Orange County, USA

Onwards in the Green Danger to visit more friends of Teddies. This time its friends of the family who they spend there summers with in Gothenburg. I’m willing going along as it means getting to meet more locals (well they’re not really locals as they’re Swedish) and of course more free food and accommodation ;). I was even more happy when we found out that they’re not shy of a few pennies and live in an awesome
house with all sorts of luxurious goodies.


“Well it’ll do for now I suppose”

Thankfully they were a really grounded down to earth family. Was interesting to look through some of they’re recent photos of a charity bash they attended with Hans (The Dad of the family) in photos with some of the Kennedys. “Hang on a minute that’s bloody Swartzenegger’s wife isn’t it?” I was thinking. Apparently they’ve had dinner with the Kennedys. Bloody Nora! Was also interesting to chat to him about driving around the Nuremburg race track. I tried to sound as knowledgeable as possible but as he’d actually done the real thing and my experience was only limited to doing it on a video game it didn’t go to well. Was nice of him to show me his spanking new Carrera and inform me that a good mate of his actually designs Porsches (he’s just started work on the new 911 turbo apparently). Really nice bloke though and a lovely family.

Went on a little day trip around the area to see the sights. Visited Newport Beach which apparently has some of the most expensive real estate in America. I suppose it was a pretty nice area but nothing that really sets it apart from other costal towns Ive been to on my travels.


“There are certainly worse places to be”

However my favourite sight was this mad woman pushing her dog around in a baby stroller.

“I take the ruff with the smooth”

Also got to admire some impressive architecture:


“Haha! Fooled you all. This is actually Ikea”

Yes, went into Ikea, but not for furniture. They have a little shop at the exit where they sell all matter of Swedish food and Teddie went bonkers and bought 20 bucks worth. I guess it was like me getting loads of Monster Munch and Quavers when I was in the British shop in Sydney.

Overall a pleasant couple of days spent relaxing and brushing up on my Swedish. I can now ask people to have a drink at my house in Swedish. Useful.

Monterey, USA

After San Fran, Terry and I made our way down the west coast of California in the “Green Danger” (The new name for our rental car, courtesy of Teddie) to visit her best friend from Sweden who lives in the USA with her American boyfriend. Turned up at a place called Monterey where Easton’s (Teddies, best friends boyfriend – I know, bare with me) family live. That’s all by the by though. Booked a motel through some website and checked in where I quickly went for an urgent number 2. All was good until the manager was banging on the door and very rudely said to Teddie that our booking wasn’t confirmed and we had to get out. Trouble was, I was still getting used to the thin American plumbing and managed to block and overflow the toilet with my fresh creation, flooding the bathroom floor. Quite embarrassing walking out of the room telling the manager that he might want to “mop that up”. Teach the silly bastard to be so rude to us though.

Apart from toilet troubles, we got checked into another motel and got invited around for dinner at Eastons family’s house. It was really nice to experience some American hospitality with very generous amounts of food and drink and a family that made us feel really welcome. Although I think I might be noticing a certain trait about Americans. I think they talk too much. Maybe it’s the just the differences in cultures but there was constant chatter the whole time I was there. Its like they talk about everything and anyone. Whereas back home it would take 11 pints and to be lying in the gutter, covered in vomit and crying to get some of your more personal feelings out, these guys do it at the drop of a hat in normal conversation. However they were all very nice and I gladly accepted a great free meal from them.

“And the winner of the best unwanted xmas jumper of the year goes to…..”

We were actually here over Thanks Giving which is an American tradition of celebrating the fact that when the original settlers were dying of starvation because they didn’t know how to harvest the land, the native Americans helped them out and showed them how to do it. Obviously before they got the hang of it and decided to kill them all off in return. Anyway a massive feast with turkey is usually the deal so wanting to be a part of it me and Terry had some turkey slices in our sandwiches in the motel room to celebrate.

