LALAland and Hollyhood

YOOOOOO sorry for the delay in posts (we are tres terrible). Now we're in LA!!!! I've been staying with my awesome cousin TONY and his GF ROBYN in an area known as Silverlake. Charlotte spent a couple days with us then went to go chill with her dad and some friendlies. We've been doing some cool stuff.

Charlotte, friend Paige and myself went to a museum of Jurassic Technology. I have no idea what this means, I have no idea what this museum was even about...I just don't get it.

Examples:

Cures for ailments....

We went to Union Station which was cool. A little movie called Can't Hardly Wait filmed a scene or two there...

On SATURDAY we went and saw some cool shit in downtown namely the Bradbury building which was in BLADE RUNNER!! It's much pretty than in the movie. Tony and I got our pictures with Charlie Chaplin too! He was very nice.

Then we went and saw Chaplin's old studios which is now a Jim Hensen studio.

We also walked around the WALK OF FAME which was pretty lame cause it was really packed! Then we went to the Chinese Theater place that has all the hands and feet which was even more packed!! What's with everyone's obsession with Marilyn Monroe?!?!? People were crowded around her star AND her cement block. I just don't get it.

Later that night Tony and I went to the Observatory!! Which was really packed but totally worth it. It might look familar as a little film called Rebel without a Cause was partially shot there (nbd). I learned some stuff about space but mostly got freaked out because I don't really get any of it and it scares me.

On Sunday we went into the Los Angelos National Forest and drove and drove up this mountain. It was suuuuper beautiful. Then we got out and walked around a bit. It was hot but really nice. There was a second part to the observatory so we walked around that and learned some more stuff. There was a huge forest fire two years ago that burned a lot of the forest. You can still see burnt trees and there were some just a few feet from the Observatory's museum.

On Monday I was on my own. Tony told me about a Street Art exhibit that was FREE on Mondays because Banksy gave them a bunch of money. So I did that which was awesome but what was also awesome was that I totally got there all by myself on foot and public transportation. I have never really used public transportation outside of Boston and obviously their's is super nice. So score for me.

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED ABOUT LA:

They don't have good pizza

I was an East Coast Undercut Pioneer (they have TONS of them here)

The bus drivers are super nice but super sassy

Medical Marijuana is EVERYWHERE and getting a card is super easy

FOREST is super close and pretty

There are SUPER weird museums (jurassic technology, death, etc.)

Grand Canyon and such things

It's been a few days now...and by a few days, I guess I mean, like, over a week. I was going to write a real blog post, but then I got internet distracted and am now bleary-eye tired. So here are some videos from Arizona to explain some things:

Santa Fe, an addendum

Albuquerque is a shit show

So to backtrack a bit (New Mexico is before Arizona) after we spent the night in Santa Fe we went to Albuquerque. We were staying with some friends of friends so we didn't really know them. We show up at their house around 6pm. One of the residents is already drunk and stoned but seems nice enough and invites us in. There are quitea few people in the house, a late afternoon party if you will. We all sit around and chat. People include us in their conversations and are quite cordial. Those of your from the East Coast know what I'm talking about when I say I have been pleasantly surprised about how nice people have been to us.

Eventually everyone filters out of the house and it's just Charlotte and myself with Herman* (dude who lives there). His roommate Althea* eventually comes home and Charlotte and I are getting peckish. We decided we want to get some food and CA offers to take us to a local haunt that all the college students love. It's the place we have to go to have truly been to Albquerque. It's called Frontier and it's a weird cafeteria type situation. I get a "vegetarian" salad which is ok, nothing great though. Charlotte gets the same a a tostada but is shocked to see that the salad has SUNFLOWER SEEDS on it. The menu had said NOTHING about this so we were all quite upset. For those of you who don't know Charlotte is deathly allergic to sunflower seeds. She gets another salad and all is well...

