CA Days 18 – 23: San Luis Obispo, Pismo Beach & a short stop in Santa Barbara

The Amtrak is a public train company, running lines all around the states as far as I can judge from the brochures I saw at the station, but for sure provide good transportation in california. Anyways it is a comfortable ride, with a surprisingly huge amount of space for my preferred method of getting around, that is my feet, and luggage. The seats are big and cozy, there’s power supply to keep the laptop going or charge the phone and a clever fold-out table provides enough space for my trusted travel companion mr. 15-inch powerbook and some more.

It will take us about five and half an hour to get down to San Diego, direct connection. We, travelling business-people, fellow backpackers, old people probably visiting their families or returning home from such a visit, a bunch young asian guys, the girls dressed like small, overdone cartoon-barbies in all shiny and intense colors, the guys craving to be cool either in hip-hop outfits so extreme that the whole Wu-Tang Clan could be equipped with their necklaces and rings and whatnots, or looking like the real life version of Squall and his various colleagues out of some role playing computer game.

And all of this for no more than 32$, which payed with my VISA-card will most likely come down to about 22 euros. I like trains. For some reason I cannot read or write on busses, I get sick, my stomach revolts against my desire for words and sentences and so all I can do is listening to my iPod and wait to reach my destination as the miles spool onto the vehicles counter. Trains are areas of recreation. Time spent on a train is time for my own, time to reflect on my life, my relationship, my friends, job, targets or the happenings of the last couple days.

Travelling is an adventure. It is supposed to be one. Do things you usually don’t do, meet people you’d not meet back home and visit places you only know from movies and stories from friends who travelled there. Since I found out about hospitality networks my view on the world has changed, evolved. Travelling is not a means of visiting places to make the picture with you standing in front of the eiffel tower or the tower of pisa anymore, it’s about getting to know foreign cultures, other lifestyles. It is about to widen your horizon, directly dive deep into the sea of the local way of living and widening my horizon on all topics of life.

It is something special to sit together with people I have only contacted in an e-mail a couple days ago, having beers in their livingroom, discussing issues of world politics and later heading out to play frisbee on the beach in the middle of the night, knowing that I will sleep on their couch and be gone in three days, without much of a chance that we will ever sit at the same table again. These people are friends, I trust them and they trust me. They open their house and life to me, share their favourite hidden beach, the best burger place in town and their coffee and groceries with somebody they’d never met if this person would’ve thought “hm, maybe I won’t write to this guy”.

We will stay in contact. Generation-X, the internet makes it possible and easy. Add me on facebook, read my blog, here’s my e-mail address. A couple hours ago I had a great time with Steve and his girlfriend Marisa, when they were taking me for a 1,5 hour ride down the coastline from Pismo Beach to Santa Barbara, having a pitstop in a danish-styled town for wine tasting and cheese & bread, then hitting an irish pub and the movies in downtown Santa Barbara, playing darts and pool and having a guiness and folling around, visiting a friend of Marisa at her student dorm in Isla Vista and showing me a classical american student-dorm-wednesday-night party.

Now I am heading south to San Diego and will return to austria in a few weeks, while Steve tries to sell as much of his stuff as possible before he hits the road heading south with no particular target or ending-time of his travels, and Marisa will make her way to southern america. Three people who spent great time together the one day will be on three different continents in the next moment, staying loosely in contact over the net. And anyways being friends and knowing that if our paths ever happen to cross again, we all will continue from where we stopped as if it was just the next day.

Here I am, making the world a smaller place for myself and the people I meet on my journey. I do my part in making our planet a better place, through understanding and listening, through convincing and arguing, through sharing stories and experiences, drinking beer and joking around. I will always look back with a smile and all those great memories to the days I spent in the five city area, starting with the very moment I arrived with my rental jeep in San Luis Obispo and Skyline and I finally caught each other on the phone.

Skyline is an asian girl who lived in San Francisco until recently, then moved to San Luis Obispo to go to school there. After we drop my stuff off at her place we head out to meet some friends of her and then go to a party. It is friday and we are in a college town, so partying is what’s on the schedule. Student life in a college town means that you need two things. A cellphone and a car. These two things are the base of operations and are more important than where you live, because there’s always someone looking for a roommate and with your car and your cellphone you can always go wherever you want with whom you feel like. The american way of a student life.

