from detroit originally so he has this hilarious attitude to him, and he's all homey-like with his "brothers from black mothers" (his words). he tried doing the knuckle-slam thingie with one black guy and he ended up hitting his head.. i laughed HYSTERICALLY... he was just like "damn old white guys... can never be smooth"). he puts out SO much love, and he gets it back from everyone.. it was truly amazing to watch. he used to work with organizations, but he said, for example, he couldn't have taken me and driven me to the mission if he were with an organization because of all the rules. then he gave me 5 hershey's kisses (he said that was REALLY special- he normally only gives two- but he liked me and his mother was canadian, so i got five), two V8s, pretzels, and his # and told me to call and update him on my situation. i love that man.
later that night i was close to tears, lying on the top bunk at the shelter, when i reached into my bag for something and found a kiss. i felt so special and loved and counted my blessings before putting in the earplugs and attempting to sleep.
it was a little scary, i'm not going to lie. but not nearly as sketchy as you'd think.

ironically i went from homeless shelter one night to the nicest hotel i've ever stayed in alone the next few nights! my dad was convinced that i needed to get solid sleep (i was STILL sick, which didn't help anything), and he was very right! i got things a little more organized over the next few days. i went to la jolla beach, which was... kinda pathetic. apparently ocean beach was the one i should have gone to, but everyone was telling me la jolla at the time! i saw some seals, anyway.
i left the hotel a few days later and was prepared to spend half of my remaining money on a hostel when, on my way to the hostel, i met a girl named lydia in front of the library i was attempting to use the internet at (libraries are untapped resources for free internet!!). she asked me which shoes looked better with her dress, and then we walked together. she heard my situation and immediately offered her (and her boyfriend's) couch up! at first i thought "nono", but then when i realized my financial situation, and the fact that the hostel wouldn't take me without proper ID, i was quick to follow up on her offer!! i went over in the late afternoon for her birthday pool party at their new apartment and met all their friends, had some beers. the next day i painted this orange section of their wall twice- i wish i could have done more!! it was good because i really had nothing else to do but wait for the weekend to be over so i could call the consulate again. ironically i ended up at ocean beach that night because some of their friends live there- it looked really gorgeous at night so i can believe it's mighty nice in the daylight. so that was just one more addition to the list of amazing people that have helped me immensely!!
i left the next morn- got a police report and JUST made an 8:10 bus to L.A.
the people at the consulate are amazing- i got stuff notarized for free, they let me use their phone, they're incredibly friendly, they gave me bus tokens out of their pocket, they looked up hostels for me, the consul gave me her # and an inspiring chat about travelling solo as a female, and they stayed late just to help me out. i was very impressed. i later told an american about my experience and he told me "that's a sign of a civilized country" because he once lost his visa for iran and the US consulate didn't BELIEVE him and put him thru hell to get it back.
i was sssooooo close to just giving up and going home, but through a series of what i would call fateful interventions, i woke up one morn knowing i would seriously regret not continuing the trip. the robbery didn't lessen my desire to see the countries, and it just barely reduced my desire to continue, but it just made me a little more scared to do so. i just can't let fear inter..fere. so many people let fear stop them from doing things and i don't want to live like that. i'll continue, just more prepared and cautious and hopefully not-so-solo and constantly on-guard!

after that, i went to get money from western union and used the phone of the western union man. the hostels wouldn't take me because either 1. i had no ID or 2. no proof of continuing travel (a plane ticket, bus ticket, etc), so the man looked up MORE hostels for me and we called them and he stayed an HOUR past his closing time to help me. eventually we found one and he DROVE me there!! like... how nice is that?>!?!? without him, it likely would have taken me 2.5 hours to get there by bus and it's in the sketchiest neighbourhood (i've never seen more adult shops on one street... and rap fans- ever heard of inglewood? cuz that's where i'm staying) so who knows what would've happened? very nice guy.
i met a lot of people at this hostel, which is good. unfortunately, none are travelling south except an exciting taiwanese woman going straight to guatemala to stay with friends. that lady was awesome- she got so excited to show me pictures of south america on her laptop that she ran into the glass door... love it. the staff is extremely rude except for one gay brown boy who wears these intense blue contacts. one day i walked up to the reception and just seeing him brought this huge smile to my face and i blurted out "you're my favourite!!" he responded with "oh honey, you're MY favourite!" at the hostel bar last night we sang together and he stroked my hair and i stroked his face and it was hilarious. we were the only ones enjoying the songs he chose from the jukebox.