...For awhile. We decide to not let the sunflower s

eed incident deter us from enjoying beautiful Albquerque/New Mexico. That night is tame enough, we go back to the house and play Uno with Herman and Althea. The pair of them talk about what a great time they had the night before and how they party a lot etc. etc. But Charlotte and I went to college, we know what's up so we just smile and nod, nothing new. It is a bit off putting how often they talk of partying just because at least for Charlotte and myself (and most people, I would say) Clark was not a party school. But we are fairly non-judgemental and pass the night pleasently enough. We went to a bar that reminded us a lot of Worcester dives and met some of our hosts friend who all seemed nice. We tried to crash a "90s lesbian party" but by the time we got there it was already breaking up but it didn't really matter 'cause I didn't even have my dr. martens on.

The next morning we decide to go get some breakfast and coffee. It was suggested we go to Satellite Coffee. THIS IS BEST PLACE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. Not only did it have AMAZING BREAKFAST BURRITOS it had iced coffee refills for $0.54!!!!!!!!! Amazing!!! So obviously we spent several hours catching up on our internets and caffeine

We decided we needed to actually go and see something of Albuquerque other than it's coffee shops. We went to this place called Old Town which is pretty kitschy and touristy with a bunch of stores that sell "Native American" art and the like. It was actually pretty cool with some interesting stuff. I got a blanket that was made in Mexico for $16 so that was pretty cool. We tried to go see an old church but it was actually giving a service so we backed off.

We went back to the house and were just kind of sitting and handing out on the their front porch, reading. Chandler* a third roommate came and sat with us. He was a exchange student from Britain at some point and now just lives in Albuquerque. He was really cool and we talked about some British stuff.

That night we hung our with Althea and chatted, ate some dinner, had a couple drinks. We decided to go meet Herman at some bar and by the time we got there he was pretty drunk. We decided to take the bus further downtown in order to go to somebody's birthday party. Herman's friends were really nice and I enjoyed talking with them immensly. I'm not totally sure what happened but all of a sudden shit got real at this party. Charlotte and I were talking and making friends. Herman and Althea were doing their own thing but all of a sudden it seemed Althea was wasted and I mean wasted. She was beyond slurring her words, carrying empty bottles of alchohol around. Althea made it clear she wanted to get the fuck out of this house and just kinda left so Charlotte and I followed her. The problem was she was so drunk she couldn't remember how to get home. She tried to call a cab (we tried to help) before giving up. We ended up circling the block and ending up back at the party. I went in to see if Herman could give us directions. He made a pretty asinine comment about us trying to cockblock him before giving my the directions. He said he would walk us home but after the shit about us cockblocking him I thought it best to just leave.

We then walked what felt like MILES. Althea being as drunk as she was obviously stumbled a lot and a few times we had to coax her to keep walking. We finally get to the house and low and behold Herman is already there. I'm already ripshit. I'm not sure how anyone could act like this to people they don't know. Yes, it was very nice of them to let us stay there but still! I couldn't believe it, if anything you should be nicer because you don't know us. Anyway, all I want to do is go to sleep but Herman and Althea are sort of wandering around. Herman eventually goes to bed. I fall asleep as does Charlotte.

The next thing we know, Chandler is asking Charlotte if she can help him carry Althea in from the porch where she passed out! (I'm only sort of half awake from this). Chandler sort of drags/carries Althea in to her room. Neither Charlotte nor I knew that she was outside we sort of just fell asleep.

Hours pass, it's probably around 5 or 6am and I need to pee like any normal human being. I go to go into the hallway where the bathroom is and get CHASED OUT BY A DOG. Althea's dog won't let me use the bathroom! He barking and going crazy because I guess I was too close to her room. So I have to pee outside which I'm pissed about because there is a perfectly good bathroom with toilet paper that WE supplied in the house.

All in all, Albuquerque was great. It was just the last night that made me sort of hate everything. I still am not totally sure how people act like that towards guests. Charlotte and I have spent more than one occasion trying to make sense out of it to no avail. I guess it's just safe to say that some people are just nice, others are alcoholics.

*Names begrudgingly changed to protect identities.

