This time I dove into everyday life basically instantly - returned to the office next morning. Transition was not very smooth, but weekend was close and that really helped. I have been back for 20 days already and the pace has still now slowed down - probably never will :) Making a note of giving myself more time in the future to get back into my daily doings. And no, it is not a very good idea to postpone things with adding a note of "will do once I'm back" - bad idea right there!
Now, but I came here to give a bit of a summary and to look back at the trip from my everyday life. Well, all in all - it was one of the greatest experiences, the places I visited were wonderful and I got a glimpse of a world I always dreamed of visiting. While being there I saw and heard of all those amazing things I didn't have time to do this time around. Even before I left New Zealand I already had plans forming in my head of all the things I should do once I return :) So yes, I have a plan to go back to Australia and to New Zealand at some point (just to visit of course). It is a must to include some tropical islands like Fiji or Samoa that time as well :) I'd like to see southern part of south island in NZ as well as Wellington. Many areas to discover in Australia of course - like northern coast. So yes, I liked both countries and I will return someday.
My friend asked what did Australia remind me of. Well, to me it is a big country similar in it's ways to US (I know Aussies hate me for saying that) having English traditions and customs. For me, that is a very strange mixture :) And for NZ I'd say it is exactly as wonderful as everybody has told it would be - the only problem here is that the surprise is stolen from you in that case. And the people, yes they were wonderful, mostly. Actually the most memorable ones were foreigners who had moved there. Bumped into couple of rude ones and those were all locals - just my luck I guess. I'm an optimist and I want to believe that people are mostly nice and friendly so I won't complain about the few rude ones, they can be found everywhere (except in Thailand probably).
Australia is this wonderful big mystery island at the bottom of the world that no one seems to get enough of. Now New Zealand can offer you much much more that one could expect from such a distant tiny country by the edge of the world. If I could choose only one place from Australia and New Zealand I could go back to - it would be Sydney. I can't say that I liked Australia best, but I can definitely say that during my travels I enjoyed the time in Australia a bit more. Next time I will find the same connection with NZ as well - just to make peace with the expectations :)
Now I have been totally ignoring my time in US - it was most wonderful to spend time with Jen and Kris, I have missed you! Thank you for taking the time for going on a road trip, I enjoyed it tremendously! Come and visit me soon!
California is wonderful, the ocean, the woods, the hills and mountains, the wines, the history, the cities, the fame, the technology - it's got everything. I'd go back there at any time.
About next travels - there will be trips sooner rather than later. I don't know how I will manage them with my strictly budgeted lifestyle in the next few months - but I will find a way like I always have. Traveling is an addiction and I have been infected all the way to the bottom of my heart with this one. It is an addiction I never want to recover from.
Thank you for listening and good night :)
Cheers mates!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Getting home - 8.10
I was pretty excited about British Airways entertainment program - gimme the movies! But guess what: entertainment program for British Airways is horrible. I did not know that they make such small screens! Also, they start all the movies at the same time, first time they announced it (later they did not bother to do even that) and then you had to select a channel for the movie you wanted to see - horrible horrible system!!
Luckily I have 8h battery time now - wohooo! So at least I got to work on slideshow for couple of hours (when there was not much turbulence). In American Airlines they had power outlets one per 2/3 seats and expensive wireless as well so I thought BA would have at least the power outlets - but I was wrong :( No expensive wireless either.
To make it even worse - they didn't have even individual air flow control above your seat! And the service was horrible. Making a note to myself never to fly BA ever again unless absolutely necessary.
Rest of the time dragged by, flight to Stockholm was fine as well as flight to Tallinn. My brother left the car at the airport - there is no better feeling than sitting into your own car and driving it out of the parking lot after many weeks of traveling by bus or walking everywhere. Stopped by a birthday party and then headed home.
Note from the future: I woke up at 7am all rested and ready to go. I started calculating that I have slept 16h total this week :) Oh the joy of traveling, who needs sleep during vacation anyways right?
Luckily I have 8h battery time now - wohooo! So at least I got to work on slideshow for couple of hours (when there was not much turbulence). In American Airlines they had power outlets one per 2/3 seats and expensive wireless as well so I thought BA would have at least the power outlets - but I was wrong :( No expensive wireless either.
To make it even worse - they didn't have even individual air flow control above your seat! And the service was horrible. Making a note to myself never to fly BA ever again unless absolutely necessary.
Rest of the time dragged by, flight to Stockholm was fine as well as flight to Tallinn. My brother left the car at the airport - there is no better feeling than sitting into your own car and driving it out of the parking lot after many weeks of traveling by bus or walking everywhere. Stopped by a birthday party and then headed home.
