Sam's North American Blog

Ok so no one is actually still reading this right? That would be ideal. After all, this was originally the idea that I could use this blog to write about things that actually happened as opposed to the slightly censored version that parents and family would read. I mean, what you are about to read isn’t exactly going to be the full story either but what happens in said location stays in said location.

So it hasn’t exactly been fun adjusting to normal life after getting back from America but I managed to do it with minimal complaining. However, as much as fun as juggling three jobs (swim teacher, charity worker, waiter) can be, a good friend who i met in Chile was backpacking around Europe and I wasn’t going to miss the chance to go and see him. We agreed to meet at Southside Music Festival in the picturesque cluster of fields that is known as Neuhausen Ob Eck. The aim was to keep things cheap and fun so taking the 150km journey cramped on a train with about a billion other festival-goers was not going to be an option. Also, i hadn’t booked any tickets so there was that to think about too. Eager to re-live the glory days of the American Trip, i decided that hitchhiking was the way to go. After a a bit of planning and a fair amount of worrying, i picked a petrol station that i would try to get to. It was basically simple, take the s-bahn to a village on the outskirts of Stuttgart, walk the village and into a forest, walk through the forest and find the station on the autobahn. Pretty straightforward? Of course not, I forgot to print off a map, this was a tiny town, nobody spoke english and without exaggeration, i took every wrong path that was presented to me in the forest before finding the one that would eventually take me to the station. I suppose you could say getting lost and lugging a large backpack through a forest is a character building experience but stumbling across that makeshift firing range in the middle of nowhere was quite creepy. 

Anyway, I found the station and it was definitely the best spot I have come across so far. Forgetting the fact that I spent close to 2 hours getting lost in a forest, once I arrived I only had to ask 2 people in order to get a 150km ride, which is pretty fucking magnificent in my experience. Although I do wonder if I picked the right people. Being me, I walked up a group of 4 pretty girls and asked for a ride. They said yes but they were also some of the most boring people I have ever met. It was impossible to lay any sort of groundwork with them as I just couldn’t sustain a conversation for more than 10 minutes. That aside, the autobahn has no speed limits so zipping through the Bavarian countryside at 100mph in a car with some beautiful girls was an awesome experience.

Arrived at the festival, bid farewell to the boring girls and went to look for my friend. we found each other somehow and started to wait in the rain until we could get our tickets. 4 hours later we were setting up our tent and despite doing so in the worst way imaginable, it managed to survive the torrential rain and wind that defined the first two days of the fest. We saw some great bands, especially Arcade Fire and Gogol Bordello. Learnt a new german drinking game which is like a mix between bowling and cricket. Unlike in Britain, the beer that sponsored the festival didn’t use their monopoly to charge everyone overpriced watered-down liquid. Things were cheap and all the Germans brought their own beer and were more than happy to give some to us. We got some sun in the end, did some stupid things are probably better left unmentioned. We ended up having to hitchhike into town again because we couldn’t be bothered to wait for the shuttle bus.

On the train ride back, we met the first British girls that we had seen in four days. They sat next to us, we chatted about london and things were going pretty well until they fell asleep mid-sentence. We used the rest of the journey to talk loudly about obscene things that no one else would understand as they didn’t speak english. All in all, I had a great time. The next weekend, 6 of us went to a friend’s house in the country. We all get really high, cooked barbecue, set off fireworks  and were generally irresponsible. that was a good weekend too.

I’ve never really liked airports. The long sprawling corridors, lack of natural light and droves of people wandering around aimlessly make me think I have been transported into some post-apocalyptic fall-out shelter. In my mind, everything is expensive because you know, all our natural resources have been decimated and since the corporations started running the government in 2017, the only shops left on the planet are Mcdonalds and Starbucks. All the listless travellers think they are queueing for their flight to salvation but actually once the cabin doors are closed it’s going to become apparent that we’ve been tricked, and all outgoing flights have been diverted, to the sun.

All of this starts to give me a dull and melancholic sense of foreboding doom, something that I am starting to o.d on as I go through my 2 hour layover in Dallas airport whilst I wait for my next flight into New Orleans. Nevertheless, people have been quite friendly here. One guy saw that I was about to walk to the counter to get serviettes and gave me his. Then when I told him that, I was still going to the counter for a fork, and would he like me to pick up some more serviettes? He tried to answer, realised his mouth was full of food and decided it would be easier to just ignore me. Like I said, quite friendly.