(Oh, also none of the pictures are ours, we didn't really take any for some reason...? YAY internet)

Arizona

Okay. So we're a little bit backlogged. We've been camping in Arizona for a couple of nights, so internet access has been limited. We stayed in Flagstaff for a night, which was very pretty and environmentally comfortable. The town itself was okay.
More importantly: WE SAW THE GRAND CANYON.
It was beyond breathtaking and there can be no exaggerations made about it. (More on this to come.)
Last night we stayed in Kingsman, AZ for the night, just as as stopover.

Will update with pictures and videos later (we took some good ones). As of right now, we've finally entered the homeland (California). I was uplifted spiritually until we basically got heat stroke in the 101 degree desert while trying to explore an old childhood favorite--Calico Ghost Town. Needless to say, we're ready for the Pacific Coast...I think we've both had enough desert for one adventure.

New Mexico

So we're in Santa Fe right now, which Rachael TOTALLY LOVES. (Qualifier: loves New Mexico, Santa Fe is okay?) We're chilling in a coffee shop, waiting to go see HP7 II.

I'M KINDA HOME GUYS. Even though not really at all because we're still a few hundred miles from LA, but the air feels dry and deserty and cool (compared to Missouri/Illinois/Oklahoma). BACK IN THE SOUTHWEST, briefly, but being reunited is fantastic.
The colors in Santa Fe are to die for:


Camera phone picture, AKA nicer in real life.

It's weird to be here because--as Rachael pointed out--I was here TEN years ago. TEN. What is that? It's weird because it's a way different experience but also things look familiar. But it makes sense because Santa Fe is apparently a super small, tourist town--they only let you build things in adobe and nothing can be taller than the Cathedral.

Anyway, I think Rachael will probably want to write about New Mexico and also the pictures/videos are still on the camera and not on the computer yet. So more on this to come. Anyway, we're heading to Albuquerque later today, which our friend has warned us against saying that it sucks. Whatevah, we do what we want.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA SUCKS

A LOT

I'm currently typing this from the king sized bed of the Knights Inn which cost $51.83 for THE night. I know, it sucks but we were all road tired and we didn't have a place to stay and we didn't want to camp 'cause it's Oklahoma and we sorta/kinda/maybe don't want to get lynched. Anyway so Gladys (the gps) decided to throw a tantrum right before getting into Oklahoma City and wouldn't turn on, leaving us to fend for ourselves. Through our genius abilities to use maps we got to the motel (it's not that easy, Brenna). Well actually we drove by it and I might have said something about "thank god we're not staying at that murder place" before realizing that that was actually where we were staying. After summoning up the courage we finally entered the office in order to get a room. After some haggling I handed my ID to the desk-woman who said something about how New York was far away. I said I was from RI and then Charlotte and I may have burst into uncontrollable nervous laughter...maybe. Now I feel like a total asshole. It wasn't because she thought my Rhode Island said New York it was truly the whole situation.

Anyway, we then walked up and down the stairs because we couldn't quite understand what she had said our room number was. We eventually had to go back to and ask, it was a pretty awful.

We finally got into our room which isn't actually too terrible. There is wax everywhere which I really really don't want to know anything about in order to be able to sleep tonight. We then went to the verizon store because as some of you probably know Chicago ate my phone. Well the washing machine in Carly's basement did and, yes, technically I put it in there without knowing. But they can't give me a new phone because of something with weird insurance. So FUCK, still don't have a phone 8(. Then we went and got dinner from someplace called the Elephant Bar which was an adventure in and of itself.

Right now I'm finally watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I. I'm not a huge fan of the movies but feel forced to watch Part I in order to feel relatively ok about being actually being forced by Charlotte to watch Part II later this week. It was $0.99 rental on Itunes though, so you should check it out.

Charlotte is sleeping.

"You don't trust the tap water? Here?"

