Dreadlocks?Yeah!

I feel like climbing up the walls since the internet works and doesn’t work and works and doesn’t work and guess what it works and it doesn’t work again! Grrr! Frustration to infinity... So today I headed up to a neighbourhood called Newtown in which they sell a lot of vintage objects. In addition they have many second hand books and a lot of alternative things. As I was walking around I came a long the thought that I have had for a few days now. I could go back to having dreadlocks like I had 3 years ago. The problem with 3 years ago was that the ppl in Rotterdam said my hair was too thin and they put some “fake hair” attached to mine so the dreadlocks were not 100% made out of my own hair. They unfortunately only lasted a couple of months. The main problem was that they were heavy, they were hurting when I was sleeping and yeah my head was itching (definitely not nice!). Taking them apart was an Odessy. I cursed for a long time after that about my large expense on my stupid dreadlocks cuz they had only lasted for a couple months. After all my previous bad experience and the high prices to get dreadlocks Im wondering why I’m tempted to do it again, its just me.
This time though I want to go real, with my real hair. I went today to ask for prices and if it was duable with my hair and I was told that its definitively feasible. However, if I do it this time it must last more than two months. I’m a bit confused on what to do, mainly cuz the prices are quite expensive....In addition everybody in my family thinks I’m nuts and my hair will start falling once I take the dreadlocks out. Hmm I’m very very tempted........... So lets vote ...what do you think??

The major reason why I have been absent from my almost daily blog entries lately is because I made a discovery when I arrived in Sydney. I realized that at home I had a tripod. That was no use to me as I knew my camera didnt have a place for a tripod. By looking at some pictures online I quickly noticed that the device through which I recharge my camera is also a tripod holder. Therefore I could finally use a tripod camera and take pictures at night without them being blurry :D I still wonder how i never had noticed that! Super excited about the idea I headed to the opera house to take pictures by night. The next morning I headed as well to take pictures of the sun rise but I broke the tripod cuz i forced it :( Im such a loser... Luckily I found out that the broken tripod was a "made in china"and that at home we have a more professional one! So now im using the "more professional one"...but i have to admit its cold at night and Im a bit lazy to go for a walks.. So i havent been taking too many pictures. This is the first picture I took.. i was so excited about it :) --> I sound like a little kid.

And one of the multiple pictures I took early in the morning...

After that, we heded to the pacific drive south until the Lake Illawara. The drive was beautiful, it went first through a national park which had a lot of bushes and trees. Amazingly in between the park you could as well see some kind of palm trees, I found that to be rather strange. They have made a small "bridge" that goes right by the sea and the views were quite spectacular specially from certain "view points" which were made specially so you could get off the car and look out. Unfortunately, because its winter it gets dark really early so by 5 pm we returned home. However, before returning home we headed to a chocolate place which was delicious...we went to "Max Brener Chocolate By the Bald Man" ... they gave us a little milk pot which was geting warmed up by a small candle under it. Thenyou had small pieces of chocolate you were meant to put in the milk stir and it would melt... DELICIOUS! The entire shop was based on chocolate stuff..they were also selling some strawberries with chocolate they looked UBER LEKKER! This trip led me to take a bunch of pictures which I spend the past couple days editing and updating on SXC. Unfortunately, some where not accepted..as the opera house is considered "copyrighted" grr!

And I started my new job, which seemed quite nice. The office is large and the people seem young and friendly (well except the bosses:P --> age wise). The work will tire me since i havent done 8 hours of work for the past month. However, Im happy I finally have something to get me distracted.... But today Im already tiered from my 8 hours of work. Im hoping that ill start geting used to the 9/5 schedule...Luckily I live 7min from work, so I can wake up later and no longer have to travel too far :D

And for all those who believe that catalan is nothing more than a dialect spoken by a small minority. Catalan is the language number 88 out of the 100 most spoken languages in the World. There are a little more than 9,1 million people who speak my language (over the age of 15).

One more in the bag...

I've been a keen collector since im small... Its gotten to a point that I have realized collecting too much trash is sometimes not good. When you have to leave a place you have to get rid of quite a few things, and that is the worst moment to get rid of all those usless collections since one becomes highly attached to them. From napkins,to rocks,shells,coke cans, key chains, airplane tickets,tickets of places visited,candy wraps..and my great Pringle Collection with about 100 different pringle pots ive collected a lot of things which are nicely stored in Spain in drawers and shelves.