Anyway, I have been travelling for about a month now and it has been really fun. Met some interesting people, including a meth addict who showed me how to make LSD and scam ATM machines. Incidentally, he also believed he was god, or satan, depending on what mood he was feeling in/what time of the day you asked him. But I don’t have time to write that all up now so it will have to come when I have more time.

tony wasn’t joking…

My time in Los Angeles was pretty fun. On on my first full day, I ended up seeing John Legend doing a lecture and mini concert at a friends college. This was quite the surprise, and it was great to see my friend again. The day after, I got a ride from the college, LMU, to USC. As rides go, this was more terrifying than most. When my new-found friend offered to take me across the city, my first thoughts were, ‘wow, I guess he really likes driving’. I wasn’t far off the mark as the guy was a semi pro race car driver and drove me in a lotus Elise. The sort of car that is so low it can drive under a truck. The icing on the cake was when we were speeding towards a sharp turn and he started asking me how I liked America. I was too paralysed with fear I couldn’t even string a sentence together, and I wasn’t even driving. Describing an exciting event and making the description exciting requires a special type of literary finesse. Something that I don’t have…but believe me, if was terrifying.
My next top was USC, where I would be staying in a dorm with a friend for 3 nights, much to the dismay of my friend’s slightly odd roommate. While I was there, I tried to get to grips with the whole fraternity/sorority thing they have. Of course, this isn’t supposed to sound dramatic as it’s not exactly the revelation of the century but the whole fraternity/sorority system is kind of alright, I guess. I definitely don’t like the premise that if you are a guy and not in a frat then you just can’t get into the parties. Although with my suave debonair English charm, this wasn’t much of a problem for me and I managed to visit about 4 in the night, apparently quite the feat for non-member, or whatever they are called. I vaguely recall when I was getting into the Jewish frat party, Alpha Delta Goldberg, the conversation went a bit like this…
Bouncer: ok you can come in if you do the impression of a sports commentator describing Wayne Rooney scoring a goal.
Me: I’m definitely not doing that.
B: ok you can come in anyway.
On the second night, a series of events occurred that culminated in me hiding in a toilet cubicle for twenty minutes…but I can’t really go into that right now. Los Angeles was a lot fun but I couldn’t stay forever at USC, much to the delight of my friend’s slightly odd roommate.
The train ride up to Merced, before my bus to yosemite national park, was quite eventful. I won’t bore you with the details but by the time I left for my connection, Tony, the guy sitting next to me told me about his role working on a marijuana grow-operation in northern California. He also offered me a job there come harvest time in October. So mum and dad, if you are reading this, you can stop worrying about me getting work later on in the year. It’s all sorted.

…i’m re-starting the blog. if you are reading this, then you probably know this by now anyway. I have a few reasons for deciding to use the blog again and here they are:

1. Blogging is fun, it’s a great way of writing about what happens and remembering experiences. Also, writing with an audience in mind is a good form of self-censorship as it means i won’t be tempted to scribble rambling interior monologues about the American dream which will seem really ‘deep’ to me at the time and then really idiotic 30 minutes later.

2. Even if you find my posts really boring and/or cheesy, when you see them posted on facebook you’re still going to read them out of curiosity. admit it, you layabout. you will. i know what you’re like.

3.  I re-read my old posts from Chile and i didn’t cringe at over 50% of them! That’s a pretty good rate of return if you ask me. So i figured there couldn’t be much harm in writing again.

4. Possibly the most important one; I re-posted the kim jong il looking at things blog. That really was a fantastic website. My favourite was the one where he was looking at a boat. oy vey, i’m getting goosebumps just thinking about the nautical viewing prowess of Our Dear Leader. So, with this in mind, who knows what other interesting things i will come across which will make me feel the need to tell everyone about them.

Anyway, the plan for the trip is this:

California - Oregon - Seattle - (Fly to) Louisiana - Mississippi - Alabama - Georgia - South Carolina - North Carolina - Virginia - Maryland - New Jersey - New York

I know some of these places aren’t exactly very touristy, but that’s how I like it.