Missouri

Alright, so as Rachael stated, I loved St. Louis. It was nicely-sized...very manageable. All of the museums and things that should be public (zoos, etc) were FREE AS THEY SHOULD BE. Everyone was so friendly and nice, but not creepily so. It seemed welcome and accepting. So it was a little hot and humid (we apparently arrived during some massive heatwave). Who would have guessed, but it's my favorite new place we've been so far.
The rest of Missouri was pretty boring to drive through, but everyone was really nice to us. I'm only really making a post because we have a video from driving through Missouri, so here ya go (it says it all):

St Louis

Rachael says:

St. Louis was pretty cool. Charlotte LOVED it waaay more than more than I did. It's actually pretty weird how much she loved it. We walked around and tried not to DIE from the HEAT. It was so hot, I really cannot describe how hot it was. It was quite unpleasant. What was SUPER pleasant as that everything in St. Louis was FREE. We went to the Zoo and to the Science Center and could have gone to the Art Museum and other things but we didn't.

It was also SOOOOOOO HOT that so many of the animals weren't even out. But there was a cool penguin and puffin exhibit:

This morning we went to a cool coffee shop and I got VEG biscuits and gravy which was so fucking good. Maybe Charlotte will talk to you about St. Louis more 'cause it's her home away from home.

Chicago II

Well, it has been hot as all hell. Rachael is sure that it will be worse in the southwest--which is completely true--but I'm in denial that the desert weather will be easier to stomach than this humidity. TRAVELING IN THE HEAT OF SUMMER 2011!!!
There's been a lot of hiding on public transportation, coffee shops, and bookstores which is typical life anyway so whatevs (no, we did not buy books for those of you who may be questioning.)
Today we went to the BEACH which was strange due to its lake qualities. I've only been swimming on the lake once, and that was when I was, like, 12 and visiting my family in Texas. Very different from the ocean. There were still waves due to passing motor boats con water weenies, but it was very shallow and rocky...very still. We are far on our way to becoming "tan beach babies" now, as has become the new term for it after seeing a sign in the middle of Michigan for...well, we're assuming it was a tanning salon, I guess, but who knows.
We then spent a bit of time at West Fest, which was very fun even though it was hothothot. Chicago, we hear, is very good for its street festivals and public summer activities. For a short break we took a walking tour of the Ukrainian Village, which was EPIC.
We then had some dinner (came to the conclusion that we have had Mexican food at least every day since we've been here if not twice a day! No complaints over here) and drinks.

Headed out to St. Louis tomorrow! This is a strange part of the country that I never thought I'd be in, which is exciting. Thought it was 10 hours away. Apparently it's 5. We will update.

Bed time is for the weak. Jk, 'cause I think I have a bit of a sniffly cold bug, either that or exceptionally ridiculous allergies...

Maybe Rachael will add her two bits latah.

Chicago

We've come to a rest for a few days.

We arrived in Chicago late yesterday afternoon and met up with Carly. Very soon, we were dining on golden leaves (aka delicious Mexican food! AH the perks of being in a large city.)
After dinner, we headed over to Lincoln Square to a sweet Harry and the Potters event to see our beloved Clark friends, Joe and Jacob, who are also on the road for tour. Had a lovely evening in the park. While we waited for them to pack up, we decided to chance our luck in a potentially gimicky "German" restaurant/bar situation where there was live music...

...and boots of beer.

Enough said.

The beer was gross and the waiter ignored us, so we were a bit huffy.

But then we reunited with our friends and got some delicious chips and salsa (THE SALSA WAS SO FUCKING GOOD) and guac. Parted ways at this point in the evening for slumber time.

More Chicago adventures await. This morning we've so far been trying to catch up on our lives and sleep...we also got some delicious Mexican pastries/sweet breads that I fetched on foot, wandering through the unknown city, foraging for our sustenance... city-livin'.



To be continued!

CANADA AND MICHIGAN: A TALE OF EPIC (PART II)

After leaving Canada we made our way to DETROIT! Now, I've been excited to go to Detroit since seeing an episode of Life After People which used Detroit as an example of how crazy cities get once nobody lives in them. And after hearing how freakin' sweet it is from various friends. We were running pretty short on time, as we were staying with our friend Adam and didn't want to show up super late as he was so nice to let us crash with him.