haven't done too much in l.a. took a bus ride solo with the driver and he was soooo funny that i ended up just staying on the bus and talking to him. cam, you would've loved him- just your humour. i've went to venice beach a few times because there's a free shuttle. had the best pizza ever- the dough is made of spinach, then it's topped with like 2cm of spinach, tomatoes and feta.... ssssoooooo delicious and i love that they don't skimp on the toppings!! i also happened to stumble upon the hollywood walk of fame... literally. i was just lost and looking for my bus back when i looked down to see i was standing on freddie prinze. that was kinda cool. also kinda cool to take the bus back and pass hollywood blvd, sunset blvd, rodeo dr, melrose, beverley, etc... though none of them looked particularly special from where i was.

this past weekend i got a free ride from craigslist again, this time to las vegas, nevada! i had met tobias, a swede who had been travelling for 15 months thus far, at the pool a night prior and he wanted to go too, so he joined (which i'm super glad about because without him i likely would've stayed holed up in my hostel for fear of being alone in las vegas at night). the driver, tariq, was, as usual, one of the nicest people i have ever met. we drove a hybrid, which was neat, and we all had great GREAT chats on the way to l.v. we all had the same outlook when it comes to treatment of others (just smile and be nice and hope for the same in return) and it was such a feel-good atmosphere. that eve we just left our bags at tariq's hotel and spent allll night out in order to save $! i got drunk for the first time in a long time on the streets of vegas. everyone that passed me was like "a 40?! go girl.." regarding my 40 of the cheapest beer i could find. we walked the entire vegas strip that night and thanks to my lack of proper ID we didn't get into one bar (except the casino bar). there was a $30 cover at one place. ha. tobey wanted to see the sun rise in the desert so he directed the taxi to "the edge of vegas". he laughed in our face and told us he'd just take us to a really tall building... so we ended up on the 10th floor of a random hotel taking pictures of the sunrise. by 6:30 we were in mcdonalds meeting two older australians that were there to gamble. one of the guys ended up offering to take us out (i.e. with his "power" he could magically get me into clubs) the next night and also offered to buy me shoes and clothes because i certainly couldn't go out in my present state! usually i would politely decline, but i was inebriated and broke so... what the hell. he took us to a few malls that afternoon and i ended up getting these wicked heels and a super cute 50s-style black and white dress. i clean up nice, so i was told.

that night we ate at their hotel's restaurant and it was sooooo good. at the casino i got to roll the dice at one of the games... apparently i was lucky. then we went to a show called "bite" that was a bunch of topless ladies pretending to be vampires and two of em did these crazy acrobatics with hanging ropes. the show was aimed precisely at the male crowd... but they were good dancers and the rope stuff was really cool. after that, we hit the casino bar, then off to another casino, then to that casino's club, then off to another club, where we ended. i FINALLLLYYY got to dance and i went wild and was lovin it. so it was a pretty good night. we got to the hostel at 7am and i slept for two hours before hitting the pool. we got the ride back with tariq and it took a much longer time, but that's okay. i was EXHAUSTED and the heat didn't help; the heat in vegas is the hottest heat i have ever EVER experienced. tariq perfectly described it as "walking through a hairdryer". it's digusting and suffocating.

so now i'm back in l.a. i met an old guy last night who offered to "motorcyle" me to the nearest western union (it was really far and i had 88 cents to my name). i accepted and on our third try at western unions i found one that wasn't broken and took my request without proper ID. lovely.