Today, I have realized that without trully planning it I have another collection. Since today I currently have 4 functioning simcards. Thus, you can now locate me on my spanish,dutch,czech or australian number. You might first have to figure out in which location I am since I only have one phone,but once that is done you can send me a textmessage...or if you dare you can call :) Actually, dont do that or ill have to pay part of the call :) So for the next month I will not have my dutch phone on anymore so dont text me there..Im anyways online 8/23 (:P) so just email...There might be a few days in which I will have 5 functioning sim cards, just add French to the list above ;-) But im hoping that wount last for too long...

Yes! After a couple days in Sydney I have already made a bunch of friends, let me introduce you to my neighbours and now currently my new friends!!! They are called, The parrots (lots of them,and all very nice, clean,friendly) the Ibis and the ducks. In addittion let me introduce you to their home and the views they have from their home, really tranquil and beautiful (look at above picture). I have to admit that communication with them has been a hard task. I would say that it has been more a one way communication,but maybe its cuz I was unable to understand them when they tried to communicate themselves with me. Im happy I no longer talk to fridges nor toshibas. I missed so much my toshiba pal that i have moved to a new kind of friends. So here they are the parrots, the ibis and the ducks (they asked me not to publish their pic, sorry! --> only part of the conversation i had with them that I could understand). I tried becoming friends with the bats. There are loads of them by the park nex to my house, but they told me they wanted to sleep :(

This picture just DOES not want to rotate itself...so sorry you will have to rotate your head to meet Parrot Jonas!

this is my friend the red beak...

This is parrot xolu eating... (lunch was delicious!)

And parrot ali having some water...also picture wount rotate itself!! :(

Anyways the park is full of parrots,ducks,ibis (picture too blurry, they were running a lot),birds,and seriously BATS! :( freaky ill make sure i close the windows of home ...dont need to find bats at night at home.

Farts and Festivities

Great News to begin the day! Ive got mail.... THE NEW CD of the PETS in the mail box :):):):):):):):):) Oh yeah, thats probably the only group from which I still buy CDs, but its well worth it. Even if they have pathetic lyrics, and stupid songs I cant stop listening to them. Their name in English literally means " The Farts" so that can already indicate how "great"they are.Who names themselves The Farts?? Anyways, I think i listen to them since im 12, or about. Although they started in 1985 I got my first tape from them(yeah, tape not a cd) in 1997 called Bon Dia (Good Day)... So out of their 11 cds I probably have around 6. They mainly play catalan rock, although lately they have moved into more melancolic songs, and of course they are always a few songs against politics and the goverment.

Last year I went to so many of their Free Concerts around Catalunya, it was great. And the non free ones as well,it was a blast..jumping up and down nonstop with their songs, and with some sangria in my hands. Generally all the concerts were done outside to enjoy the summer catalan fresh air..Wish this year I could make it as well. But it seems that this year I will miss all the Festes Majors (party towns to celebrate the patrons of each town ) from each town/village/city. Each city/town/village, no matter how big or small they are have their own festivities which tend to last up to a week. They got activities almost non stop during the entire week for kids,adults,teens,retired, for literally everything. Oh and yeah they have generally awesome GREAT (free) FOOD! The one from "my town" is starting next week and unfortunately I will miss it :-( This year we were geting a concert from Banda Bassoti among others,which I would have loved to attend. Its always fun to go to those parties, you see people all ages,walking around the town at all times, sitting in the grass and in the parcs having drinks. So if you are ever around Spain in the summer dont forget to ask which Festa Major (Catalan!) or Fiesta Mayor (spanish..) is going on. I highly recommend you go to Festa de Gracia (a neighbourhood in Barcelona) which takes place in August. Each street is fully decorated, and they have a street competition. In addittion each street has concerts of various types, and activities for all ages...its trully awesome :) Dont forget to have a caña (beer) or a glass of sangria as you walk around Gracia.

20th of June World Refugee Day

World Refugee Day was established by the United Nations in 2001, so this is the 7th year that a celebration exists to celebrate the courage of all those people who decide to leave their homes behind due to presecution or in times of war. Today is the day where one "must" remember those persons who are either refugees, asylum-seekers, returned refugees, internally displaced and/or stateless persons.

"Enshrined in Article 14 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the right "to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution." This principle recognizes that victims of human rights abuse must be able to leave their country freely and to seek refuge elsewhere. Governments frequently see refugees as a threat or a burden, refusing to respect this core principle of human rights and refugee protection" ( hrw.org)

As you sit in your chair and read this blog...

More than two million refugees from Iraq have fled to neighboring countries.
Thousands of people are waiting to get refugee status around the world.
More people are waiting in refugee camps.
All looking for a home against their will and to start a new life.

So before you close down the computer why not ...
DONATE.TAKE ACTION.THINK.REFLECT.HELP.RESEARCH.

