The next day, we had some breakfast and then got ready to get on the road. The first day of roadtrippin' for me! Only by playing Tetris for half an hour, we were able to fit all our suitcases and bags in the small Honda Civic sedan. Freddy and Ferdi gave this car its own name: The Silver Surfer. We soon gave up the original plan to drive to Santa Barbara within this day and just drove to Malibu, which took us about one and a half hours. Malibu was much too beautiful to just leave behind and go on to Santa Barbara. We found a nice camp ground outside Malibu, which was on a hill facing the sea. After having checked in, we started the day off with some Burritos from Chipotle - the first Burritos I have ever eaten and the best so far. The next thing to do was, of course, going to the famous beach of Malibu. Since we were not only there for having fun but also to do some actual work, we built a huge sand castle with a dungeon so deep, that the lifeguard had to tell us to fill it again once we're done because a child might drown in it. Everyone on the beach was amazed by our German engineering that could withstand even the strongest waves In the evening, Ferdi made some of his famous Heartattack Burgers (see picture) - delicious. As noone of us was tired yet, we walked around the camp ground in order to see whether there was still something going on. That was when we met two guys who we had drinks with until more and more people joined. In the end our party of about 20 people was interrupted by the campground owner, who sent us all away and to bed. With the only noise being the waves on the ocean everyone fell asleep quite quickly - except for Freddy, who was on patrol for another two hours.
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Okay okay, now I know. Jon Cryer. To me the guy was only known as Allan, the annoying appendix of Charlie Sheen. He should be called Alan Cryer in Tow and a half Men, because he is complaining all the time. Well, now he is our neighbour. At least for a few days. Judd, our host, has never seen him, but his parents have. They say he is a really nice guy, just how you would imagine a regular neigbour. As soon as Ferdi heard that Alan lives next door, he went crazy like a little school girl and wanted to meet him. We almost had to put him on a leash, because he was continuously inventing new ways to get in contact with Allan. His favorite is the version where he pops up at his door and says in the weirdest german accent: "Hälllooo, Aim fromm Shermäny, Wii want tou pläy Flunkyball wiss you!" Today is the second full day in L.A. last night Ferdi, Megan (Judd´s cousin) and I chilled at the pool and had a couple of beers, while Natalie went to bed. The first day was just too hard for her. She doesn´t know "work hard, play hard" yet. If the first day was exhausting, the second day was even more. Weather is nice, but we didn´t sleep much, but still we had to check out all spots of L.A. of which still a few were missing. The first stop we made was at a little breakfast place. Very relaxing, good food and assumed to be a good celebrity check-out spot. Judd kept telling us about whom he or his dad had met in L.A. like Eddie Van Halen. Especially in Studio City, Hollywood and Laurel Canyon. Laurel Canyon is the drive that connects Hollywood with Studio City´s Ventura Boulevard. Laurel Canyon is such a windy road. A few famous people live there. Most of all there is the mansion. Not the mansion, but "Theee Mansion" It´s a 10-bedroom house, owned by producer Rick Rubin. Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles and The Stones went in and out. Part of the Red Hot Chili Peppers´ success is Rick Rubins work as their producer. Way back in 91, the year I´m born, the RHCP and Rick Rubin produced the album Blood Sugar Sex Magic featuring the utmost famous and my favorite song: Under the Bridge. There are many bridges in L.A! The traffic is horrible. It´s the Paris of USA, but only worse. It always took us so long to get somewhere. After breakfast at the place where you can sometimes see famous people, we went to NoHo - North Hollywood: It accommodates an art school, many young people are there gentrification is taking place. We went to an amaaaazing Thai restaurant, it was just sooo good! Food in America is a blast, depending on where you go. California is number one for its variety and quality of different foods from all over the world and the best thing is, that it is affordable. From NoHo we drove south, probably through Laurel Canyon our favorite road. We stopped in Hollywood, actually on the strip to go shopping for CD´s. Amoeba is the place to go. It´s huge and offers a great assortment of CD´s, DVD´s used ones, new ones. Every week they also play a concert there. In September there is going to be the German Herbert Grönemeyer for 40 bucks - for those who want to listen to a man who sounds like he gets kicked in his nutsack all the time. But the CD store is great. Judd bought some CDs as he is very much into music. I bought Lenny Kravitz - the CD I have been looking for all last years since Jakob and I did our first roadtrip to Switzerland. On the road you have to carry JImmy, Lenny and Bobby around.