Note from the future: I woke up at 7am all rested and ready to go. I started calculating that I have slept 16h total this week :) Oh the joy of traveling, who needs sleep during vacation anyways right?
Day in Atlanta - 7.10
Why on earth is breakfast served only till 9 :) Getting up was so incredibly difficult, perhaps because all I got was 6h of sleep. Little bit of time on the net and I had a plan for the day in the city of Atlanta :) Packed my bags, checked-out and spent another hour on the net replying to e-mails while waiting for the shuttle. Finally it came, the bus driver frightened me though - he was driving, eating and talking to a handheld mobile all at the same time. Iiih. After I got the bags stored at the airport, headed to town by ever so wonderful MARTA.
There is quite a bit one is able to see in 6 hrs :) Took MARTA all the way north to the art center. They happened to have a very good Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition on. His whole life was put to a timeline and lots of sketches for sculptures were displayed as well as many studies about his work. Spent about 2 hours total wondering around the 2 buildings, 4 floors each and total of 6 exhibitions. Now, whoever designed KUMU should go and learn from this art center how to plan an exhibition hall meant to display art pieces - it was wonderfully set and there was plenty of wall space to display the pictures.
My next stop was a park by botanic gardens and then walk southward towards city center. Temperature was only about 24C, but oh it felt like 30! It was baking! I kept walking on that side of the street where it was shadow :) It was truly truly hot in the sun - shorts and t-shirt would have been even too much :)
On to Olympic Gardens I wondered - a very nice park indeed. Passed by Georgia Dome once more and off to the airport my road lead. I got check-in done and I'm sitting by my gate as I write this.
Here is this guy playing guitar and singing right next to me :) Beautiful sunset is poking into my eyes and life is oh so good!
There is quite a bit one is able to see in 6 hrs :) Took MARTA all the way north to the art center. They happened to have a very good Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition on. His whole life was put to a timeline and lots of sketches for sculptures were displayed as well as many studies about his work. Spent about 2 hours total wondering around the 2 buildings, 4 floors each and total of 6 exhibitions. Now, whoever designed KUMU should go and learn from this art center how to plan an exhibition hall meant to display art pieces - it was wonderfully set and there was plenty of wall space to display the pictures.
My next stop was a park by botanic gardens and then walk southward towards city center. Temperature was only about 24C, but oh it felt like 30! It was baking! I kept walking on that side of the street where it was shadow :) It was truly truly hot in the sun - shorts and t-shirt would have been even too much :)
On to Olympic Gardens I wondered - a very nice park indeed. Passed by Georgia Dome once more and off to the airport my road lead. I got check-in done and I'm sitting by my gate as I write this.
Here is this guy playing guitar and singing right next to me :) Beautiful sunset is poking into my eyes and life is oh so good!
Georgia Dome, U2 concert with 360 tour - 6.10
First, before I start with the whole rambling I just want to say that the concert was absolutely awesome! And now the story of a very long day too (21h awake time) :)
From the time the plane landed in Atlanta (at 16:00) to the time I sat down at Georgia Dome in my seat (18:50) I moved myself as fast as I could. Concert was to start at 19:00. If the plane would have landed 30 minutes later I would have probably missed first bit of warmup band performance.
From the airport I zoomed to the hotel which was nice and close and had transfer set up at the airport. It took me a while to get the system and find the correct shuttle bus, but Atlanta airport is quite well organized and managed so no big hassles. Did a check-in and had exactly 12 minutes to head out again and catch the shuttle back to the airport in order to take a city train to town. Not knowing about the distances here and train schedules I figured I'll just try to get to the Dome as quick as possible and once inside then worry about food. I was also pretty concerned about the masses and huge lines, still had to pick up my ticket as well. But whaddaya know :) Trains go every 5 minutes, buying tickets and finding the station and understanding the routes takes about 45" total :D It is super easy to get around over here. So rode MARTA to town, got to the Dome without any problems at all, as soon as I stepped out of the train at the station there were couple of organizers yelling from the top of their lungs "U2 concert to the right" :) Picking up my ticket took another 2 minutes total as there was nobody in line with last name starting with N/O/P :) Anyhoo, the whole process was just super easy - I've never been to this town, I have no idea what the distances are and everything goes very smoothly. Me likes this :D
Allright, so I got 10 minutes left :) Now on to less important things, like food! Last time I ate was around 6am :( I had absolutely no time between flights to get food and they have stopped offering snacks at the flights. All I had eaten whole day was 2 cookies, 1 chocolate bar and a hot chocolate (I was a bit on a sugar high). So grabbed food and watched all the people filling seats. Naturally it took another 30 minutes before the warmup band took the stage - arena was basically half empty still. I was not really familiar with Muse before (I know I know, don't give me hard time about it) but they were awesome :) Got the crowd that was there pretty riled up. They played for about 1h and then there was another 30 minute break.