Dont just attend genocide,holocust,war memorials, and remember what you saw, but try and figure out what is Happening NOW. Dont forget that the person sitting next to you could be a refugee himself.

arrival in Sydney

Yes! Im in Sydney after a 10 hour flight from Honolulu. As the pilot predicted we just flew over water with no great views of any specially nice place but the Pacific Ocean.Thanks god we didnt have to do any emergency landing I really didnt want to deal with all the sharks in the ocean!! A few times were scary such as " all passengers and crew memebers please sit down and put your belt imediately". I met a girl in my hostel who was also in my flight to Sydney so we hanged around on our way to the airport, in the airport and in the plane. This made the trip a bit shorter. Its funny cuz there is a 20 hour difference between Hawaii and Sydney. As we crossed, the day line i left on the 17th of June at 11am and I arrived in sydney on the 18th at night!! So I lost a day in my life!:(

I clearly asked the girl who checked us in to give us "the most front possible seats with window"...and what do we get "the middle seats in the almost last row". Woho! That is great service!! Anyways, so now im in the middle of Winter, or better beginings of winter. Although it is raining its not as bad as expected it aint that cold at all, didnt have to carry my winter coat around yet :)Today all i did was go to the supermarket and to an asian market to buy some Asian food. All in all to find out my brother wants to move to Japan...random! Cuz i want that too! And i know my dad wouldnt mind either... SOOO random!

Im starting a job in a few days which is good cuz i dont think i can deal with hanging around in the house all time long only editing pictures,taking pictures,reading books,having coffee,listening to the radio and relaxing. Im just not made to relax 100% for 6 weeks i need to be a bit more active... Im looking for anybody that will want to go to Sydneys Fiddler with me...anybody up for a night in a pub???
Cuz its winter its dark by 5pm which isnt that nice. Why did I wait all the past months for summer to arrive to then migrate down under?? :(

Oh and there is an IceBar here too...who is joining?

Lastly, I have uploaded pics in my previous blog entries in case you want to go back and see some pics :)

Aloha from Hawaii

I did go to Hawaii, but I never updated my blog from there cuz the internet was no longer for FREE :( i know im so dutch... My arrival in Hawaii went better than I thought. I met a girl in washington who told me she had just arrived from Hawaii and she had not liked the hostel at all. I was so worried about the hostel and yet when I arrived it exceeded my expectations. As I was about to walk out of the room a girl came in and said she had just checked in so we hanged around for the day. She was from Sydney :) We went to waikiki to swim in the sea and as I put my towel down,put the sunscrean on and head to the water it starts raining! Grrr!

The calendar was GREAT.... i just didnt buy it. I bought almost no souvenirs but took pics of quite a few!

I go to the dessert in India last summer and it rains, i go to the beach in Hawaii and it rains...I arrive in Sydney and its raining! Grrrrr!! I need to get rid of the dutch weather! Anyways luckily it stoped after a while. We headed to reserve a snorkling tour for the next day to a bay and they ended up selling us a package to go to a Luau. We went to the Luau that same evening. Mainly we saw the typical polinesian, hawaiian dances. Yeah sure it was nice but it was so touristy I got fed up. I took my 3 free alcoholic drinks, i enjoyed my buffet dinner and I turned my back to the dancers and went a bit further to take pictures of the sunset. Once it was pitch dark i figured it would be nice to see the dancer for a while. The next day we went snorkling in a bay which is preserved so its full of fishes. It was nice, but the van arrive 20 minutes late to pick us up. Later when we arrived in the bay we had to see a video on the species that there are and on the dangers of the sea...grr i was geting irritated. It was a nice bay but full of people. The sealife was amazing but the coral was really high and i thought i was gona get scratched while swiming ontop of the rocks :S niet mooi :S In addittion it was still cloudy and partly raining....

Hawaii was the paradise for Japanese tourist. It was PACKED with japanese people, half of the shops were in Japanese, half of the signs where in Japanese. The only thing that made me think that the island could belong to USA was that in McDonalds you could get a double bigmac. Which I did not go for...Oh in McDonalds with your menu you got a tray of fresh pineapple! LEKKER!! The island was made for families with kids and also for people that were geting married. It was full of limos and of nice hotels... I stayed at the hostel (ik ben niet een loser...maar ik heb geen geld..) Maar mijn hostel was bijn het strand!heel mooi.