[Who are those guys?....] So far we listened a lot to Jimmy and Bobby on the road. First, Ferdi wasn´t liking Bobby at all, "too mellow" he said, but after listening to Soul Shakedown Party at Yellowstone, he is almost addicted to it. He wouldn´t leave me without burning my CD first to have it in Victoria. So I am very thankful to have Judd show us Amoeba and to reunite the three musicians J, L and B! If you want to know about music, you have to talk to Judd, he is so into it. Keeps buying new CDs and plays really cool stuff in the car like Greyboy, DJ Shadow and Mr. Scruff. Judd loves going to concerts and festivals like the Oppikoppi in South Africa where his family is from. (http://www.oppikoppi.co.za/). After Amoeba we checked out Melrose Avenue. It´s a cool place to go shopping for articles you won´t find anywhere else: Custom Skateshops, a hat shops with Panama Hats for over $100 and a store with vintage T-shirts, pretty cool stuff, but it is all pricy. It´s very much something like a Hippster scene. L.A. is great for shopping, but you need the money. We were surprised that Natalie could hold herself back and saved her money. This day we had seen a lot and been in traffic a lot. We were happy to return to Judds house to get ready for the night! We didn´t see Megan for the whole day as she chilled ad Judds place, but she joined us for the evening which was a lot of fun. Especially at the Irish bar she surprised us with her fun-ability. We were also excited to get to Long Beach, because we would meet Raphael there, who then joined us for a good week on our roadtrip through California. We drove to Long Beach L.A. to meet Elliot, a friend of Judd from UC Riverside. He is working for an insurance company while living on his sail boat over the summer. Pretty cool boat and lifestyle. Elliot was sooooo much fun. He didn´t only show us his boat, but also the marina, and the bars at the haven. I don´t know whom to blame, but somehow he lost against Ferdi in drinking games. Sorry to tell you Elliot, but I saw Ferdi cheating once. I know, it´s incredible and mind blowing what he did. Hold on! While you were drinking, he poured a third of his beer into Raphael´s glas. So Ferdi didn´t drink the same amount. It´s mean of Ferdi to claim Germans know how to drink, when in fact he cheated on you. Sorry Ferdi, but I had to bolster Elliot, because he was so kind to us. By outplaying Elliot I could at least see the boat again and descend to the cabin. L.A. was fantastic and I can´t wait to be back again soon and meet more people and see new places (if there are any we haven´t seen yet). Thanks a lot Judd for showing us around and also for your and your family´s hospitality. Raphael also wrote a small part about joining us! Of course we don't wanna hold back on that!
I was meeting Freddy and Ferdi, two friends who I study together with in Maastricht. The two of them had been on a road trip trough the United States for almost five weeks already. After Oliver had brought me to Long Beach, which is part of Los Angeles, I met there with Ferdi who took me to the bar, where all the others were. The others were Freddy, Ferdi's sister, Natalie, Judd at whose place all of us would spend the night, and some of their friends. I had never seen a bar like this before. There were two piano players on the stage facing each other and playing songs that the audience asked for. It was great! After we had moved on to an Irish Pub and enjoyed some Guinness, Judd took us home in his car - all the way to Hollywood. Only then I realized how incredibly huge Los Angeles is, since it took us about one and a half hours to get to his place. Once we arrived there, everyone just wanted to go to bed - but only after we would try out the Jacuzzi in Judd's backyard. Freddy, Ferdi, Natalie, and me had our own place to sleep in - the poolhouse (How nice is that??). The most intriguing fact about Judd's house was, though, that it is next to Jon Cryer's house, the actor of "Alan" in Two and a Half Men - living next door to Alan (our theme song for the next day)! We started our first full day in Los Angeles in the late morning. Luckily we had our Silver Surfer because it would have been hard to get from one place to another without that in LA. We first took a road up mulholland drive which gives you a great view.. Well probably it's nicer when there isn't so much fog lying over the city. I am not gonna write too much in this article because this day was just so exhausting and so full with so many great memories that it would exceed the scope of this blog! We also went to Universal Studio where are the movies are beeing shot. It was not too exciting because we didn't go to the movie studios (50$ entry) but it was definitely worth seeing. Afterwards we went to the food market to get something good. On the way we picked up Megan, Judd's cousin. She joined us for the next two days. The selection of food was so huge that it was