By 20:45 the arena was about 75% filled. Time ticked on. Tension was growing and growing. Seats were slowly filling up. It was getting closer and closer to 9. :D I'm good huh :D AND then they appeared, there they were!! Right there, in front of thousands of people screaming from top of their lungs and clapping and whistling and taking photos. I have the video clip on my mobile :) They started with 2 newer songs and then few older ones. I was just carried to another dimension - darn they are good. When Bono held the microphone up every single person was singing along - it was like a quire, everybody seemed to sing the tune and words were very well understandable (that is what you get when being in a concert of native English speakers :) wonderful, that would never happen in front of a foreign speaking public, there it would be just a steady humming). When public was asked to raise their hand and wave then every single person in the arena raised both their arms immediately and started waving frantically - it was the coolest thing ever :)
Time flew by. At some point, maybe after an hour or so there started to come some pretty strong political messages. First about Arabic countries, then about Burma and then about Africa. Last message was mostly just about the money raised for helping get medication for AIDS. Well, I gotta admit that the whole crowd just kinda froze during those speeches. In my opinion it was a bit too much - could have stopped after the second thingie :) But perhaps it was just me. During the older songs the crowd was just melting away though. It was fabulous
From the time the plane landed in Atlanta (at 16:00) to the time I sat down at Georgia Dome in my seat (18:50) I moved myself as fast as I could. Concert was to start at 19:00. If the plane would have landed 30 minutes later I would have probably missed first bit of warmup band performance.
From the airport I zoomed to the hotel which was nice and close and had transfer set up at the airport. It took me a while to get the system and find the correct shuttle bus, but Atlanta airport is quite well organized and managed so no big hassles. Did a check-in and had exactly 12 minutes to head out again and catch the shuttle back to the airport in order to take a city train to town. Not knowing about the distances here and train schedules I figured I'll just try to get to the Dome as quick as possible and once inside then worry about food. I was also pretty concerned about the masses and huge lines, still had to pick up my ticket as well. But whaddaya know :) Trains go every 5 minutes, buying tickets and finding the station and understanding the routes takes about 45" total :D It is super easy to get around over here. So rode MARTA to town, got to the Dome without any problems at all, as soon as I stepped out of the train at the station there were couple of organizers yelling from the top of their lungs "U2 concert to the right" :) Picking up my ticket took another 2 minutes total as there was nobody in line with last name starting with N/O/P :) Anyhoo, the whole process was just super easy - I've never been to this town, I have no idea what the distances are and everything goes very smoothly. Me likes this :D
Allright, so I got 10 minutes left :) Now on to less important things, like food! Last time I ate was around 6am :( I had absolutely no time between flights to get food and they have stopped offering snacks at the flights. All I had eaten whole day was 2 cookies, 1 chocolate bar and a hot chocolate (I was a bit on a sugar high). So grabbed food and watched all the people filling seats. Naturally it took another 30 minutes before the warmup band took the stage - arena was basically half empty still. I was not really familiar with Muse before (I know I know, don't give me hard time about it) but they were awesome :) Got the crowd that was there pretty riled up. They played for about 1h and then there was another 30 minute break.
By 20:45 the arena was about 75% filled. Time ticked on. Tension was growing and growing. Seats were slowly filling up. It was getting closer and closer to 9. :D I'm good huh :D AND then they appeared, there they were!! Right there, in front of thousands of people screaming from top of their lungs and clapping and whistling and taking photos. I have the video clip on my mobile :) They started with 2 newer songs and then few older ones. I was just carried to another dimension - darn they are good. When Bono held the microphone up every single person was singing along - it was like a quire, everybody seemed to sing the tune and words were very well understandable (that is what you get when being in a concert of native English speakers :) wonderful, that would never happen in front of a foreign speaking public, there it would be just a steady humming). When public was asked to raise their hand and wave then every single person in the arena raised both their arms immediately and started waving frantically - it was the coolest thing ever :)
Time flew by. At some point, maybe after an hour or so there started to come some pretty strong political messages. First about Arabic countries, then about Burma and then about Africa. Last message was mostly just about the money raised for helping get medication for AIDS. Well, I gotta admit that the whole crowd just kinda froze during those speeches. In my opinion it was a bit too much - could have stopped after the second thingie :) But perhaps it was just me. During the older songs the crowd was just melting away though. It was fabulous
Day in Oakland CA - 5.10
I had a day off today :) Jenny had to go to work and I had couple of option of what I could do, but I decided to take a day off. I got my computer already and all the rest of the shopping was done (and much more than originally planned) so no need to go to the mall.