Staying with Skyline and her roommate Matt is a new experience to me. San Francisco is a town with a good public transportation system and a generally strong european feeling to it. It wasn’t all that different to Vienna and a quote from Pulp Fiction hits the nail on the head: “They have the same stuff that we have, but it’s working slightly different”. Santa Cruz was the black hole of reality and a place with it’s own time-space continuum, it’s own rules and way of existing. San Luis Obispo was the first classical american town on my trip and it had a feeling on it’s own. Plus Skyline’s 21st birthday is just about to come, so we didn’t hang out in any bars at all.

The life of a student before 21 in a typical american town is a life of limitations and restrictions. You cannot even buy a bottle of wine to drink with your friends. You cannot go to the bars or any nightclubs. There is no such thing as “having beers with your friends”, because you depend on where there is a party or on somebody who can go to a liquor store and buy a sixpack for you. But you do have your car and your cellphone to get you to the parties and connect you to 21+ people. It’s neither a secret nor surprising that everybody is drinking anyways. There is always a way to at least get some beer, how strict ever the law and it’s execution might be.

A side-effect of all of this is that drugs, especially marihuana, are considered to be equal with alcohol. They are just as illegal to consume or buy, so there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference. Especially marihuana is easy to get, because california’s state laws allow the consumption and the growing of marihuana for medical purposes, if a doctor confirms you can benefit from it. Basically everything that’s regarded to your skeleton is considered benefiting from using marihuana, so what people do is they go to their doctor and complain about their hurting back, leaving the place with a small sheet of paper that allows them to buy weed in marihuana-supplements or grow a small amount themselves.

There is a lot of people having problems with their backs these days in california. I am still a fighter of the theory of marihuana being an entry-drug, leading all the way up to the seriously dangerous stuff. What I see around here supports my theory, that says it’s not marihuana itself leading to other drugs, but the criminalization. Things that are illegal are considered being as dangerous as each other and therefore alcohol and marihuana are on the same step here, with cocaine and speed not far behind.

Wine-and-cheese-night was on the schedule for evening two with Skyline & Matt, so basically I comitted a hard crime when I bought some bottles of wine which I knew would be consumed by underage persons. This is not a “small violation” of law around here, this is a serious break of the rules and results in high fines and jail, which is something I can’t wrap my mind around as someone from austria, a country of an intense beer and wine culture where many children have their first encounters with alcohol in a controlled family environment and as soon as “papa’s boy” or “uncle’s nephew” reaches the age of 13 or so a “beer with dinner” is something traditional and a boy can’t claim to be a man before he had his first half a litre of beer, a “Krügerl”.

Without any feels of guilt the wine-and-cheese-night was a great success and ended back at Skyline’s place, with the long and deep talks about life’s aspects that wine is so famous for causing. Different views from different people out of way different cultures on the very basic topics that are love, family and joy were revealed, compared, laughed about, respected and exchanged. People who honestly respect others for their opposing opinions got drunk together and now carry on in life, thinking they did something good and right and believe they are able to change the future to the better by continuing their way of collecting different perspectives to alter their own to the better.

Sunday should start with a more typical american approach, namely heading to a local pizzeria to watch the NFL semi finals on huge plasma screens. The first game started at noon and since we all were slightly damaged from the night before we missed the first minutes, picked up a NFL-sunday-breakfast that is a greasy huge pizza and a pitcher of beer and then more or less enjoyed a mediocre game. Since Skyline’s not-yet-21 made it impossible for her to drink in public and her friend Ivana didn’t want to drink the pitcher was Matt’s and mine business and it was about to decide whether it would finish me off or lift me back up on the wave and carry me along for the rest of the lazy day. Fortuna was with me and just in time for the end of the game we finished our second pitcher and headed on to the next stop to drink a few more beers and watch the second game.