So we finally get to Detroit and it's SWEET. We decided just to drive around and see what we could. Throughout this entire 20 ordeal our GPS, Gladys, was flipping shit. She had a REALLY tough time in Canada, she really didn't want us to through through Canada and just kept telling us to go to Ohio. But we wanted to go, so we did and Gladys did not like it. She kept saying we were in the middle of nowhere, literally in a black area of nowhere that is Canada. So when we finally got back into the US she cried with joy only to be slapped in the face again when we completely ignored her in Detroit. Once we left Detroit she was feeling a bit better.

So Detroit is just pretty empty, there would be maybe one guy standing on the sidewalk with all these dilapidated and empty buildings around him, completely alone. I'll stop trying to describe and just show.

After leaving Detroit we made the quick jaunt to Ann Arbor, which was cool. It's a fairly tiny city that has a HUGE university so there are a ton of students around. We met up with some of Adam's friends at a Mexican restaurant/bar which had good sangria then walked around and got frozen yogurt (do you see a pattern emerging?).

The next morning we got up, got breakfast and began our journey to the famous and storied CHICAGO.

CANADA AND MICHIGAN: A TALE OF EPIC (PT I)

So on Wednesday we left Rochester and headed for Ann Arbor, Michigan via CANADA. I was excited to go through CANADA because I really wanted to go to Detroit and because the only time I had ever spent in CANADA was when my mom, sister and I drove around for 20 minutes and saw some corn.

So we're approaching the CANADIAN border and we see a Tim Hortons, we try to stop in order to satisfy our coffee cravings (sidenote: probz the #1 reason I was ok with moving to Seattle with Charlotte is because she is also a fellow coffee junkie). BUT before we could stop, all of a sudden, it was just, like, NO TURNING BACK YOU NOW HAVE TO GO TO CANADA NO TIM HORTONS FOR YOU. Not really, we just missed the turn for Tim Hortons and then got scared because there was a MASSIVE line of cars trying to get into America and there was no turning back now.

Going through the border was fine, I was worried I was going to have a bout of nervous laughter and then the border cop would have thought we were high and made us take ALL of our shit out of the car but I restrained myself and we passed through safely.

We FINALLY stopped at a Tim Hortons and it was actually pretty good (see vlog).What pisses me off most about Canada is that it just seems to be America on ice. The Tim Hortons we stopped at even took AMERICAN MONEY! They have Staples there and stuff like that. I don't understand why Canada can't have it's own office supply store....called Mountie's Memos maybe, that's just a suggestion. Charlotte explained to me that Canada has our fast food places because fast food is SUCH an American thing, so I get that BUT I still think they should have their own stuff. Such as Tim Hortons, that's totally 100% Canadian.

Canada was actually pretty boring. We went back through the border, thankfully we didn't have to wait hours, it was pretty quick. The guy didn't even ask us about our fruits and vegetables so we got to keep our carrots. YAY

New York

A little bit behind on our blogging, but we've definitely set off! Day one of the trip, we started through New York and stayed in Rochester for the night, hosted by the lovely Maeve and Ben. IT WAS FANTASTIC TO SEE YOU!

In Rochester Maeve cooked us these AMAZING fish tacos and then we went and walked around a bit. Where Maeve and Ben live is very beautiful and quaint. We ate gelato and it was awesome. In the morning, Maeve made us pancakes with strawberries and real whipped cream, that was also awesome. We said a heartfelt goodbye and were on our way.

We started keeping a roadkill count on day one, but this slowly grew tiresome...anyway Roadkill Log for New York: 1 Possum (3 pts), 1 Deer (10 pts), 4 Lg. Unknown (2 pts each), 1 Raccoon (4 pts), 1 Turkey (?) (2 pts), Hit in Process (.5 pts), 5 Unknown (1 pt each), Sm. Unknown (.75 pts), 1 Unknown Bird (.5 pts).

Anyway, we also went to Niagara Fallzz! (there was some roadrage, so please excuse the language):

a cooperative post by rachael and charlotte