I’m just messing around with blog themes right now. So if you stop by and everything’s a mess, that’s why.
Also, enjoy this video. Enjoy it, or else (*shakes fist*)
May 252008
What is your favourite purchase from the US?
Either my Adidas shoes, or my domo-kun.
I found a Domo-kun that you can make yourself by printing this picture out and following the folding lines (it also makes his TV set):
Some basic info about Domo-kun (credit to Wikipedia):
Domo-kun is described as “a strange creature that hatched from an egg.” Domo’s favorite food is Japanese-style meat and potato stew, and he has a strong dislike for apples, due to an unexplained mystery in his DNA. Domo-kun is known to pass gas repeatedly when nervous or upset.
What’s your favourite souvenir from the holiday?
Either my Alcatraz/San Fran tee, or the grizzly bear I got from the San Fran zoo. (He is called Monarch, because the very first bear at the San Francisco zoo was called Monarch, and that’s who he’s supposed to be.)
What’s the thing you missed most while you were away?
Firstly, Po. I also missed peeps, my bed, the rest of my clothes, creature comforts…
What’s the thing that you missed the most about Australia?
A fundamental feeling of belonging, of knowing where I stand. Also, clothing variety. Australia seems to have a lot more range when it comes to clothes.
What did you like most about the US?
The automation of the toilets in rest-stops. Where we would probably have a pit toilet (even one of those modern ones that don’t smell all that much), they have self-flushing toilets and taps that automatically turn on when you put your hands under them. Keep in mind that these are random rest-stops along the highway – not in towns, or shopping centres, or anything.
What did you like least about the US?
Well, the bad thing about the automation of the rest-stop facilities is the self-flushing toilet. It would be good if it only worked when it needed to, but 99% of the time the flushing mechanism was over zealous, and not only did it waste a lot of water, it wasn’t an enjoyable experience.
I also found some Americans ambivalent and/or brusque, especially sales staff.
I feel I should counter this, though, by saying that there were also a lot of friendly, helpful, lovely people in America. One example was a lady working at a gas station near the Canadian border. She told us a lot about what to expect on the border crossing, and also about weird things to do with gas stations and the hoses and stuff.
What was the best food you tasted in America?
The organic strawberries that we got at either Safeway or Bristol Farms. They were delicious. Oooh and also this banana pudding thing that was made from tapioca and other stuff. It was so awesome. And Americans really know how to make burgers. I only had chicken burgers, but they were all good.
What was the worst food you tasted in America?
Maybe some chicken thing from McDonalds. Or the frozen yoghurt, but only because my mouth was expecting frozen yoghurt and it got vanilla soft-serve, and it’s like when you take a big gulp of what you think is apple juice and it’s actually vegetable oil.
What are you going to miss about the US?
Seeing things different to here, just ordinary things like walking down the street and seeing different stores, or being in a grocery store and seeing different products, or seeing different advertisements on TV (I got sick of the adverts quickly though, except one).
What was the funniest thing that happened on the holiday?
One thing that was funny was when we stopped at a KFC for lunch on one of the legs of our drive, and a kid tried to explain to me how biscuits were “sooooo good!”. Or maybe the multiple times Tim and I were asked if we were Canadian. Do Americans really think Canadians sound so different?
Sent: Sunday 11th May 2008, 9:36 PM
Good evening!
Tim and I arrived at our hotel in Newport, Oregon, this afternoon sometime. I’m not entirely sure of when – time seems to lose some of it’s significance when most of the day is spent driving through unfamiliar landscapes, and the sun doesn’t set for ages, even though it’s only just spring.
Before leaving Eureka this morning, Tim and I visited the Target down the road from our hotel. It’s very similar to Australian Target, except that the clothes are cheaper and more generic (sort of like Australian Target before it got tickets on itself). They have some ranges of clothes that are referred to as “designer”, but they’re still pretty cheap. I bought a pair of Mossimo jeans for 27.99, mostly because I needed another option to keep my legs warm (apart from the one pair of jeans I brought with me).
We then bought breakfast from the Target food thingamie. It seems like all the food here is super sugary. They use a different source of crop for sugar than we do (sugar beets rather than sugar cane), but the end result is the same. I had a yoghurt (you can see in the pictures that the yoghurts here are upside-down) and it tasted sort of like melted ice-cream. Tim had a “fruit smoothie”, which tasted a bit like a saturated, saccharine solution. With berries.