Not a great deal else to report. Did a little ice skating to practice before we hit the Rockafella ice rink in New York, and once again I was out done by four year olds as I imitated a pissed up Bambi. Lets hope it goes better in New York. Also went to a nice house party with all of Eastons mates where we were introduced to people as ‘Awesome!’. Tch! Americans. They’re so over the top, ho ho ho.

San Francisco, USA

Ah, the city I have most been looking forward to visiting for my entire trip, and it didn’t let me down. After a hefty 10 hour drive from Vegas I was soon racing up and down the hills of the Bay city just like Steve McQueen in Bullet. Except I had a Ford Focus estate.

Got checked back into hostel land and headed out to meet up with an old buddy Id met in Hong Kong and Thailand:


“Its Ricky! It’s Ricky! It’s Ricky Ricky Ricky!”

Good to catch with an old face and reminisce over the weird times like when he got tear gassed in Hong Kong. Oh, how we laughed. Also nice to have a few pointers in the new city.

We were based in a hostel right in downtown in an area called “Tenderloin”. A place where you really don’t want to go. It is full, and I mean full of homeless people. There is a BIG problem here. Every day and everywhere you go around here people are begging for money. It’s not too bad though. Even though you feel a bit intimidated theyre usually rather friendly and say a nice thing to you then ask you for a dollar. I think I must have spent about $20 in all giving money to various tramps. It felt a bit like a tourist tax. Shame the Mayor of San Fran won’t do anything about it (he's now in rehab).

Its here where you can play chess in the street against whoever is around, be it bum, hustler or some other local. Haven beaten Andy at chess countless times in Oz and New Zealand and successfully coming second in two tournaments when I was young (after crying for not coming first both times as well, I might add), I was feeling pretty cocksure. Hanging around the tables waiting for a challenge I hear a “Yo! Red cap!” (I was of course wearing my legendary cap), from a youth beckoning me for a game. With a dollar at stake I was in.

Although I soon realized this wasn’t chess like I’m used to. This guy was trash talking and jeering over each move made with his buddy over my shoulder shouting moves for me to make and giving it all “ooooo nah man!!” when I finally made my move. Hmmm, Im being hustled here. All the distractions did not help my concentration and I made mistake after mistake until all my pieces were pretty much gone. I resigned before the humiliation of checkmate. I paid my dollar, then went away cursing. And had a little cry of course.

Still, a defeat at chess isn’t going to stop my admiration for this beautiful city. Please enjoy now my photos for you. Yes Mesh.


“Metropolitan Hobbit Hole”


“The Severn Bridge”


“A boat”


“A strange monkey creature”



“And, of course, Jesus riding Kermit”

There are many more beautiful things to see here but those are some of my highlights. The trip wasn’t without disaster, in case you were worried I might escape this place without some sort of event.

Driving a car into major cities is a bit of a pain as parking starts to get as expensive as a nights accommodation so upon arrival I cruised around the city looking for free parking. Found a nice little spot and dumped the car there for a few days. Well lordy, lordy, can you imagine my surprise upon returning to the vehicle that I had received no less than 4 parking tickets to the tune of $300 in total. My crime was parking in front of a fire hydrant. Well bugger me. They put up signs saying you cant park on Tuesdays because of street cleaners but nothing about fire hydrants. Drat.

Moved the car to a better spot then got another one the following day for having left my wheels straight when parking on a hill. In case my handbrake and transmission fail I have to turn my wheels. Good god man. So I now have the San Francisco City Council on my ass. Don’t worry though blog fans. Ive sent them a very nice letter explaining in no uncertain terms that I’m not going to pay them and they’ll never catch me. Lets see what happens next time I go through US immigration eh? It was a nice area that I parked in though:


“They call it post card row because the houses are made of cheese. Hmmm...”

Other than riling the city council and losing at chess I did squeeze in a night out at the rather fabulous and swanky Supper club to celebrate the launch of a new mix CD from OM records (for those who care). It was a very elaborately decked out place with big fluffy beds and cushions all the way around the dance floor. Although the DJ was playing some great music the crowd just wasn’t really there for dancing, it was more for standing around and looking good which was rather annoying. However they did have a highlight where some bloke got attached to some rigging and jumped off a balcony swinging across the dance floor then attaching a giant disco ball to the roof. Very flash. You can see it happening here in this great photo:


“Wheeee! Im a disco munchkin!”