I basically upgraded and transferred data to my macbook, watched whole lotta CSI :) and walked around in Oakland city center. Jenny lives just couple of blocks from the lake so that was easy :)
It was a good and relaxed day. In the evening got pizza delivery, Jenny opened a bottle of wine and we just indulged. Talked about life and just enjoyed the evening. Life's good :) Oh we watched new season of House as well! Darn I miss US TV shows! I gotta check out the streamed series and how it all works.
I have to talk about food now :) The pizza delivery was awesome - Domino's pepperoni and order of cheesy bread. Now I have no idea what they do differently here, but it is soo yummy, I tried Domino's in Australia and NZ, but nope, US one is the best. Also their Chinese deli food rocks :) Panda Express for an example has cream cheese won tons that I have not found in many places - those are my favourite, with sweet and sour cheese (none of that sticky blend stuff we got in Estonia, but good strong and runny one :) ). Let's see what have I eaten here in the past few days:
beagles/cream cheese, cheese/crackers and soda, ribs/fries and soda, burger on sourdough bread/fries, Cesar's salad, pizza, Belgian waffle with butter and syrup/English muffin with peanutbutter, huge roasted chicken salad, Chinese (basically lots of deep fried meat) and soda.
I gotta admit that the first lunch I'm gonna have at home I'm gonna enjoy eating boiled potatoes! I have probably gained 5 kilos with those few days here since all there is is fried stuff and soda (limonaad). Food here tastes good, but is so incredibly unhealthy. People eat so unhealthily here it is unbelievable. The have probably 5-6 cans of soft drinks a day. I can't wait to eat proper food again instead of this deep fried potatoes, deep fried meat and lots of greasy bread. Basically that is just what is available. It is possible to eat proper food as well, but it is just so much more complicated to get it.
I basically upgraded and transferred data to my macbook, watched whole lotta CSI :) and walked around in Oakland city center. Jenny lives just couple of blocks from the lake so that was easy :)
It was a good and relaxed day. In the evening got pizza delivery, Jenny opened a bottle of wine and we just indulged. Talked about life and just enjoyed the evening. Life's good :) Oh we watched new season of House as well! Darn I miss US TV shows! I gotta check out the streamed series and how it all works.
I have to talk about food now :) The pizza delivery was awesome - Domino's pepperoni and order of cheesy bread. Now I have no idea what they do differently here, but it is soo yummy, I tried Domino's in Australia and NZ, but nope, US one is the best. Also their Chinese deli food rocks :) Panda Express for an example has cream cheese won tons that I have not found in many places - those are my favourite, with sweet and sour cheese (none of that sticky blend stuff we got in Estonia, but good strong and runny one :) ). Let's see what have I eaten here in the past few days:
beagles/cream cheese, cheese/crackers and soda, ribs/fries and soda, burger on sourdough bread/fries, Cesar's salad, pizza, Belgian waffle with butter and syrup/English muffin with peanutbutter, huge roasted chicken salad, Chinese (basically lots of deep fried meat) and soda.
I gotta admit that the first lunch I'm gonna have at home I'm gonna enjoy eating boiled potatoes! I have probably gained 5 kilos with those few days here since all there is is fried stuff and soda (limonaad). Food here tastes good, but is so incredibly unhealthy. People eat so unhealthily here it is unbelievable. The have probably 5-6 cans of soft drinks a day. I can't wait to eat proper food again instead of this deep fried potatoes, deep fried meat and lots of greasy bread. Basically that is just what is available. It is possible to eat proper food as well, but it is just so much more complicated to get it.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Olive oil tasting & Mission San Miguel Arcangel - 4.10
Paso Robles is not only a wine country, it also has great olive orchards. We wisited one called Pasolivo. Got to taste top notch extra virgin olive oils, olive oils with spices and then citrus blended ones. One of my favourite was tangerine olive oil served with honey :) yum-yum! Got a little bottle of this oil to bring back too.