We found a safeway a while later, just off the highway, and were finally able to get some relatively unprocessed food. We had a picnic lunch in a park/camping ground in a copse of redwoods (also just off the highway). It was beautiful, sitting in the dappled sunshine, protected from the freezing wind by the towering trees. It was quiet and calm, and refreshing after so long in the car.
The view from the car was also extra beautiful today. We passed three elk in the lowlands near the California/Oregon border, and experienced the coldest temperature so far (10 degrees celcius). Part of the drive was similar to the Great Ocean Road in Victoria (you should be able to see in the pictures in the link below), and Tim said it was also similar to New Zealand with the sharply rising hills crested in fog, and clear, shallow rivers cutting deep ravines between the hills. I didn’t get any really good pictures of this, due to the fact that it’s difficult to take decent photos from behind the window of a moving car, and also there weren’t many places to stop.
Tomorrow we head to Olympia, crossing another state line into Washington.
On a side note, I really haven’t seen any cats yet, but I can verify that the streets are NOT paved with cheese. At least one of the claims made in An American Tail is false, but I guess that was evident from when those meece arrived in America and were terrorised by cats, and were poor and starving just like most immigrants.
Another thing that the North West Coast of America seems to be lacking are bugs of any description. And spiders. And snakes. The only creatures I’ve seen a huge amount of are seagulls, and in the past couple of days, some black birds with red beaks. And pigeons. Not that I mind, at all… It’s nice to get away from deadly insects and arachnids and reptiles.
Love Cass
xoxo
The emo “No Skateboarding” sign along The Embarcadero in San Francisco. Emos love to skateboard everywhere.
Me myspacing it up in the car
Yoplait is upside down.
Sent: Saturday 10th May 2008 at 9:37 PM
Hey all,
We left San Francisco this morning, after a two-hour wait at the car rental place. Tim ended up upgrading our rental, because apparently the car we were going to get was really small. Now we have a brand new (we are the first people to rent it) Chrysler Sebring convertible. It’s super comfortable, and has lots of useful things such as an outside temperature gauge in fahrenheit, and some random letters that show up that we haven’t really worked out what they mean yet. We’re thinking it’s trying to tell us the direction of the wind outside, but it could also be the direction that we are traveling or anything really. Hopefully it’s nothing mechanical.
Anyway, we arrived in Eureka (where we are staying tonight) at around 5:30pm. We had an expensive meal at Pizza Hut, where I embarrassed myself by exclaiming over the size of the drinks we were brought (they were huge), and now we’re in our hotel room. Tim is watching TV and I’ve just finished uploading photos and hopefully I’ll finish this email sometime in the next half hour so Tim can check the NRL scores (omg cass you closed the browser with the NRL scores omg!)
The hotel room isn’t extravagant, but it is heaven compared to the hostel. My favourite part is having our own bathroom with an actual bath 
The perfect accompaniment to the cold weather here.
Tomorrow Tim and I are going to visit American Target (where I hope to get some warmer clothes), and hopefully a drugstore so that I can get something for this persistent cold, because I’m sick of losing my voice every half an hour, and sounding like an adolescent boy when I am able to speak.
Missing you all,
Cass xoxo
May 122008
Here are some pics from our trip to the San Francisco zoo. I haven’t written this up yet, so these pics will have to be worth thousands of words.
May 122008
Sent: Friday, 9th May 2008 at 3:31 PM
Hello again everyone!
We’re back at the hostel after another day full to the brim with American experiences.
Thanks those of you who have sent me emails, I’ll respond probably tomorrow evening (our last night in San Francisco before we head off on our big road trip!)
This is only going to be a short email, I’m pretty tired and it’s taken me forever to upload photos!
Today we went to pier 39, and visited the Aquarium, and also went on a boat ride through the bay (nearly freezing to death in the process, but still managing to sit outside for the entire trip 
). Then we caught a cable car back up over the hill, and did some shopping in Westfield (WESTFIELD! It’s a fancy schmancy place here!).