i'm surprised at how unimpressive hollywood is. maybe i'm missing something. maybe i'm missing a lot. i'm also surprised at the density and flashiness of vegas- the lights are much more spread out and not as flashy as i expected... heh. the old vegas did live up to the amount of wedding chapels i expected, though. one of them was even called "drive- thru wedding". HAhahahahahah... ooohhhh dear.

the kindness of strangers here though has been actually unbelievable. this trip has been full of the most amazing people and i'm so glad to have seen it. not that i had a disbelief in the kindness of strangers, but this has just been over the top really. shocking :).

kay i need to hit that spinach pizza place before i catch the shuttle, so i must go... adios mis amigos!!

love, shay.

p.s. the town of carmel successfully outlawed ice cream cones. mayor clint eastwood eventually brought em back and made all the kids happy. love random stories from chatty bus drivers.

californiaaa

¡hola!
so through a series of events i am confined to rachel's house til 5pm today with nothing more to do than pushups, writing, reading, and making a post on this blog dealio. ah, and eating cheese strings and hemp granola.

so california began a little slow... (including getting there- 22 hours that could have been 7 if i weren't such a cheap bastard). it was recommended that i just randomly wander, and that i did.... and ended up getting very disoriented and indeed lost on many occasions, without seeing alllll that much. san franciscan streets are effed up- the same street will be both north-south and east-west because it just decides to make some dramatic turn somewhere in the city. also, market street- the main street downtown- does a diagonal across the rest of the streets- it's messed up. also, sometimes the roads just change names randomly and the street you thought you were following actually now goes backwards down the hill you passed 45 minutes ago......
so it took me a little while to figure out the orientations and such, but i think ive finally got it down : ) and whatever, i met some interesting people and came across some wonderful views of the city in my days of confusion.

on the way from the airport to rachel's place, i saw a city so densely populated with houses alone (i.e. no foliage or anything) that on the rolling california hills it looked like a sea of homes, bobbing along with no interruptions.

as always, i must mention the price and variety of fruit and foods in my respective place of travel.... here, artichokes are rampant (i bought a mammoth one that didn't even fit in the pot with the lid on... delicious.. but the smaller one was more delicious), berries can be super cheap if you look hard enough, apricots are 1/3 of the price in canada, and if you buy two buck chuck (wine), yer having a mighty fine night on but two american dollars. everything else though, save s.f. transit (1.50 for the DAY), is ridiculously expensive and it has mightily hindered my explorations of the surrounding area.