BTW, these dutch sentences are intended for jingaling since i think she needs to have a laugh (at my dutch level) these days due to her stress with thesis. I am not willing to write all the blog in dutch or that will cost me too much time.. :)

The next day I was a bit fed up of waikiki the tourists, the kids and the families. Specially cuz my fiancee charles hull had stayed in holland (LOL!) so I went up to the north shore of the island. Everybody had told me north shore was fab and indeed it was. It did take me two hours to get there by public transport but it was beautiful! Almost no turists, amazing transparent blue water. As i was swiming in the water i suddenly encountered a rock. I hate rocks so i started swiming away from it, all to realize that the rock was still by me! HOW WAS THAT POSSIBLE! and suddenly the people said TURTLE! it was a gigantic sea turtle!!!! wicked!

The next day i signed up for a tour and we took a boat to sea wild dolphins. It was so nice, we saw the dolphins,there were many of them and they were jumping in the air etc. Later on we went snorkling and saw some gigantic tourtles again. Although the tour was awesome I didnt like the fact that we were partly rushed through it. I really liked it in Brazil when I was small we would do these tours were we would sail,snorkel eat etc..but all in brazilian relaxed time. In Hawaii we were doing it all in 3 hours and you couldnt enjoy it as much... :( But it was great.

I was on a waiting list to leave on the 17th and finally made it to the plane! So i didnt have to stay till the 20th. If I would of have had the 3 extra days I would of have headed to Pearl Harbour and also to the north shore again cuz that was the place to be for tranquility and beauty. However Im happy im home because Im not someone who can deal too much with beach. Although I love snorkling i cant lay in the beach for 8 days in a row! Also to be honest Hawaii wasnt the cheapest place ever.

And if you ever encounter a CheesecakeFactory or a Cheesburger in Paradise, I suggest you go in, they are great!!!!

Dont jump off the bridge, just bike it!

So i woke up early today cuz my back was hurting and decided that i would bike the bay. I just had to strech a bit and the back pain was gone. I would cross the golden gate bridge until a town called Sausalito that is meant to be really nice. So I didnt even think about the fact that this city has hills and about the fact that a bridge is HIGH! And went to one of the rental places and rented a bike. In order to get to the biking place i took the cable car, the old one. Yeah being so touristy it cost me 5 dollars :S But as a tourist I had to do it and lets face it it was so cool :D And cuz it was early in the morning I managed to not have to wait in line! Great :) Previously to that the hostel had asked me to switch rooms,so now im in an overcrowded room.


Anyways. I got to the biking thing and got my bike. It was very new and nice, but i still miss my fiets from Den Haag :( I still get emails from people who want to buy it! Grr if only they wanted my bed!! I started biking by the shore and then after a while,there it came the chain got off. But im an expert in fixing bikes (not really,but whatever..) so i fixed it. Once everything was settled and as i was geting closer to the bridge the uphill started. And up i rode. I had to stop in the middle, i just have to face that im not in shape :) So i rode and rode and rode a bit more till the bridge. Taking a lot of pictures and asking people to take pictures of me :) Then another hill..and finally on the bridge.

Here is where the story began. The bridge had a nice high fence,which suddenly stoped, it was windy and my baggy pants were geting tied to the chain. There were two fences the normal red one, not very high and a new metalic one. BUt the high and new metalic one is the one that suddenly stoped. All in all i was freaked out i was gona fall off the bridge. Do remember that im kind of freak out of hights. SO i dedcided to enjoy the panoramic view as I was walking and I walked the bridge with the bike by me. At some point i was asked if i was fine cuz i was walking with a bike. I tried biking on the left so i wouldnt have to go near the small fence of the right so i wouldnt fall into the water,but there were too many bikes coming towards me and i couldnt just stay on the left. Once off the bridge i biked down hill to Sausalito. That was fine,but again i had to bike down the road and cars go fast so i was a bit freaked out but managed to do that. Once in Sausalito the ferry came after 20 minutes and I took it. I would have liked to see the city better but the next ferry was gona come in about 2 horus so i decided against visiting the city. As you see i took a ferry back to SF not to have to walk all the way uphill till the bridge. Like this i also got a different view of the bridge and city. Later after returning my bike I returned to the hostel for a while to get something. And then met my friend.

It was really cool, we had a 4 hour driving tour of SF up the hills down the hills. We drove thorough the crookedest street..haha i love that street!...so i ended up going to a bunch of neighbourhoods I hadnt seen before. Including the gay neighbourhood in which there were a few cute guys :P Also saw the houses of some famous people. All in all a lot of nice places, like the city hall, and a bunch of squares, places to get better views of the bridge and the city. Really cool!!! Hadnt seen my friend in ages, i cant really say when ...maybe 5 years??? So it was nice to catch up. Later we ate a quesadilla in a Taqueria, very very lekker! And then headed back to the hostel. Wouldnt have minded seeing a movie,but my eyes are tiered so I wouldnt have enjoyed Brad Pitt in Oceans 13 that much....If you are gona watch Brad then better see him in full action rather than with one eye close and one open :) Unbelivable but true 1 day left in SF! Damn,this trip is leaving me wanting to do too many new trips...crossing Canada, west canada, california tour. Also people are constantly mentioning and talking about how great new zeland is..so now i have to do a new zeeland tour, but a long one! buahhh too many. Wish i was a guide book writer.