A good night although I should have drunk more before going there as drinks were horrociasly expensive.

San Francisco is a great city and one I could easily see myself living in one day. Its always unfortunate that I cant spend more time and ‘live’ a little more in the cities I visit. But that’s the trip I planned. Im previewing at the moment and I like what I’m seeing. Ok, time to head south. Keep it pumping blog fans.


“I know I left it here somewhere…..”

Las Vegas, USA

“You’re cool, the engines hot, the girl’s gorgeous, a full tank of gas and an open road…. The rest is up to you!”. Anyone with a penchant for mid-1980’s video games who gets a tingle when reading that, will get an idea of what’s coming.

Being in Vegas, I needed a cheap, efficient and environmentally friendly (I’ve seen ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ don’t forget) mode of transport to get around in. So, in true backpacker fashion I made the decision to hire a Ferrari for the day and live out a childhood fantasy of driving around with a beautiful girl by my side just like the classic video game Outrun:


“Simply stunning. Teddie’s not too bad either mind”


“My other car’s a Ford”

Ok, so its not quite the Ferrari Testarossa as in the game, but a Ferrari 348 Spyder is close enough. After a big credit check, and signing my life away to pay the first $5000 in the event of any damage to the car, I very carefully stepped into the greatest rental car ever. And you know what? I was actually a bit disappointedat first. Its very difficult to actually get into, the handbrake didn’t really work (lucky Vegas is flat), the leather was all a bit scratched and worn, the doors didn’t lock very well and the stereo had the worst speakers in a car I’d ever heard. Ah, but then I fired up the engine and it became all so apparent. Nothing else matters. This thing is an absolute bastard. The engine sits right behind you and just roars into your head.

My main worry, having not driven anything more powerful than a Fiat Brava, was that the acceleration would be so sensitive that I’d hurtle off into a wall straight away. Goodbye rest of my spending money, Im going back home. Luckily this wasn’t the case and was easily controlled even though I was very gentle on the accelerator. However, this is a 1990 car and it certainly did NOT have power steering so you could barely turn the thing at low speed. Still, I managed to push very gently into the traffic of the Las Vegas strip and cruise along with everyone else.

At first, it was all very frustrating; I didn’t hire a Ferrari to get stuck in traffic like a mug. But then I got to the front of a set of lights and was able to see what this beast was capable of. Ohhhh Nelly! Hitting 60mph in 4 seconds and still in 2nd gear you realize how much trouble you can get into with this car. Finally hitting the freeway, it was make or break time. Im either going to kill myself, and destroy this car or survive to tell the tale. It was 50/50.

Taking full advantage of the ambiguous freeway driving rules (no lane priority, just overtake in any lane) I opened her out. This car is insane! Im darting in and out of traffic doing 135mph in 5th gear and this silly car just wants to go faster!! I didn’t even have my foot down. It had better acceleration at 135mph in 5th gear than my Ford Focus rental had in 1st. Even more fun was to be had when doing a U-turn at traffic lights. The sheer acceleration just spins the backend out so you spin round wildly, screeching all the way doing a powerslide in front of a row of spectating traffic. Aha! I AM the stig. Of course everyone probably thought I was just a complete cunt instead, but you know what? I don’t care. It was just too much fun. Im just glad I had practice doing handbrake turns in previous rental cars on this trip otherwise it would have ended in an embarrassing disaster.


“Keep your eyes on the road you stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid bastard”

Back on the strip, I began to realize there’s a certain stigma to driving a Ferrari. Driving a car like this you cant help but shout “LOOK AT ME!”. Why else would you drive a Ferrari? Sure there are faster cars out there, but not many that look and sound like this one. Having people look down at you in their ridiculously oversized SUVs you just cant help to give them a wink and burn off at a million miles an hour. You slowly adopt the mentally of a Ferrari driver. That’s right, you become an arsehole. I also learnt a rather apt Swedish phrase for the day from Teddie; “Jag har en liten snopp” (I have a little penis). Don’t worry it’s not true before all you girls start reaching for the razor blades and cyanide.