Before heading back to San Francisco we made a stop at one of the missions here - Mission San Miguel Arcangel. Missions are a big part of Californian cultrue. They started on the 17th century and were established by Spanish all the way from southern Mexico up till northern part of California. There would be a walking path from one mission to the other forming a long route from south to north, path being marked with bells on the side of the road. With time the route got more and more important and grew into El Camino Real.
Idea behind missions was to settle the area and also to educate the natives on religion. Mission is like a fortress, it incorporates the living quarters, farming and agriculture buildings and then of course the church. Here is a whole lot of more information on the matter: Spanish missions in California.
Evening continued with an interesting and not so great incident at the mall, won't go into details, but basically Kristy got couple of coupons for Limited store thanks to their incapable service. But evening did get better with a movie and a nice dinner in Oakland downtown. And of course even better with the decision of taking a day off tomorrow and turning into a couch potato for the day :D Vacations rule!
Before heading back to San Francisco we made a stop at one of the missions here - Mission San Miguel Arcangel. Missions are a big part of Californian cultrue. They started on the 17th century and were established by Spanish all the way from southern Mexico up till northern part of California. There would be a walking path from one mission to the other forming a long route from south to north, path being marked with bells on the side of the road. With time the route got more and more important and grew into El Camino Real.
Idea behind missions was to settle the area and also to educate the natives on religion. Mission is like a fortress, it incorporates the living quarters, farming and agriculture buildings and then of course the church. Here is a whole lot of more information on the matter: Spanish missions in California.
Evening continued with an interesting and not so great incident at the mall, won't go into details, but basically Kristy got couple of coupons for Limited store thanks to their incapable service. But evening did get better with a movie and a nice dinner in Oakland downtown. And of course even better with the decision of taking a day off tomorrow and turning into a couch potato for the day :D Vacations rule!
Hearst Castle & Paso Robles Wine Country - 3.10
First thing in the morning we made our way towards Hearst Castle up on the hill by San Simeon. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst from 1919 until 1947. Julia Morgan worked on it for almost 30 years - helping Mr.Hearst realize his dream. Currently it is a National Historic Landmark, was donated to the state of California and is open to the public. There are various tours you can take up there, each one taking you through different areas of the enormous main building and other buildings in the complex.
Mr.Hearst's parents had brought the land times ago and once the parents died, William was over 50, he started to build a permanent home there. Castle is situated basically in the middle of nowhere, but he loved the area as this is where they went camping with his parents when he was little. Whole estate is about 1000 square km :) Now the castle is amazing, it is huge and it is luxurious. He incorporated different historic architectural styles, there was a private cinema, tennis courts, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, huge library and enormous kitchen with refrigerators (at that time this was luxury), 56 bedrooms (wherever there was a bed there was also a bathroom right next to it - so if there were 2 beds in a room then there were 2 bathrooms as well), an airfield and the world's largest private zoo with many exotic animals.
Castle has an impressive amount of art in it, starting from books and ending with antique ceilings, covering whole lot of paintings, furniture, carpets, sculptures and so on.
In the afternoon our wine tasting tour started. We managed to visit 7 wineries :) Here they are:
Turley Wine Cellars - specialized for Zinfandel's. Jenny likes zin's so we got to taste lots of those :)
Peachy Canyon Winery - specializing in sustainably-farmed Zinfandel, Cabernet and Rhone varietals. It was located in the beautiful Templeton gap west of Paso Robles in the Old Bethel School House dating back to 1886.
AJB Vineyards - a smaller winery, here all the wines are estate grown and produced: Viognier, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Zinfandel and Syrah. Estate is family owned and operated.
Donatoni Winery - another smaller winery, as they say: great trips begin with Donatoni wine :) They use grapes from the Paso Robles appellation for their wine.
Eberle Winery - they celebrate their 30 years of wine making, booklet informs me that this is one of the top 10 most award-winning wineries in USA. Here we got to go on a cave tour as well and learn a bit more about harvesting and making wine. This one was quite established and seemed to be enormous. Our wine pourer told us that there was one Estonian girl working in their winery last year :)
Tobin James Cellars - Kristy is a member of this winery so we got to do the tasting for free and got an extra list of wines to taste as a complementary. We must have done 10+ wines there :) They craft fruit intense wines: Zinfandels, Cabernet Sauvignons, Syrahs, Chardonnays, Merlots, velvety "Liquid Love" Dessert Zinfandel and many others. They had quite a wide selection of different ones.
EOS Estates Winery - very much an established one with quite a bit of beautiful gardening and a special parking lot for Porches :) They were proud to announce that their whole estate and production runs on solar power. Had some nice wines too and whole lot of merchandise.