Oh..btw on the bridge there were phones with signs saying. THERE IS HOPE, MAKE THE CALL... in other words "Dont Jump" I wonder if the phones were working,imagine they werent!

Also,this is meant to be the "coldest"season in SF! Unbelivable huh?Its so nice,its windy and sunny ...not as hot as the other cities. Just great!

dag en tot morgen!

...Weekend at Yosemite

I dont have too much time, but lets see how far I get.


If i have disapered for a couple days is because Friday night I went to Yosemite national park. The park has the wierdest pronounciation in earth, it took me a while to get the hang on how to pronounce it,but i think now im starting to get it right. Friday I decided to chill in the city. In the morning i changed hostels since i didnt really like the one I was at, and later I stayed in the center. I walked around Union Station and went shopping. After spending a bit of money I realized I had promised myself NOT to SHOP and I started window shopping. That didnt exactly work as I got extremly bored. Shoping just aint my thing,but it gets worse if I dont have money. So I went and had lunch and read my new book. If anybody is intrested the book is called: We wish to inform you that tommorrow we will be killed with our families. (Yeah, long title!) I decided to walk a bit more, but it was all shops. I didnt want to go too far cuz by 5pm i had to be at the hostel so after geting frustrated cuz i couldnt go into Prada and Gucci as I usually do I ended up in my temptation... Starbucks Frapuccino for 1 hour... were I ofcourse continued my book. Later I returned to the hostel where i checked my mail and was picked up by the Bug Bus to go to Yosemite. There were only 6 of us on the "bus" (van) which was really cool. We drove for 3 hours until the park. The "Yosemite Bug Resort" was located outside the park. We arrived by night and were assigned our rooms. I got a bit pissed of cuz the price in the brouchure was lower than the one we had to pay...but hey i couldnt walk back to SF ... Anyways,the price difference was duable. So I went to sleep. The next day we woke up at 7 and left by 8am and did 3 different hicks (is this how you spell it???). Well we walked in the mountain is what i mean! First we went to see one of the biggest trees in the park. They were litteraly HUGE (pictures to come soon!). Then we walked up up up to centenial dome where we had a 360 view of the park, it was gorgeous. WE had lunch there were a few squirrels were walking around to try and grab our sandwitches (which were very lekker!). And later we went to see a beautifull waterfall. It took us about 2 hours to walk till the waterfall but it was great, except it was up up up up hill. I was not in the group of fast walkers. I had to walk on my own cuz i wasnt with the slow group either :) How do I always end up as a left over?? LOL the walking was worth it, at some point there was a bit of a breeze/wind which was blowing the water to the trail and it got me wet which was great:) Not soked wet but just a bit of water... The day was exhausting,finally by about 7.30pm we were back at the bug. The problem was that the bug hostel was in a hill and our dorm was UP the hill :s More steps and more walking.... Later in the night we did a camp fire and this guy was playing the guitar and singing. It was nice. Nobody was really saying much,but sitting there and seeing the fire was nice. Also it was very easy to see the stars which was beautiful! The next day we went mountainbiking and then we got to swim in the beautiful and cold river. I decided against it and just sat in the shore,but the view was very nice... Due to some administrative/logsitical issues we got a refund, so I got 28 dollars back :D and I still mostly got to enjoy all the things so it all worked quite fine with me. Last night I was droped at the hostel in SF and being exhausted i didnt do much. I met the people in my new room which were really nice, but they all left today. I have been told to change room today and im in an overcrowded room...hope to meet my new roomamates tonight. Both in the bug and here i have had mix dorms, and hey as long as i dont sleep with 4 english drunk guys (which hasnt happend) its not taht bad. Today i have moved room so i dont know if im in an all girls or mix dorm...we will see tonight...

Got to run or ill be late!

...my future...

Today I decided to put my hand in "The Mouth of Truth" this machine that tells you your future. So these were my results.

1.) You often prefer quantity to quality whre food is concerned
2.)You dont like others to rush you
3.)You are deeply mystical and intuitive by nature
4.)You tend to put the people you love on a pedestal and naturally yo udont expect them to ever step down.
5.) You risk becoming an easy prey to jealousy and possessiveness where your parnter is concerned
6.) Unless you begin planning yourl ife. You risk passing your old age in poverty

HOw freaky is number 6??? Ahhh!!