Sadly though, it was all over before I knew it. I had to hand it back (in one piece, thank the lord beavers heist), pay a ridiculous amount of money for it, and go back to the other rental car. It doesn’t go as fast, it’s a funny green colour, but at least it has power steering and a decent stereo. , back to real life (Well as much as you can go back to real life while being on holiday for over 12 months). Needless to say, I want one and one day Im gonna get my own Ferrari and have a penis reduction (it might take a few operations though).

The rest of our time was spent seeing the wonders of Vegas. There really is nothing more spectacular when driving down the strip at night and seeing the whole place throbbing with lights and buzzing with excitement. Lavish isn’t the word for these hotels:


“Ah, big gay paris”


“Belargio and Caesers Palace”


“Classy”

These places are gorgeous and ridiculously over the top, I bet they must be full of beautiful people all playing Roulette in dinner jackets and evening wear, lets go to that one over there! Oh. Oh dear. Hang on a minute. It would appear all the scum and dregs of society live here in wheelchairs! Vegas would appear to be the class sieve of America. Inside most casinos are desperate people fixated on the endless slot machines, not talking just pumping in coins. Its hopelessly anti-social and over all the flashing lights and racket it can get kinda depressing.

Having been staying in countries where smoking is now banned in public places (and having given up the tabs myself), it was quite a shock to come to a place that hadn’t passed that law yet. Lets just say if Vegas did impose a smoking ban I estimate it would lose about 80% of its business.

You’re better off going to the bigger name, more up-market casinos like Caesers Palace. Having played a fair bit of Texas Hold-Em poker in my travels and thought it was about time to win big at a casino. So I sat down at a nice table with a good ensemble of people and pledged my $40. 15 minutes later I was soon leaving the table, having lost each consecutive hand. Oh well, guess I need more practice. Managed to get a free Gin and Tonic out of it though.

Vegas is the place to come if you’ve got a bit of money to waste, and what with me being a backpacker (and also having wasted an obscene amount of money on a Ferrari rental) I found it all quite restrictive as I couldn’t really afford to go mad. Spent a lot of time paying for drinks at the bar which made me think that if you get free drinks when you start to gamble, maybe you could get free gambling if you start to get drunk at the bar! When you lose your just gonna come back to the bar and drink again.

Did squeeze in a few thrill rides at the top of the stratosphere tower and had a photo taken of me on one of the rides that had me looking so full of terror I looked like a 100 year old goblin (I didn’t buy it and it wont be displayed here).



“Im sure Ive seen this before somewhere”

There were 3 rides that dangled you over the edge of the tower in various manners. I thought all the shit your pants, vertigo inducing, adrenaline rides finished with the bungee jump. They weren’t thrilling but more of a reminder that I really don’t like heights and I should stop trying to kid myself I can get over it. The rollercoaster around the New York, New York casino was good fun but as I had an apocalyptic cold at the time, all the gunk in my sinus rattled the nerves of my teeth and made it a very painful experience.


“Our hotel, which Back to the Future fans may recognise...”

We did manage to stay in a very nice hotel with all mod cons including a double bed for cheaper than a hostel which was absolute nectar after 3 months of sleeping in a bunk bed every night.

I think Vegas is the perfect place to come for a weekend or a few days where you want to get drunk and gamble some money. As I wasn’t feeling too flush I didn’t make the most of it so I definitely need to come back here when my bank balance is looking a little less anemic.

Thank you Vegas, see you again soon.

Los Angeles, USA

Hello blog fans. Well here I am in lovely Spain (sorry America), and the King Kong capitol of crazy people, Los Angeles. Actually, slap bang on Hollywood Boulevard to be precise. That’s right, the street where all the stars are on the pavement, look! Look!:


"I'll be cack"

You’d think a street like this would be as swanky and glitzy as diamond encrusted golden hedgehog. But no! It’s stuffed with cheesey souvenir shops, layered with endless tattoo parlours and sex shops, and topped off with a generous sprinkling of homeless and mentally ill people. Hooray!