Final stop for my San Luis Obispo stay would, ironically enough, be another visit in Pismo Beach, my next destination. This time Ben, Pam, Sky, Ivana and I were about to have dinner at probably the best sushi-place I’ve ever been to. Their menu was exceedingly long and full of creative, awkward, interesting and delicious varieties of maki-rolls, sushi-platters and sashimi-salads and while the food was delicious and the service great the price was more than acceptable, which means that for a stomach-filling sashimi-mix, a tempura green-tea ice-cream dessert and two green teas my bill, including tip, said 25$. Again, talking in VISA-terms this means a really good deal for the european traveller.

Once again we headed back to San Luis Obispo, picked up my stuff and Skyline & Ivana drove me down to Pismo Beach, where we ended up in a Starbucks due to a lack of alternatives to have a last coffee together before the usual “good bye” and to meet up with Steve, my Pismo Beach host. The coffee was mediocre, the talk was good times and good fun and only ended because the cafe closed and we had to leave. Since Pismo Beach an San Luis Obispo are basically next to each other we decided to do something together the upcoming days, then Skyline and Ivana left for home while Steve and I headed back to his place, where we agreed on getting some sleep and start the activities-thing the next day.

This was when a very special time should start.

Steve basically could be described as a passionate musician, but it wouldn’t hit the nail’s head. He is a person full of hospitality, curiosity and a refreshing sense of naive childishness. All these are but words and none of them can really describe the special personality I happened to meet, but maybe they outline a frame within to see the following stories. With Steve lives his roommate Jordan, who is as passionate about music and may be described with a stereotype, a “westcoast surfer as one would imagine” – tall, blonde, surfing whenever possible, working as much as necessary and spending time making music as much as possible.

I envy Jordan especially for his open approach to all things, like walking by a fish market that sells oysters resulting in him buying oysters, walking into the next restaurant, grabbing some hot sauce there and eating an oyster. Like going lowtiding and finding anemonies in a left-over bassin, being curios on what might happen if you stick your finger in them, resulting in just sticking his finger in them. Like seeing a small crab while lowtiding, being excited about catching the guy, resulting in him holding this crab in his hand and releasing it back into it’s natural environment a couple minutes later, just for the experience.

When it came to say goodbye to Jordan he mentioned that he was kind of disappointed I didn’t try an oyster when Steve and he did. And all I could say was that I feel the same. He really was a huge inspiration on just trying things I am curious about. I never had oysters. I am still wondering how an oyster tastes. Steve and Jordan had a weird experience when they had those oversized, huge chunks of an oyster with nothing but hot sauce, but they did it. I didn’t.

And seriously, I don’t know why.

It was time to get some real food and when they asked me what I thought would be good my reply was short and clear: “Burgers”. I’m in the States, the land of burgers, the land of variety in burgers. Back home there basically is Mc Donalds and Burger King, every once in a while a restaurant with one Burger on the menu and T.G.I. Friday’s. That’s not much of a variety. I am in the States and what I want is Burgers in as many variations as I can find. Burgers as greasy and unhealthy as they come. I even tried the cheeseburger on Amtrak, and seriously, it was the only try I regret. And I should have known when I took a cold, plastic-wrapped burger out of the fridge and this guy threw it into the microwave. My fault.

Talking burgers my current ranking is as following:

1. Pyramid Brewery (Berkeley)
2. Longboards (Pismo Beach)
3. Carl Junior’s (San Francisco)
4. Jacks Burgers (Santa Cruz)
5. Mac Donalds (wherever)
6. Strange place at the Ferry Building (San Francisco)
7. Amtrak (yikes!)

And I still neither had a Fat Burgers, nor a famous In & Out Burger.

With our stomachs filled we first of all had to pitstop back home, relax on the couch, letting our digestive bodyparts do whatever they could to provide the ability of basic movement again, when Marisa crashed by and joined the gang. Jordan started recording so he stayed home, while Steve and Marisa suggested going to see pirate’s cove. This place turned out to be one of the most amazing I’ve ever been to. While pirate’s cove itself is just a small hole in a huge rock we hiked down to a beach that can only be reached climbing down a small rock face with a rope. It was a really small rock face, but still, you had to climb down there using a rope, and that made it kind of a special beach to be in an area as touristy as Pismo Beach.