Then...
Life:6 stars (out of 10)
Love:4 stars (out of 10) :(
Luck: 3 stars (out of 10) its geting worse :S
Health:8 stars (out of 10) yes, this makes me happy!
Sex:6 stars (out of 10) not bad ;-)

I clearly have to start thinking about my future,dont want to end up in povery!

...towards the evening....

Yeah, the reason that I am writing in my blog is cuz im quite bored and internet is FREE! Ive been out the entire day and im too tiered to keep walking. After my morning/afternoon tour I have gone out to explore China Town, which is massive. I believe its the biggest one in the states. I did a 3 tshirt for 10 dollar aquistion. No matternity cloths though, just some SF tshirts which werent even that nice, they are huge but they will work for Cambodia and Laos and will also be okay as pjs so Im happy :) Its so far been quite fun to write in my blog. Im astonished that i have written so much! But now you and I have track of what i have done :D (even though i forget a bunch of things).Once in Sydney Ill put a few pictures in the entries so you see a bit of the places.

Now I am here,infront of the computer, as always. Its a dell, i wish it was my pal toshiba, but this dell seems to function quite well ....probably will end up reading on of my new aquiscitions. But I am first taking my time to check facebook,sxc,gmail,sinonline,blackboard,bbc and everythign possible in the planet!! Its nice to be able to check those without hurry and for free. But a que might form quickly and then ill have to leave you all :(

...que is forming
...another person in que
.... G is leaving Computer...

intresting comments

Intresting comments:

While we approch to land in San Francisco : Crew please prepare for takeoff! (2sec later) Sorry, crew please preapare for landing.

When we land in D.C. "Ladies and gentelmen welcome to Chicago"

...San Francisco....

San Francisco seems like a great city! Specially after Dallas, this one seems full of things to do. However the arrival at the hostel wasnt that great. I didnt really like this place so I will probably be moving out of here on my last days. Of course the city has its hills and today i had to experience walking up one of them. Definatively not nice! I was planning to take the cable car but all the tourists around me came up with the idea before me and the cueing line was so big that I decided to walk (yeah, im becoming a true athlete by now...). I went to the street with the most curves, so the crookedest street, which i had one seen in cnn, and it was very cool! I also had a walk through the fisherman wharf, very cool, all full of shops souvenier places and cafes. Later on i walked by little italy! So cute, pasta and pizzerias all over, might stop there some other time!I also went to Alcatraz, which is a small rock in the middle of the bay where prisoners were retained until 1963, there was a very good audio tour around the prison which I really enjoyed. The views of SF from the city were also very nice! All in all it wasnt as hot as in dallas, and there was always the breeze of the wind which made me wear my jacket! As far as the rest goes i also went to Ripleys believe it or not museum! SO cool!! :) I ofcourse stoped for my daily coffee to read my book,but i didnt buy an icecoffe nor did i go to starbucks! :) In a way i cant wait to get home, i wanted to change my flight and just get to sydney,but i guess there isnt any point in doing that cuz my family isnt there yet. And anyways, i have always wanted to be in san fracisco!! Well well so see you allll sooon :)

...missing the family enviorment!

Everything in texas was great!! I stayed over at Elianas house. I hadnt seen her for 8 years, crazy. We used to be friends in middle school but she stayed in south america and then moved to the states, and i never got to go back to SA nor to the states so we hadnt had a chance to meet. Amazingly it didnt even feel like i hadnt seen her for that long!0 SHe came to pick me up at the airport and then we drove about 1 hour until her house. Amazing but she is the only person with who i have not panicked once when driving with her...I already told her how happy she should be.Not only once did i tell her to be carefull about another car or about a train track or about her speed! LOL!! After meeting her grandparents and brothers (who now were 8 years older and were HUGE!) we headed out for the Mall..where i left all my money (NOT!). I think all we did was eat eat and eat...Its called the consumption era! We bought a super big pretzel (delicious!), then some fudge (delicious!) we then bought a El nino apple , which is an apple with caramel and choclate (delicious!) oh and before we had had breakfast at Ihop (delicious!) yeah it was all delicious. She wanted me to try all the food before I left texas, and obviously I couldnt say No. If jeans dont fit me at the end of the trip you all will know the reason why. (note: i had a salad today (this is specially written for my mom who might be reading this and already wasnt happy after seeing my previous videos!). After the mall we returned home for some delicious dinner (ribs!!). All in all to find out her grandmother had worked in the UN and spend 1 hour talking to her about the UN and work and travel and ...her grandmother just left me astonished!!So much knowledge! respect! :) It was so nice to be in a family enviorment. Plus the house was so typical american that it reminded me of my house in Mala Sarka in Prague (yeah! i used to live in an american compound). We were meant to go bowling but i literally felt asleep :S The next morning we went to see the street where JFK was killed, and the six floor museum. The museum narrates the entire shooting, the history etc. Its a well recomended museum everything is very well explained and documented! You get to go to the place from where Oswald shoted JFK!! After that I headed for my XL McDonalds Challenge, which I addmit was not able to complete (i didnt finsih my XL Coke..). And later we went up the tower to see the view of Dallas.