"A Chinese theatre in Sapin, yesterday"

Caught a few movies in the world famous Graumans Chiense Theatre (Yeah, I didn’t know it was called that either but it’s the one where everyone puts their hands in cement outside), including the outrageous Borat (a real must see). It was actually the only time I've been watching a movie where what your watching is literally outside the cinema your watching it in (the bit where he has an argument with the producer dressed as Oliver Hardy). Strange indeed.

My big dream of painting one of the letters of the Hollywood sign red was shattered when I discovered they have armed guards with CCTV and motion detectors around it. This is the best pic I could get of it:


"The new Canon INUS 50. Pictures so sharp you wont believe its a photo"

So, what to do while Im here? Well, catching the bus to get somewhere is always an event. About 3 times Ive experienced mad old Eastern European women screaming at the driver “HEY!! STOP THE BUS!!! HEY MR!! STOP THE BUS!!!” and the driver yelling back “You gotta push the stop button if you want me to stop!!”. All highly amusing. Then late at night you get some awesome freaks jabbering away at you grabbing their genitals and generally behaving in an all kinds of unpredictable manners while everyone tries their best to ignore them. Scary but kinda funny too.

As they do a lot of filming of TV shows and the like round here I got some tickets to see The Late Late Show with Craig Fergerson (yeah Ive not really heard of it either). They had a special guest star of Hugh Laurie who Im a bit of a fan of so I thought it cant be bad for free. Was queuing up next to a strange woman with eyes bulging out of her head. Kept talking out loud in the hope someone might here her like “Ooo I need a drink Im going to get a Pepsi”, “Err, who the hell are you talking to love?”. I guess I forgot I was in LA. Sitting in the audience we have a warm up guy who makes sure you’re clapping and whooping endlessly.

I was starting to get pretty tired by the end of it all and getting a pretty horse throat. Didn’t realize how much effort it took to be in an American TV audience. I was pretty annoyed as I ended up sitting next to the mad woman who really didn’t know what was going on. She was jumping around all the time and trying to get lots of attention and generally being a pain in the bollocks. Imagine my annoyance when after admitting she didn’t even know who Hugh Laurie was (nor probably where she was), she gets handed a “Bit of Fry and Laurie” DVD double box set for free. They were dishing them out randomly in the audience and about 90% probably hadn’t even heard of them! And here’s me a massive fan and I didn’t even get one! Haarumph!

Anyway, I did manage to get picked out to ask the host a question. It was rather pathetic (and not a good impression of Americans) that when I said I was from South Wales everyone in the audience went “Ooooooo!” and I got a round of applause. Haha! Silly buggers.

All in though, it was good to see Hugh Laurie even if he did come across as very tired and a bit depressed. I also had to sign a waiver so I could appear on TV. Not sure if I did or not but if you saw me, woo hoo!

Luckily, I was here for Halloween and while back home Halloween is an excuse for teenagers to drive around terrorizing the elderly and infirm, over here it is a BIG party. They have party costume shops the size of supermarkets and on Halloween the queues were 20 minutes long. Now, what could I get dressed up as…. I really don’t have a costume to w…….HANG ON!! You’ve guessed it. Who would have thought that it could have come in handy so many times. Here it is:


"He's quite colourful you know"

In actual fact this was the Saturday before Halloween. The night of the actual Halloween I went to West Hollywood for a massive parade and street party. So I got to wear my costume twice. The street party was insane. Santa Monica Blvd was blocked off and just rammed with 1000s of people in the most outrageous outfits. You looked weird if you weren’t dressed up. Although I saw dozens of Supermen, I believe I was the only one without the tights. Which made it all the more interesting what with West Hollywood being the gay area of LA. Saw many a queen dressed in fantastic drag outfits. One thing about homosexuals, they sure know how to party! Unfortunately I haven’t got all the pics for this night yet but heres a few.