The evening plan was an open mic night at a local bar, where I finally heard Steve & Jordan playing, and damn do they know what they do. This was amazing jamming with Jordan at the guitar and Steve at the drums, some live footage will follow as soon as I can manage to upload it. For this event there was also Mike joining our little gang, making it a car-filling five people group, that after the mic-night should end up spilling the alcohol out of their bodies with budweiser and playing frisbee at night on the beach. We did an awful job on frisbee, but anyways had great fun.

The next day should start easier. Except for Jordan and Mike, who had to go to school/work in the morning, everyone slept in. Steve and Marisa headed out for some shopping, I did my laundry for the first time since my travels started and when they came back I cooked some dinner, surprisingly my famous Krautfleckerl. Steve also grabbed some beers, a Vienna Lager and Fat Weasel Ale, to be precise, and I introduced them to the pleasure of drinking games that is, Mäxchen. But since no one gets that name and it doesn’t make sense anyways I always present it as “lying”, which I think makes a lot more of a sense. After we improvised two dice the game started and soon the few beers happened to be empty, so the next stop had to be reached, which was Hot Shots, a local Bar/Restaurant/Pool Hall.

Playing Pool with me is always funny, because I use to loose. It’s a miracle. There are shots that seem physically impossible and I make them. But when the final 8 lies right in front of it’s corner pocket and all I have to do is a straight dump I fail miserably. However I felt in good company, we all did an interesting job on playing pool and in the end we accomplished the only thing that really matters: Everyone had a hell lot of fun, and the evening ended with some air hockey.

I didn’t have a place to stay in Santa Barbara and didn’t know how to get there when Steve & Marisa told me they will be driving me down the whole 1,5 hour ride, showing me some nice spots on the way, including a danish town (which is especially funny since Julia’s mom is from denmark and so there’s some connection to this country), and might have friends down their who let me crush their couch for the night. That said the next day was road-trip day and when we finally headed out in the early afternoon the bad weather didn’t stop us from having fun all the way south.

The danish town is hilarious, the whole inner city is following the theme, danish flags everywhere, the architecture, windmills – if there weren’t palm trees every once in a while one could really think to be in denmark. In this small town we did not only wine tasting (one mediocre and one good series), but also bought the best cheese I’ve ever tasted and some good olive bread at the farmer’s market, from the few guys who were brave enough to make it out here despite the constant rain.

Finally in Santa Barbara we walked around downtown, decided to go see a movie later and ended up killing some time in an irish pub by playing darts and eating our cheese & olive bread. After some time we headed towards the next theatre and it took us a short discussion until we finally decided to go see Bucket List, a Jack Nicholson / Morgan Freeman movie. It’s an okay movie, targeted to the masses, with a solid base theme and two good actors, but I doubt it’s worth the ticket.

We were waiting for Marisa’s friend to call, she lives in Isla Vista, which basically is a gigantic student dorm settlement around the campus of UCSB and we were pretty sure that someone there would let me crush their couch. Her friend still hadn’t called and so we stopped by the irish pub, “The James Joyce” in downtown Santa Barbara, again, played some more billiard and had another beer before we got in touch with Marisa’s friend and headed out to Isla Vista.

No luck this time, no one was interested in hosting a traveller there and lucky on the other hand we made it to a hostel in SB just in time, basically after they already had closed, but there was still someone there and they checked me in for a 20$ dorm, which is probably as cheap as it can get. The room wasn’t pleasing though, a 12 people dorm, bad air, no good sleep. But it was a bed, so what.

And now, after the ride on the Amtrak, I am here in San Diego, at Danny’s place. Danny, one of the good people I met while surfing in Ireland in february 2007. And while I enjoy meeting new people and having new experiences it is a good and welcome thing to see a familiar face, talk about things that happened some time ago, fellow friends and all that kind of things. It now is pretty much exactly midnight and I am tired, tired, tired, so I shalth get some sleep now. This posting catches up with my report to the very current state and I doubt there’s a lot of people reading all of it, especially since a huge part is repetition of the last post.

BUT IT’S MY BLOG, SO I DO WHAT I FEEL LIKE. HA!

I love you all.