The X where im pointing to is the place where JFK was shoot...

Being in Texas really brought me to the real american cities were there is not much public transportation. You bearly saw any people walking,and everything was done by car. That includes going to wallmart (through which i made a small tour!), going to postoffice,going to pharmacy,blockbuster...ANYTHING! Of course you must also take the car to go to the gym, how ironic..

The cars were also huge.Eliana had what i would consider a family car in Spain and yet she claimed, and it was true her car was small.Dallas didnt look like the best city to live in. I mean the neighbourhood areas were great, lovely grasses and houses. Even though the houses were made of wood (who the hell comes up with such ideas!) Specially in area with tornado risks!!I also went to barnes and nobles where i made my third aquisition this week. This is dangerous,because im making too many book aquistion. But what can I say one is tempted by seeing alll books on alll possible topics alll in english!! :):) This one is about airbus vs.boeing and sounds quite intresting. At least i have finished one of my 3 books so i have a reason to buy more :)

...Thats all folks!

Everything in Texas is BIGGER

If any of you thought I came to Texas to visit Dallas, you are wrong. If you think I came to visit a friend, you are wrong. If you think im intrested in the state, you are wrong.

I have been send here by ms. shuggams to be her guinnypig. I was meant to go to McDonalds and order the biggest burger they had. That is because technically speaking in Texas EVERYTHING IS BIGGER. I was told that in other restaurants they had much bigger burgers. For instance in one they stack up to four burgers together. Also, near my friends university you pay 25 dollars and they give you an inmense burger. I decided to stick to McDonalds since its what I am used to and order a DOUBLE QUATER POUND MENU ... they largerst they got. So with large fries and large coke. I do have to say that i was quite full at the end, I ate it all. But I was unable to finish the drink which was way too much for me. You were able to refill your coke for free if you wanted to, but I wasnt able to finish the first one. Here is the proof of experiment. I hope to recieve my pay soon (!!!)


(Even if it sais image coming soon , just press play and it will play)

And a while later...the work in progress....

in my way to Dallas..

So I have finally passed all the police tests!!And i am in the Businsess lounge which does have free internet in D.C.!! I was told the first metro would run at 5 am so i wake up at 4.45 to go take the first metro to the airport all to find out that the new recepcionist sais the first metro is at 5.30. The previous night I was told a taxi would cuz at least 25 dollars. Yet, the new recepcionist said it was gona be 15. Halfly confused, i opted for the taxi and to get myself as quick as possible to the airport! I had to walk 1 block to go to a hotel and take a taxi from there. In the middle of the street there was a police car with its light on, and a black person was geting arrested and the policeman was shouting at him. It kinda freaked me out. Luckily the taxi driver was super uber nice, and I got to the airport safely..and all for 15 dollars! (who told me it was gona be 25..buah, the mean person at the reception the day before!) Well im on my way to Elianas house... :)

Arrival in Washington D.C.