At each wine testing there is a list of wines that are available for tasting, sometimes it is a fixed list and sometimes there is a list of options from where you can make your own selection. Usually it was anywhere between 5-7 wines, mostly red, at the end some port or dessert wine, few had also white wine available for tasting. Some wineries charged for tasting the others did not. In total there are more than 100 wineries in this wine country :) As I mentioned earlier the key is to eat crackers and drink plenty of water. Usually there were crackers on the counter so you could munch on those as well :)
Mr.Hearst's parents had brought the land times ago and once the parents died, William was over 50, he started to build a permanent home there. Castle is situated basically in the middle of nowhere, but he loved the area as this is where they went camping with his parents when he was little. Whole estate is about 1000 square km :) Now the castle is amazing, it is huge and it is luxurious. He incorporated different historic architectural styles, there was a private cinema, tennis courts, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, huge library and enormous kitchen with refrigerators (at that time this was luxury), 56 bedrooms (wherever there was a bed there was also a bathroom right next to it - so if there were 2 beds in a room then there were 2 bathrooms as well), an airfield and the world's largest private zoo with many exotic animals.
Castle has an impressive amount of art in it, starting from books and ending with antique ceilings, covering whole lot of paintings, furniture, carpets, sculptures and so on.
In the afternoon our wine tasting tour started. We managed to visit 7 wineries :) Here they are:
Turley Wine Cellars - specialized for Zinfandel's. Jenny likes zin's so we got to taste lots of those :)
Peachy Canyon Winery - specializing in sustainably-farmed Zinfandel, Cabernet and Rhone varietals. It was located in the beautiful Templeton gap west of Paso Robles in the Old Bethel School House dating back to 1886.
AJB Vineyards - a smaller winery, here all the wines are estate grown and produced: Viognier, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Zinfandel and Syrah. Estate is family owned and operated.
Donatoni Winery - another smaller winery, as they say: great trips begin with Donatoni wine :) They use grapes from the Paso Robles appellation for their wine.
Eberle Winery - they celebrate their 30 years of wine making, booklet informs me that this is one of the top 10 most award-winning wineries in USA. Here we got to go on a cave tour as well and learn a bit more about harvesting and making wine. This one was quite established and seemed to be enormous. Our wine pourer told us that there was one Estonian girl working in their winery last year :)
Tobin James Cellars - Kristy is a member of this winery so we got to do the tasting for free and got an extra list of wines to taste as a complementary. We must have done 10+ wines there :) They craft fruit intense wines: Zinfandels, Cabernet Sauvignons, Syrahs, Chardonnays, Merlots, velvety "Liquid Love" Dessert Zinfandel and many others. They had quite a wide selection of different ones.
EOS Estates Winery - very much an established one with quite a bit of beautiful gardening and a special parking lot for Porches :) They were proud to announce that their whole estate and production runs on solar power. Had some nice wines too and whole lot of merchandise.
At each wine testing there is a list of wines that are available for tasting, sometimes it is a fixed list and sometimes there is a list of options from where you can make your own selection. Usually it was anywhere between 5-7 wines, mostly red, at the end some port or dessert wine, few had also white wine available for tasting. Some wineries charged for tasting the others did not. In total there are more than 100 wineries in this wine country :) As I mentioned earlier the key is to eat crackers and drink plenty of water. Usually there were crackers on the counter so you could munch on those as well :)
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Pacific Coast Highway 1 - 2.10
Headed south from Carmel after looking around in town for an hour or so. The road that took us down south was a scenic highway running parallel to the coastline - amazingly beautiful drive! This road has many names, official name is California State Route 1, but it is also called as Pacific Coast Highway or simply Highway 1. Drive along the road takes you buy one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world - it was truly beautiful. I did my utter best of not falling asleep - coke helped :-P
It took us about 4 hours to get to Cambria - we stopped along the way numerous times to awe at the beauty of the coastline. Had wonderful picnic with cheese, crackers and raspberries on a cliff. Met a huge colony of sea lions hanging out on a beach :) Stared at wild zebras who are from old times when mr.Hearst let his collection of animals into the woods. Tomorrow we will try to go and visit the castle he had built. Just look at the photos, can't praise it enough with words :)
This time we started looking for a hotel earlier and we were very thorough :) Decided to stay in a small place close to Cambria called San Simeon. Dinner was awesome, American style all the way - ribs! And lots of them!
Evening was concluded with wonderful Jacuzzi :) Today was a good day! Didn't make it to any of the wineries today, but Jenny is making a list of them as I'm typing this text - I already got some hints on how to manage with all the different wines and amounts - crackers and lots of water is the key :D Wish me luck!
