Crossing the pacific to L.A. was easier than I thought. I arrived deprived of sleep and the immigration and customs check was less of a hassle than I originally thought it would be. The change is less drastic that I thought it would be. Yes, there is traffic and a few skyscrapers rise up high. But there are also palm trees, most people speak Spanish (or rather Mexican) and it’s about the same climate as on the Cook Islands.
I arrived at Raoul’s place where I would be spending the next three nights and was hearty welcome. Sue, his girl friend was also around and the two are some of the funniest people I’ve ever met. For example, Sue has a sign in her car saying “You are loved!” (the back of it is scribbled with the lovely lyrics of “Bowl of Oranges” by Bright Eyes, excellent!) that she lifts whenever she wants to excuse her sometimes a bit uhm, spontaneous driving.
Raoul and Sue took me to Venice and its very nice and alternative beaches. Now and then you lift your eyebrow as a sweet breeze of marijuana blow by. You see beggars and bums, street artists and tourists, beautiful girls in tight clothes. There are shops selling T-shirts, “medically prescribed” weed, and even botox! We had some Pupusas as afternoon snack and joined a drum circle on the beach for a couple of minutes. Wild.
The funny thing about L.A. is that nobody ever walks. Probably that’s also a rule for other cities. People not in cars or buses, they even are suspicious. I need to get a car as soon as possible.
It was getting late and we drove to the Griffith Observatory, that offers a great view over L.A. — we were not the only ones with that idea and so it was not so easy to find a parking spot. The rest of the evening we spent cooking a very delicious meal (thanks again), drinking wine and beer and playing Super Mario. I think I went to bed (couch) at around 2am.
The next morning and afternoon I spent on my computer trying to organize my next steps. I had to get my iPod touch replacement and a new phone. Yeah, I was successful with the former, but the phone had to wait until the next day. Raoul, Nicola (his flatmate) and I went to Hollywood to “School Night” with various live bands. It’s been a good night. I went to bed around 1am.
I got up rather early and again spent some time on the laptop (it also took some time to setup my iPod) before being able to lift my ass to get that new mobile phone . This is not as straight forward as it seems. In the US, most carriers use a CDMA network instead of GSM, so if I blindly bought a Sprint phone, I would not be able to use it in Europe. Also, the pre-paid mobiles I had seen the day before were locked to the sim cards of the providers — causing the same problem. So I knew I wanted a SIM-unlocked Android GSM phone with wifi to be able to use tethering with my iPod and laptop. Couldn’t be too hard, right?
The guy at the shop gave me an Samsung Galaxy 5 (I5500) and a T-Mobile pre-paid sim card which he said would work better with Android phones (why?) instead of H2O Wireless I initially had in mind. Only later at home I found out that he had given me the UK model with a UK power adapter (sigh) and somehow it would not use 3G speeds for data but only the slow-as-hell EDGE. It took me two more days to figure out that the phone was unable to operate on 1700 MHz that is used for HSDPA on the T-Mobile network. If I had chosen H2O Wireless (based on the AT&T) network, it would have been no problem. But instead I tried to root the phone and install a CM7 update of Android (it was only running version 2.2) to be able to reflash the baseband modem to an American version to fix the EDGE issue. It took me several hours to get there. But as I said, the hardware simply doesn’t support the frequency band necessary. Which means I will have to buy H2O Wireless SIM card after all (and so I wasted 85 USD for T-Mobile). Or I’ll wait a month to use up my current plan. Until further notice, you can try to contact me under +1-323-448-4192.
From the cell phone shop I went to the close by Sunset Blvd to see the Elliott Smith Memorial Wall. It was defaced by graffiti and not much was left to see. Anyway, as a big fan of his music I wrote something onto it and went home. Excuse me if I post the lyrics of his song LA here:
The gentle little Elaine,
Spinning his hat on a cane
Stepping out, out for change
Good morning all, it’s a beautiful dayThe generals are winning a war
Seemed suicidal before
You came alone, now
I’ll protect you, long as you stayLA
One of a kind
You’ll be walking in the sun
Living in the day
Last night I was about to throw it all awayIf patience started a band,
I’d be her biggest fan
Look at me, I’m talking to you
I don’t want the lead in your playThe star’s just a part of the scene
The gentle man in green
Paying off, out on the street
I can’t go home, it’s not on my wayLA
Things are never done, car’s parked in the sun
Living in the day
Last night I was about to throw it all away
Last night I was about to throw it all away
Last night I was about to throw it all away
Last night I was about to throw it all away
(Elliott Smith, LA)
So I didn’t see so much of L.A. so far. I hope that I can do and see some more stuff when Andrea and I are back in L.A. by the 31th of August latest (I got two tickets for Jon Brion at Largo’s that night).
Pulling me away from my sorrows with the phone, Nicola and Raoul took me to a redneck-themed private party that night that I very much enjoyed. Not that many people were dressed in redneck-style, but I had some good conversation. I went to bed around 2:30am.
I had to get up at 5:30am to be sure to catch my bus-train-bus combo to San Francisco in time. Somehow through the night, Sue had teleported herself to Raouls place and she was taking me to Union Station. Great! At Union Station, I got myself cinnamon pretzel bits (interesting, but not much of an original pretzel), said good bye to the great guys.
I mounted my bus to Bakersfield, then the train to Emeryville and the final bus to downtown SF and another one to my hostel. I was skipping Santa Cruz last minute (sorry Frieda, sorry Falzi). I thought I wouldn’t have the time to go there because I added a few more stops such as Minneapolis and Chicago on the way, and it looks like I would be taking the Empire Builder Train from Seattle to Minneapolis (but I need my ADAC membership card first to get AAA rabates, and there are only a few seats left — this puts me under a kind of pressure). There I want to attend to the Fiona Apple concert. Hope that turns out to work well.
Now I need some more sleep.
