The Golden State

Yep, I finally got to visit California! Got up and left, is more like it.
This trip was completely unplanned - no maps, no directions, no looking up points of interests, no charting out the course for the weekend, no reservations, no bookings, nothing! I bought a flight ticket, and reserved a car online, thats about all the planning for the trip that I did!

I ended up at San Jose airport, enthusiastic, excited, and full of energy. I get keys for the car, dump my stuff in the back, and turn on the ac to counteract the mid-day heat. And then.. blank. I didnt know what to do! I had no maps, no idea of where I should go, no idea of what I should do! So, I went back to the counter and got a basic monochromatic map of the area. Now I knew which interstate looped around, and which one went to San Francisco! I had to pick up a friend who had come a day earlier, so I couldnt go off to San Francisco on my own. So, I made a short term goal of going to San Jose downtown. By the time I finished that, my friend called, and I went to pick him up. The rest of the evening, we spent oogling at the offices of Yahoo!, Sun, McAfee, Adobe, etc.

A cloudy overcast Friday morning saw us negotiating the traffic in San Francisco. I must say, no offence of SFians, but you guys really drive slow! 70% of the people are at the speed limit, the rest are at less than the limit, ofcourse, with the occasional punk at 75 or 80. You should come to Dallas. Everyone drives not less than 5 over the speed limit, unless theres a watchful cop car in view.

San Franciso is a very welcoming city. Seattle, somewhat geographically similar, has a snobbish air to it. We visited the usual tourist spots - the Golden Gate Bridge, Muir Woods, the crooked street. We missed ChinaTown and Alcatraz. I loved Fisherman's Wharf. My purely vegetarian friend had a hard time inhaling the air filled with sea food aroma! I had a crab cake at a street vendor. The warm crab cake with hot sauce, standing out on the street, with people milling around, shopping, laughing, dipping large pieces of sour dough bread in their clam chowder, the slighlty chilly weather, with a hint of rain, beside boats tied up at the dock, wonderful!

A late-late-night drive got us into Los Angeles. Inspite of our enthusiasm, we could rise and shine only around 11 the next day! So, we ditched our plan of visiting Universal Studios, and went around instead to Malibu, Santa Monica, and later Hollywood! Gosh, Malibu - if you line up 15 cars, 12 of them would be either a three pointed star, a prancing horse, a beemer, or a 911 and its cousins. Eye-candy indeed! I liked Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Its like a perennial party, with street performers, fashion concscious people, and lotsa good places to binge. We had friends and friends of friends join, making us a group of a dozen chattering primates. We had New York style pizza standing on the street. It was fun!

Later in the evening we went to Hollywood. After paying an atrocious 12 bucks for an hour's parking, we strode along the famous Walk of Fame, juggling to seep in the Saturday night party atmosphere, and the stars of famous people on the pavement.




Retiring back to the hotel rather late at night again took its toll, and we were about 2 hours behind "schedule" on Sunday. Sunday we went to Universal Studios. I loved the studio tour. We had a camera/battery/compact flash card crisis, but managed to click enough pictures. There were a couple of rides, which werent as exhilarating as those of Six Flags, but they were ok.



We finally bid good-bye to LA at 6 in the evening, and relied on the irritating GPS in the car to get us back to San Jose. We got about 2 hours of sunlight before sunset, and the views of the moutains going out of LA were really wonderful. More pictures. Finally, after missing a highway, the GPS made us come through THE only toll road near San Jose! It was like reprimanding us for making the mistake. We payed 3 bucks for a piece of road. But that piece of road was over the bay, and it was pretty scenic at night too; during the day I'm sure it must be beautiful.

We reached around 2:30. An hours rest, and then it was back to the airport to catch a flight back. I really enjoyed this trip. Mainly, I learnt that not evey minute needs to be accounted and planned for beforehand. Things magically happen. People recommend things to do, sights to see, when you are thinking of what to do next! Everything falls into place. Ya, we missed out on some sights, but we really enjoyed the ones that we did see. I would go back for a trip anytime!