I’ll be getting around by bus, train etc. Hopefully it will be a bit like that ‘Into The Wild’ film, but without that last bit at the end. You know, that bit. That’s a great movie by the way, you should all see it.

I’m leaving for L.A tomorrow, see you all in three months.

I’ve been sailing for the past 4 days which means I haven’t been able to write a post. However, even if i could’ve, there wouldn’t be a lot to say about the past few days of sailing. The most eventful thing was almost being seasick. Having said that, the five days before in buenos aires were a lot of fun and it was great to see my cousins again. One or two weird things happened in b.a. but i’m not sure whether i should mention it now, or wait until i upload the album of random people (for the photography project) that i mentioned in one of my earlier posts. I don’t expect anyone to give a toss, but if you do, get in touch. I guess the next big thing that I should mention, or rather, should have mentioned, is that I am going to Antarctica. Right now I am in Ushuaia (the southernmost city in the world) but tomorrow evening I’ll be crossing the drake passage to get to the Antarctic, where I will be for about a week.

Ushuaia -
http://www.chuckhawks.com/schooner_ushuaia.jpg
Drake Passage -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkPVwE8XQCs
Antarctica -
http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/antarctica/antarctica.jpg

for anyone that still cares about what i’m doing in south america. you might be amused to know that my 1.5 hour flight from mendoza to buenos aires got cancelled and i had to take a 14 hour bus ride instead. well, i didn’t have to but the next available flight was 10pm the next day. the bus really was a far better alternative than staying in party capital mendoza where the most exciting thing i saw was a man having a conversation with himself. the bus was actually really comfy with reclining seats and all that shit. the only annoying part was the first leg where the woman sitting a few rows down would sing when there was either, a song playing on the radio or when there was no song playing on the radio. she was really butchering the songs and to say i was having murderous thoughts would be somewhat of an understatement as by the time we left provincia san luis, i had already made a rough plan for how i would dispose of the body. we got into b.a. at 5.30, just in time to watch the sun rise and see literally hundreds of students all walking their way back from partying the night before. i’ll try and put some pics up later but right now i’m gonna start walking around the city.

kimjongillookingatthings:

looking at the wall

After some thinking I decided that I was going to stay an extra week in Santiago, which meant cutting my trip down from Buenos Aires from 2 weeks to a bit less than one. On the surface, it may seem like an odd idea. Whereas Buenos Aires is known as ‘the paris of south america’, the lonely planet guide entry for Santiago isn’t exactly the most encouraging thing I have ever read.

“On a clear day, fresh after winter showers, Santiago basks in one of the most spectacular settings of any city in the world…

…A clear day, however, is rare in this smog-blighted metropolis. In art class, Santiago school-kids draw their horizons a murky gray and, although the air has cleared somewhat in recent years, pollution and noise are likely to cloud your first impressions.”

it goes on to say, “Don’t be put off. Santiago might be dirty and loud, and it might not match the grandeur of Buenos Aires - but it is cultured, quirky and ambitious.”

Ok well that’s an improvement…i guess?

But at the end of the day, those bastards at lonely planet are actually correct. Yes, its dirty and polluted and is nowhere near as pretty as Buenos Aires, but the thing is, I don’t actually give a flying fuck. Whether I like it or not, after living here for two months, Santiago is now my home. I have friends here and I don’t really like the idea of leaving all of a sudden. If I go to b.a. I will need to start all over again and spending 2 weeks there isn’t going to be enough time to know the city in the same way that I know Santiago. I can go to buenos aires in 5 years and will have a similar experience to the one I might have had if I was spending more time there now but that just doesn’t apply to Santiago. The moment I leave here, I am saying goodbye to everyone I know in this city and when If I ever return, the people I have met might no longer be here. So for this reason, I think I’m making the right decision in staying on another week.

On another note, although Santiago may be a bit dirty and polluted, it is an amazing city and I would recommend it to anyone traveling in South America. People here are so much friendlier than londoners and there are some great things to do here in and out of the city. I could go on for ages, but I wont. Although if someone is thinking of going there and wants to know about it, definitely get in touch. Also, I am thinking of making some sort of chilean party when I get back to london. Hmmmm yes.