as for san francisco, i feel like i've really explored it. i've seen art museums (they're presently obsessed with animation and comics here) and galleries,
the awfully AWFULLY cheesy fisherman's wharf (i actually laughed when i saw it... classy s.f. suddenly buckles under pressue and lights up with cartoon signs and colours and many old couples with safari hats and khakis and young kids yelling they want popcorn... i would've loved it as a kid),
musee mechanique (a super old school arcade- rajat the fortune teller told me i was going to be a night club hostess, and for a quarter you can look inside the viewer and see "naughty marietta do her stuff" hahah...),
golden gate park (HUGE- got very lost, but eventually saw everything i wanted to see.. i'm impressed by the amount of greenspace they have here),
golden gate bridge (i don't see why it's such a big deal.. and it costs $5 to re-enter the city...),
saw a play by myself- the imaginary invalids (the funniest play i've seen... i left with a huge smile on my face.. and it was interesting because it discussed hypochondriacism and having faith and zero faith in medicine),
saw an opera by myself (it's interesting how you have to balance so many parts of the opera... you have to appreciate the singing alone (which gave me goosebumps- amazing), and the orchestra's talent and their part in making the mood, then take in the english translations that are projected above the stage, and tryta keep track of all the crazy names they talk about, then tryta see if you could understand the opera without the english translations, using only the music and actions on stage (in this case, i decided no.) it was a very interesting experience!! and since i only paid for standing room, some guy gave me his ticket when he and his wife left at intermission- so i got like a $70 ticket for free!! lovin it),
saw a crazy band on a streetcorner composed of a bongo-like drum, a didgereedoo (nooo idea how to spell that), and a guiatarist who was also singing into a mike (they were PHENOMENAL, and they had just met two days ago),
seen the view from multiple spots- twin peaks (get a 360 of s.f.), the golden gate bridge, various parts of the waterfront, buena vista park, etc,
met a load of interesting characters (from the 55 y.o. guy who was smiling for "no reason" at the bus stop, who then told me he liked my skirt and we talked the whole bus ride about his cancer and his mother and the new zealand girl who offered to take him around the world, to the lady who had just been on a 10-day silent meditation retreat who felt her chakras were open but everything was going wrong so the universe was telling her not to live in s.f., to the 3 people on the bus who all joined me in discussing the music of s.f. before we all had to get off the bus, to the friends of rachel, whom i really loved, to the man at mystic pizza who thinks italy is ssuuuppeerr dangerous, so he had a thing or two to say about my trip, to the bongo player/rapper on the street etc etcccc...),
went out a couple times, experienced the beauty of the haight street festival, and seen a gnome shoe garden,
seen chinatown and bought dried yams (deLICious!), seen north beach and eaten at "the stinking rose- a garlic restaurant", which was very expensive but an amazing gnocchi with asparagus and garlic cheese sauce dish... mmm, and been to castro (the gay district), and the mission (supposed to be really sketchy, but i just got many cat calls- nothing harmful.. i just checked out balmy alley- a full alleyway of art.. beautiful),
SEEN the jack kerouac museum (literally, just the outside of it), but i'm an idiot and couldn't find the front door.. i swear there isn't one.. they're just trying to mess with your head...
aannndd, of course, i've seen a man with a pylon on his head walking hesitatingly with his arms to the side (there are sooo many homeless people here.. it's sad), and a thugged out black guy locking arms with an old, white, blind man crossin the street (nothing has made me more happy to witness!!), and two of those silver-painted people that pretend they're statues just chillin outside a subway, chatting (BAHAHahahahha... you never think to yourself "how do those people get home?" til you see it.. awesome)...

as for the surrounding area- my hopes of seeing yosemite national park and big sur have been slightly dashed (though that may change tomorrow?...) because it's sooo expensive to stay in the park and i have no one to stay in it with, so it'd cost me big bucks.. but i HAVE seen san mateo (nothing there cept a gem show), half moon bay (lovely waterfront), moss bay (awesome hostel there with a beautiful lighthouse right on a cliff), then the coast back to s.f.... then we went to point reyes and muir beach (gooorrgeous- it's what i expected the california coast to look like, so its always good to fulfill expectations once in awhile), and to fairfax (there was an ecofest goin on.. cool music!)... so that has at least slightly fulfilled my nature needs for now, and i'm sure on the drive down to mexico i'll see at least some of the coast and countryside also : )

i think stopping here first was key- i'm not directly thrown into a foreign country, alone and sad from all the teary goodbyes, i get worked in by being with random people, most of whom are friends with rachel though, i get used to rachel's randomness (like we're driving along and she sees an "owl trail" sign on the middle of the road, so we take it and end up on a ranch with goats (!!) and a really pretty cat that flips over every 3 seconds when you pet its belly and a kid's day camp.... random, and i LOVE it) which broadens my adventure..ness... it was just a really good first stop. plus the weather's been surprisingly wicked considering it's sposta be gross and foggy in the summer (never fails- i always pick the worst time to travel!!)

k i somewhat ran out of things to talk about, so that's that for now- much love to all!!

p.s. the college pro-er n me was fascinated by the beautiful "painted lady" victorian homes of s.f.... and through careful observation and inquiry i found out they use not ladders or scafholding to paint, but cherry pickers! also, the painters get paid $30/hr and a front door and frame costs more than the largest job i ever did with college pro, and an entire house costs about $25-30 000 to paint...... which is the equivalent of about 30 house paintings in durham.... fascinating. mom, you'd love these homes.