Once again when I arrived at the airport of Chicago i got tested for everything, even drugs! Buah...Shoes, backpack everything was checked!Once again, i dont remember the flight. Mysteriously I woke up when they asked for dirnks, drank my orange juice and then back to sleep. When I arrived in D.C. i went to the hostel where I was able to check in. The heat was horrible and I took a quick shower. I met a south korean girl who had just checked in too, so we both headed towards Arlington Cementary. All the "heroes" of war are burried there together wit JFK. I then headed to georgetown on my own. The place has a lot of very little and normal shops and also a big mall. I had to walk quite a bit from the metro station. The heat was hurrendous and I started to burn myself. Cuz I continue on my jean "mood" my legs are whiter than an A4 paper. but my shoulders were red and I got burned due to the strong D.C. sun! I had to go to a pharmacy to get some cream and I also bought some flipfloops as my previous one (bought for 0.99cents last year in blokker in middleburg) ended their journey in Chicago. I found some sunglasses for 5 bugs,and had to acquire them as wella s my eyes were hurting. Im now in a complete fashion with my new italian style glasses.In addition I have got blisters in my toes and tring to walk has become quite an adventure. DC is nota city that I really like. Everybody (except one girl) in the hostel thinks its a strange city. Maybe I should head to the outskirts but the center (which is huge) is all governemental builduings. Capitol,white house...and its so hard to find shops,restaurants and a bit of life..specially in the weekend!! The metro stations are grey and of pure cement. VERY UGLY. However, the monuments are nice. Chicago was very cheap for transportation. One way was 2 dollars (which is a lot) but you could get 2 day ticket for 9 dollars!!! Yet, here in D.C. a ticket is at least 1.35 buff... and 1 day ticket is already 7 dollars!!On my second day I went to visit the capitol. They gave me free tickets (all museums are free in D.C.!!) They give free tickets but you must usually wait at least two hours until you can go in. They are in a first come first serve basis,so sometimes by 9am the tickets for the entire day are gone. Thats why i didnt make it into many places. So in those two hours i went walking to the washington monument. Very typical landmark of D.C. But the heat hit me too hard and I had to take some waterbottles from a race they were doing right there for prevention of breast cancer. If i wouldnt have had those water bottles ...buah id die! After the capitol i headed for lunch,and then to starbucks since I couldnt walk anylonger on the heat. Im gona quit starbucks since Itisa lmost as expensive as lunch. What pissedme off is that I couldnt take my spray sunscream in the capitol, so I had to thwo it out!! I had bought it yestuday so after the tour I went back to the trash and took my cream back :)The last day I went to the holocust memorial musuem which was HUGE! It was nice, and free and I had to wait again to get in. However, I have been overflowded with holocust info since i am in highschool. Visiting Teresin,Auschwitz and others...and having a highschool teacher that was extremly into the holocust ...thus this museum I looked,but in 1 hour I was out of it. (it was meant to take 2 hours...) The degree of obesity in theis country is strting to strike me. Yesturdy I was in the lift with a woman who was breathing in and out. I thought she was gona die! Im not close to fit, and I feel so in shape here, its disgusting! Every third person is obesse and they still sit and have a super large double chocolate starbucks coffe with cream, and an XL mcdonalds meal. Honestly, DISGUSTING! As I was in starbucks, I ordered a small size and they gave me something that in Europe would be considered medium. it was ubersweet and couldnt really finish it.Ive been eating shit for the past 4 days and I will start with salads, cuz im already feeling bad about it!

Had dinner with Aws in D.C. hadnt seen him in a few years, maybe 5? Yeah something like that..

The hostels have goten worse as I go,but they are still okay. IM still on budget but trying not to spend too much (note to self : must quit starbucks!). The police in this country seem very "powerfull" and arrogant in comparison with the dutch or spanish police. They have extrem serious expressions. They are build up and they are stianing in an uber powerfull position. They freak me out! Although they are only doing their job.

Chicago...good bye!

As I left the computer afet my previous enry I turn aroudn adn this guy is watching porn in the Chicago library!! Honestly!! its a pity i couldnt stay loger in chicago because the chity has a lot of museums and things to see. Also a lot of neighbourhoods. I wanted to make it to one called Hyde where I was told there are a lot of "trendy" shops and little multicultura cafes but i didnt have time. The weather also didnt help.It was raining so much you cant walk around much. The hostel in chciacgo was the HI-Chicago and it was a big builduing with big common room. It was much harder to socialize with people than in tornonto due to the structure of the hostel. However due to the FREE dinner the last day i was able to meet some people, also in the FREE tour :) Unfortunately I had to wake up early, at 4am. I had to take the metro to the airport (which takes 1 hour) and i was very afraid of. I thought there would be a bunch of beggars attacking me (i know, im paranoid!) but the streets were empty. I found this beggar in the metro who was really nice, haha he even wanted to help with my luggage!! (not needed though). After 1 hour of metro I made it to the airport. However due to early wakening there was no FREE breakfast for me :S The hostel was kind of wierd, in the sense that there were pepole of all ages. Chicago has a great shopping areas, but unfortuanely I didnt have time to go and explore them. Plus, i would have hit myself in teh back if i come to USA and spend an entire day just shopping (might do that in Dallas though :) ) I loved the mutlticulutralism of the city, it leads to a lafrge range of diverse restaurants. I read somewhere that there were more african americans than white people in teh city,and so far i would agree with that! Also, a lot of beggars around,but I havent had any problems with that.

People keep wondering wher I am from, and I have been told in Tornonto that I could pass by alocal. I think I could make up my nationality. Although the problem comes when you say you are from a palce and it turns out you meet somewhere from there... Hmm i think ill be from Argentina next, at least i can imitate the accent!

P.S. due to my lack of time in the internet I type duper fast...therefore no commas...ill try to change that :-)