It took us about 4 hours to get to Cambria - we stopped along the way numerous times to awe at the beauty of the coastline. Had wonderful picnic with cheese, crackers and raspberries on a cliff. Met a huge colony of sea lions hanging out on a beach :) Stared at wild zebras who are from old times when mr.Hearst let his collection of animals into the woods. Tomorrow we will try to go and visit the castle he had built. Just look at the photos, can't praise it enough with words :)
This time we started looking for a hotel earlier and we were very thorough :) Decided to stay in a small place close to Cambria called San Simeon. Dinner was awesome, American style all the way - ribs! And lots of them!
Evening was concluded with wonderful Jacuzzi :) Today was a good day! Didn't make it to any of the wineries today, but Jenny is making a list of them as I'm typing this text - I already got some hints on how to manage with all the different wines and amounts - crackers and lots of water is the key :D Wish me luck!
Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay - 1.10
Luckily I got picked up close to 11 in the morning. That gave me plenty of time to get ready, pack and have a proper lunch. Drive to Santa Cruz was only about 45-50 minutes.
Surf city Santa Cruz was quiet. During off season there is not much activity as it seems like. Even the hand crafted carousel was not working, with the rest of the amusement park right next to the beach. Seals were working though :) There was tons of them - some playing in the water and the rest just laying around wherever they could find free spots, and if there weren't free spots then they just laid on each other :D
Luckily the weather was beautiful and just walking around the pier, beach and town was wonderful. Headed out after having lunch, down south, towards Monterey.
As expected I was in food coma all the way to Monterey Bay :) It is one of the most beautiful drives in the world and I just slept all the way through it. Jenny and Kristy promised that they won't let me sleep in the car any more :D Although tomorrow we'll get the rest of it and about 4 times as much and the best part as I was told, so no worries as Aussies say (I learned something while down there) :)
Monterey bay was great. There is this wonderful scenic route you can take in Monterey called 17 mile drive. It has one of the most famous and posh golf courses in US and even around the world on it. Check photos on more comments on the locations and information. Jenny's friend showed her the trick once on how to get most out of the scenic road - you go to all those golf club restaurants that have views to golf greens and you order some drink and snack. So we did :) Margaritas, Cosmos and other cocktails were flowing :D Arrived at the final location nicely by sunset - perfect timing on our part.
Marine life is pretty active around this area. During the day we saw whole lot of seals, sea lions and sea otters. Oh and squirrels! Plus pelicans and whole lotta other birds who I could not name :)
Last event of the evening was to find a place to stay for the night and dinner location. Decided to drive to the neighbouring city called Carmel by-the-sea. As I was informed, Clint Eastwood lives here and also has a restaurant. Didn't see him hanging out anywhere though :) Everybody being so tired from the long day, we did not look around whole lot and pretty much agreed to the first offer at one of the motels. Same with dinner :) All in all both worked out pretty nice in the end.
Surf city Santa Cruz was quiet. During off season there is not much activity as it seems like. Even the hand crafted carousel was not working, with the rest of the amusement park right next to the beach. Seals were working though :) There was tons of them - some playing in the water and the rest just laying around wherever they could find free spots, and if there weren't free spots then they just laid on each other :D
Luckily the weather was beautiful and just walking around the pier, beach and town was wonderful. Headed out after having lunch, down south, towards Monterey.
As expected I was in food coma all the way to Monterey Bay :) It is one of the most beautiful drives in the world and I just slept all the way through it. Jenny and Kristy promised that they won't let me sleep in the car any more :D Although tomorrow we'll get the rest of it and about 4 times as much and the best part as I was told, so no worries as Aussies say (I learned something while down there) :)
Monterey bay was great. There is this wonderful scenic route you can take in Monterey called 17 mile drive. It has one of the most famous and posh golf courses in US and even around the world on it. Check photos on more comments on the locations and information. Jenny's friend showed her the trick once on how to get most out of the scenic road - you go to all those golf club restaurants that have views to golf greens and you order some drink and snack. So we did :) Margaritas, Cosmos and other cocktails were flowing :D Arrived at the final location nicely by sunset - perfect timing on our part.