almost impossible to decide what to eat. We had so much that we just wanted to sit down and do nothing afterwards. (Un)Fortunately we still had a packed day ahead of us with lots of attractions that we were looking forward to seeing. Our next stop was in Venice Beach. It is really known for his canals and ocean front walk. A lot of weird people are walking around and many people working out or playing basketball. We just chilled at the beach for half an hour and walked up and down the road and through the canals. It was really amazing. Right after this we went to the Santa Monica pier. It was completely different. People were not so crazy anymore but also not so loose. It was a completely different atmosphere. We walked down the pier and Freddy decided to jump in a rope. Judd wanted to join but shortly before he wanted to go in Freddy tripped and of course blamed it on Judd. Check it our for yourselve! In the afternoon we went to eat a sandwhich and some korean bbq. Needless to say that the sandwhich was just way better (and bigger). After another good meal we went to buy a few beers and chill back at Judd's place. Watching some Tv and chilling in the Jacuzzi. That is what a life of a student should be like! We made tons of CD´s for on the go. One of them is the famous "California" - CD. It has numerous tracks on Calfornia, like OC`s Califonia, Red Hot Chili Peppers´ Californication, Katy Perry´s California Girls and The Eagles´ House of the Rising the Sun. California is just soo awesome. We never played this sacred CD until we left Las Vegas and approached the state-border to California! The Plan: - Los Angeles - Malibu - Santa Barbara - Big Sur - San Francisco The drive to L.A. was unbelievable hot. I mean we passed through deserts. L.A. is such a huge city, 2nd largest after NY in the US. It has almost as many inhabitants as the whole Netherlands: LA: 13mil vs. NL: 17mil. We arrived in L.A. around 5pm and we had to met with our host Judd at 7pm. That was just perfect timing for us to checkout Hollywood. We walked up and down the strip a little bit and met quite a few famous persons. Not in person, but their stars. This was just the beginning. We arrived at Judd´s house around 7pm, where his dad awaited us with really good chicken and mashed potatoes. That night we went out in Studio City where Judd lives. He lives in a really cool house with a pool and a guesthouse which we could use. We watched so much TV in the evening like Two and a Half Men or Big Bang Theory. There was also a really funny kids TV show, which was nothing but stupid, still funny! We ended the night quite early, because the next day, Judd promised to take us on a big city tour through L.A. It´s incredible how Judd led us through his city. He just had arrived the same day that we did, but from South Africa. He did an awesome job of showing us around and I mean really around. We saw so much, but that will follow soon...
Of course we also walked over the strip went into the casinos, and checked everything out! Everything is just so shiny and bright (Freddy: "Vegas is fake") . We walked to Eiffel tower, through the Bellagio, past Caesar's Palace, into the Cosmopolitan, and further down the strip. Here and then we also stopped to watch a few rounds of some weird game with dice. We saw some strippers, crazy people, and girls that should not wear what they were wearing. But this is pretty much all we are gonna say here. I think Vegas is worth checking out. If you want you can be someone entirely different there and enjoy the fabulous life of Las Vegas! So what did we do in Vegas? Well. as the title already says we are not gonna talk about our night life. Even though there wouldn't be much to tell because Freddy hates Vegas and my sister was still jet-lagged. More about that later! So here it goes: 1. Burgers - simply amazing 2. Jacuzzi - Time 3. Pool-Fun-Time We were planning to spend the night in Grand Canyon but spontaneously decided to hit the road and see were it takes us in that night. We didn't have any food left besides salsa sauce and tuna which is mixed surprisingly delicious. We were driving to Williams which is south of the Grand Canyon. We were looking for something to do there but this city is completely deserted. Besides some Motels there is nothing around. So we decided to drive a little bit further down the road and camp on the streetside somewhere between Williams and Las Vegas. You could already see the horizon glow 40 miles before Vegas so we thought we should check it out during the night.Vegas, here we come! We arrived in Vegas at 11 pm but couldn't check in until the next day. We went out on the strip for a little bit and chilled at the hotel lobby. Normally you cannot check in before noon in a hotel so we did not know where to stay fo the next 12-ish hours. We used our charming German accent once again to try and convince the guy to give us the room-key earlier. After waiting until 6 am at the hotel they gave us basically a third night for free. So we brought all our stuff to the insanely big apartment and took a