THere are lots of kids here in the hostel and they run up and down the halls at night. It makes me imagine that we live in the x-men school house. Also there was a woman at the Indian Restaurant we went to for dinner tonight who had hair like Rogue from x-men, and she didn’t look like the type of person who would know what x-men is.
Good day to you all!
Love Cass xoxo
(Hover over pictures for image descriptions. May not be fully functional in firefox. Not sure why.)
I decided I would post the emails I’ve been sending home, so that I can disseminate information and witty comments easily.
Each post from something emailed will have “Email” at the start of the title line. I’ll also post the original sent date. I’m not backdating the posts, because I don’t want to.
Sent: Thursday, 8th May 2008 at 1:00 PM
Hi everyone!
This is just a quick email (we’ll see if it remains just a quick email by the end… my vote so far is for unnecessarily long and tedious) to let everyone know that we have arrived safe and sound in San Francisco. I don’t have flowers in my hair, but there do seem to be a lot of flower stalls on street corners. Very pretty, my pretties.
Here some things about our trip that have been interesting:
* There are less fast-food chain stores here than in Brisbane. I have seen one McDonalds, one Burger King, and one Jack in the Box. Tim assures me this is a purely a West Coast phenomenon, apparently the further east you go, the more chains start popping up.
* Tim spewed on the plane, when we were on our descent into San Francisco airport. He said it was the holding pattern that threw him.
* American toilets are weird. Quite apart from the fact that the water goes down the drain the opposite way, the shape of the bowl is odd. It seems to require a lot more water than our toilet bowls.
* A homeless man on the street asked Tim and I if we were Canadian.
* A lot of people have road rage and bip bip bip. Also, there are cars way bigger than the landcruiser types at home, and they’re driving around in the city and they look like monster trucks, and their drivers apparently own the entire road.
So anyway, I’m heaps tired right now and I can’t really think of any of the other funny, interesting things that happened. Apart from being given the wrong room number and key about five times when we finally got checked into the hostel (they’re upgrading their booking system, AND re-numbering their rooms. Clever.). I’ll write more when I have more time and energy.
Tim and I walked for ages looking for somewhere to have an early dinner. It is hard to know what places might be ok, or even where all the restaurants be at. We finally ended up settling for a restaurant next door to our Hostel, and by this stage it wasn’t an early dinner any more. The food was really good. Tim had a burger and I had tortellini. We’re now back in our room at the hostel, and Tim is asleep on the bunk above me. I’ll be going to sleep soon too, but I wanted to let everyone know that we are safe and well.
I’d best be off so that I can get ready for bed. Tomorrow we are going to visit Alcatraz, and the day after that probably the zoo.
More later, also photos when i get the chance…
Love Cass xoxo
When we were coming into San Francisco in the taxi from the airport, I saw little boxy houses on a hillside and it made me think of that song (in the title). I said to Tim, “I wonder if this is what the song was written about?” but I didn’t tell him what song, and he didn’t have the same Encarta CD as we did when we were younger, so he probably didn’t know what I was talking about.
Anyways, I was just looking at a page that had songs about San Francisco, and that was one of the songs in the list! I rule. Plus that guy is really good at describing things. Little boxes on the hillside made of ticky-tacky! Genius. That’s exactly what they are. All the hills here look like fake backdrops for a movie, with the houses and stuff… they just look like they are painted onto a big sheet. It’s weird, it’s like they lack depth and dimension until you get right up close, and I’m not at all sure what it is that causes them to look like that.
Actually just in our hostel, by this one old American dude
“I’ve been awake for 36 hours straight!”
“Well, your memory doesn’t work too well when you’ve been up for 36 hours straight.”
“I need to sit down before I collapse from being up for 36 hours straight”
“I’ve been up for 36 hours!”
“I’m offering you my services for the right price, and the right price is free.”
“This is out of date. This says there’s a hostel in Lincoln Tennessee. That hostel doesn’t exist any more. It didn’t exist a year ago!”
(To a random guy behind him in the line at the front desk) “I’ve been awake for 36 hours!”
Sacrifice our honesty
To slay the dying beast
Light the pyre
I will mourn
Before this ends
And hold the funeral
For my conscience
And that which I’ll never get back
I’ll never get back
From here.