Marine life is pretty active around this area. During the day we saw whole lot of seals, sea lions and sea otters. Oh and squirrels! Plus pelicans and whole lotta other birds who I could not name :)
Last event of the evening was to find a place to stay for the night and dinner location. Decided to drive to the neighbouring city called Carmel by-the-sea. As I was informed, Clint Eastwood lives here and also has a restaurant. Didn't see him hanging out anywhere though :) Everybody being so tired from the long day, we did not look around whole lot and pretty much agreed to the first offer at one of the motels. Same with dinner :) All in all both worked out pretty nice in the end.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
California, San Jose - 28-30.9
Time traveling to the past was great, but I'm still recovering from it 3 days later :) Did not get any sleep on the plane from Auckland to Los Angeles. Mainly because I was watching movies non stop - my eyes were about to pop out from staring at the little screen there :) Also talking to the gal who sat next to me kept me awake. Turns out she is a triathlete and physiotherapist who works with cyclers! We covered a whole lot of useful information about triathlon clubs organization in Australia and I got so many good hints that I can apply to 21.CC :-P I have been bending my brain for a while about the possible packages and now all the thoughts started to formulate and get focused - fun stuff!
Allright, so arrival to LA was good, flight went quickly and no major hassles with that. Had 5h layover in LA :( Customs was awful like always - long lines, lots of questions, forms to fill. Oh and even worse was domestic terminal in LA. Waiting line to the security was about half a kilometer long (and I'm not joking) It went all the way from one side of the terminal to the other and it was snaked in multiple places going back and fourth about 3 times for at least 75m one way - it was absolutely mad. At least the line was moving with a steady pace, longest time standing still was probably 5 minutes when they merged multiple incoming lines. I have never seen anything like that before though :) While standing in the line I was wondering what do those people do who have phobias for such long lines :D ?
Flight from LA to San Jose - no idea how that went as I was pretty much passed out :) Not sleeping on the long flight was catching up with me and I fell asleep while walking around, pretty much :) Once arrived at the flight I was out - can't remember taking off nor landing :D
Met with Jenny at the airport, navigated together to the hotel and then on to town. San Jose has nice little downtown area. Found a nice eatery to chill at and catch up with Jenny - it was super nice to see her after long long time! Due to skipped sleep I was ready to fall over by 6pm again, going to sleep at 7 was a mistake of course as I was up and awake by 2am :D Long story short I never got more sleep and following day in class was a bit of a challenge :) As was the day after that :D
Class - on 29th and 30th I was at Scrum Product Owner course. Course was great, the whole time I kept making notes of what changes to do once I get back to the office :) Beware ;) Course was great, it was wonderful to hear about other's experiences, discussions were insightful and there was lots of good food :) Some photos are here
My evening will get exciting from now on - I just got back from the mall and will start configuring and migrating my notebook :) Tomorrow morning we are heading south with Jenny and her sister - our trip will be spontaneous, will be back in San Francisco by Sunday night. I'm not sure I'll be online anytime before that so probably no updates before Monday :)
Allright, so arrival to LA was good, flight went quickly and no major hassles with that. Had 5h layover in LA :( Customs was awful like always - long lines, lots of questions, forms to fill. Oh and even worse was domestic terminal in LA. Waiting line to the security was about half a kilometer long (and I'm not joking) It went all the way from one side of the terminal to the other and it was snaked in multiple places going back and fourth about 3 times for at least 75m one way - it was absolutely mad. At least the line was moving with a steady pace, longest time standing still was probably 5 minutes when they merged multiple incoming lines. I have never seen anything like that before though :) While standing in the line I was wondering what do those people do who have phobias for such long lines :D ?
Flight from LA to San Jose - no idea how that went as I was pretty much passed out :) Not sleeping on the long flight was catching up with me and I fell asleep while walking around, pretty much :) Once arrived at the flight I was out - can't remember taking off nor landing :D
Met with Jenny at the airport, navigated together to the hotel and then on to town. San Jose has nice little downtown area. Found a nice eatery to chill at and catch up with Jenny - it was super nice to see her after long long time! Due to skipped sleep I was ready to fall over by 6pm again, going to sleep at 7 was a mistake of course as I was up and awake by 2am :D Long story short I never got more sleep and following day in class was a bit of a challenge :) As was the day after that :D
Class - on 29th and 30th I was at Scrum Product Owner course. Course was great, the whole time I kept making notes of what changes to do once I get back to the office :) Beware ;) Course was great, it was wonderful to hear about other's experiences, discussions were insightful and there was lots of good food :) Some photos are here
My evening will get exciting from now on - I just got back from the mall and will start configuring and migrating my notebook :) Tomorrow morning we are heading south with Jenny and her sister - our trip will be spontaneous, will be back in San Francisco by Sunday night. I'm not sure I'll be online anytime before that so probably no updates before Monday :)
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