"Superhero overload!!! and a cow."


"Heeerrrrrrroooooooowwwwww"


"The jokes on you butt"


"Strewth mate! She's a beauty!"

Highlights for me included a fantastic Borat impersonator and 2 guys dressed as Steve Irwin impaled with a papier mache sting ray (extra points go for shock value over here). Also a porn star bird with a rat dog that kept biting me and nearly sunk its hell teeth into me poor old Johnson! Will have to show the photos later sorry blog fans but rest assured I’m gonna try and come back here every year from now on as its such an amazing party. It wasn’t so good in San Francisco this year. Apparently 10 people got shot. Where’s Superman when you need him huh?

Did the obligatory sight seeing around Beverley Hills and seeing where such stars as Brad Pitt and Danny De Vito live. Also went past the Playboy Mansion but its all rather boring as all you see is a giant gate and massive hedge. One interesting point is all the houses are made really cheaply out of wood and just decorated to look nice. Apparently its because of earthquake risk. When the house collapses they just re-build it cheaply. It’s the real estate that’s the expensive part. The most expensive house belonged to an old film producer (whos name I forgot) for the small change of 90 million dollars. Pah, that’s nothing.


"Can these photos get any more interesting?"

All around are fantastic cars all getting stuck in traffic and not driving very quickly, and loads of mini Paris Hilton wannabes holding rat-dogs that are too pathetic to walk and get carried around. One curious luxury you get from living in Beverly Hills is that you’re car doesn’t need a license plate. I suppose it makes sense because rich people never break the law(!). The highlight for me was seeing the public toilet where George Michael got caught having a wank in back in 1997. Fantastic. I needed a number 2 at the time I saw it but thought better of going inside. Apart from that its filled with lots of funny looking uber rich people wandering around silly shops filled with silly things for rich people to spend their silly money on.

For me, whilst traveling I’ve been incredibly lucky to bump into and walk past a fair few celebrities such as John Leslie. However, before I came to America I had the modest dream of seeing a real musical hero of mine perform in concert. Imagine my absolute gee golly whiz-bang luck when I found out that he’s actually attending a music production seminar literally 2 minutes walk from my hostel! Imagine also, that not only do I get to see him but manage to have a little chat to him afterwards and get an autograph and a stalker photo.


"Flaming Judith! (Note the ridiculously happy smile on my face)"

They say you should never meet your heroes. But this was the exception to the rule. The man turned out to be such a diamond bloke, really down to earth, really funny and to top it all off he’s a sodding musical genius. Bastard. This man is literally on the bleeding edge of electronic music production talking about all kinds of crazy technology to compose music in surround sound. He’s talking about Dolby 7.0 surround sound not 5.2. Its all very geeky and very interesting. Needless to say I was absolutely made up to meet him and he was such an inspiration to me. He’s called BT by the way. Wrote dance tracks such as ‘Flaming June’ and ‘I’m Loving You More’ as well as writing the film scores to ‘The Fast and the Furious’ and ‘Monster’. A great, great day from completely out of the blue and a real personal highlight of the trip. That’s one dream complete…..I wonder if I can do another.

Spent my last few days in Santa Monica by the beach. That’s right, its sunset photo time:


"Mmmmm....(That's not me by the way)"

Just down the road is Venice Beach, which is a strip along the beach filled with lots of crazy shops and crazy people including this guy:


"Hockey, is indeed, life"

The self proclaimed “Worlds Greatest Wino” singing songs such as “Jingle Bells, Jingles Bells help me get drunk”. I particularly liked his “Hockey is Life” t-shirt. That made it for me. A nice place to go to look at all the freaks but apparently the real wildlife comes out at night and its not advised to be out then. I didn’t bother to find out.

So with a nice tour around LA done with, I guess it’s time to head off to Vegas….but uh oh, who’s this?


“And as if by magic, the shopkeeper arrived”

That’s right. One half of the lovely team Sweden (Teddie) has come to join me on my adventures across the states. Right, I guess we better go to Vegas baby!