nice nap in the King Bed. At 2 pm we went to the airport to pick up my sister, Natalie. We even made some great signs for her! We drove to "Food for less" and bought enough for the next two days. Good food to prepare us for the upcoming nights and mornings after. We put everything in the freezer and settled down in our awesome apartment. BTW this article is gonna be full of pictures and less of words. So the apartment was pretty sick. A big-ass bedroom with a kingbed and a nice jacuzzi right next to it, a flatscreen in the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, and the living room. The best part was the high quality beamer projecting on the 15x8 feet screen... Take a look for yourself. What to say about the Grand Canyon. We arrived in the evening which was pretty cool because we got to see the sunset. We got to the gate at 7 pm and it was not stationed anymore so we saved us 25 $ entry fee. But there is a reason that it is not stationed so late anymore. There are no camoping spots available by that time and you are not allowed to sleep in your car or just camp next to the road. So we had to find a different solution! Looking for a place to stay in the dark was not easy. Grand Canyon Village is a small city at the Grand Canyon with its own college and even student apartments. We thought we should check it out and maybe try to crash there. So we went into one of those apartments and met 2 guys and 2 girls who first offered us pizza and the opportunity to sleep there. But we should first talk it over with the manager. The manager was not reachable so we decided to park our car next to the apartment and just sleep in it. No police car comes by this area so we were safe to stay there. The next morning we woke up really early and got a shower. We were planning to hike a lot that day, maybe down the canyon and up again. We had a really good breakfast just at the rim of the canyon. We learned a few thing about the formation of the Grand Canyon and informed ourselves were to hike. We decided to hike down the path which was 1500 feet deep (600 something meter). The plan said it takes 4-6 hours. We hiked down and up in 2 1/2 hours. Our uphill walk just took us 1 hour so we were faster upwards than downwards. The reason i'm writing this is not to brag but to show to Richard Koder how much we improved and how ready we are for the next hike with him! ;) Afterwards... We wanted to hit the showers but as soon as I entered it I regocnized that i forgot my towel in the car. So I went back to the car got my towel and suddenly froze. I heared a weird sound just next to me. I turned around and saw an enormous elk. It was just standing next to me and was about to attack the Silver Surfer. Well, at least it seemed to me like that :D Maybe he was just there to smell Freddy's clothes that were hanging aroung in front of the car... We were driving down highway 180, Arizona. Grand Canyon wasn´t far away when we saw a sign "Dinosaur - 1.5 miles to the right". We couldn´t believe our eyes when we first saw footprints of a baby Tyrano Saurus Rex. First we thought somebody had carved the footprints in the sand, but it wasn´t sand. Even if it looks like it, the ground is solid rock. Different footprints were just all over the place. They even cut out pieces of the ground to put the footprints into museums. The next thing we saw was a head of a dinosaur, or the parts that were remaining. Once bone it´s now stone. We also saw the remainders of one of those dinosaur birds. Then there was a huge crocodile and another head of a dinosaur. There were also dinosaur-eggs still stuck in the ground. Our guide Natt even found a few egg-shells and gave them to us. Though called egg-shells they are stones today. Natt is a Navajo Indian who has been doing these tours for a couple of years. The Navajo are an Indian Nation that own a reservation almost the size of Germany. Natt also made us aware of some red small stones that are magnetic. We could just pick them up and carry them home. She also makes her own jewelry out of the stones she finds. The red stones we could keep are said to help against high blood pressure and diabetes. Together with her and her kids, we had a lot of fun. Unfortunately we had to leave Taos really early because we were planning to go to Monument Valley before heading to the Grand Canyon. After leaving the lights on for 2 hours without having the engine on, the battery was empty and we needed some help to get the car starting again. Thankfully Margaret was around and could help us really quickly so we did not have a really big time delay. When we on the road we soon saw this weird looking rock just in the middle of nowhere! It is called Shiprock and is 1500 feet high. Around it is absolutely nothing which makes it even more interesting! Afterwards we drove through some National Parks making our way to Monument Valley. The trip along this amazing road was a little bit damped by all the electric cables that totally ruine your view on all those rocks! Many pictures were taken but only a few of them are usable. |