san francisco

Oh my.

Oh my oh my. Am I so jetlagged I can hardly talk. But also so Californicated.

If everything is bigger in America compared to the rest of the world, then everything in California is bigger in comparison to the rest of America.

I saw a 2 litre Vitamin Water yesterday for goodness sake.

1) My flight flew across the Canadian northern territories. Forgot the Earth was round, see, and so the flight goes over the polar caps, where you look down and it's this most insane landscape - all glaciers and blue blue lakes, for thousands of miles.
Narnia. Where no sane human could live; completely untouched.

Then the plane suddenly turns down over Oregon and the ice just disappears, replaced by square grain farms, also for thousands of miles.

That was the highlight of a very uncomfortable 11 hour flight, in the sun the whole way.

I got a gammy knee halfway through.

2) I've rediscovered Usher.
.............

3) I got taken out by my two gay friends to a gay club in San Francisco
That was an apt Baptism of Fire. It's the only way to really break in San Francisco. I stayed in a neighbourhood called Castro in the end, the trendy gay area, filled with rainbow flags and pot, all over the streets.

A new twist in my reference to home has started happening.

Guy (but actually a girl) at t-shirt shop, in camp American accent: Why is there a 'Miss' in front of your name on your credit card?

Peas: Should there be something else?

Guy: Did you win a pageant or something?

Peas: No dude. I have three layers of bags under my eyes right now, come ON.

Guy: Only people who have won beauty pageants in America have 'Miss' in front of their names on their credit cards.

Peas: Well in Britain, my home, they are polite and call everyone miss.

America - or rather being on another continent away from England and South Africa - has helped me realise a few things. Very quickly. And that is, I now, without meaning to, refer to England as 'home.' Up until recently, 'home' was always South Africa.

It's a sub-conscious thing. Interesting.

4) Walked around Chinatown
And bought one of those AWESOME gold plastic cats with the waving arm that goes up and down. I fucking love it. It's going next to my bed.

5) San Francisco is so unique. It's beautiful
Golden Gate bridge, the gorgeous clapboard houses with the intricate facade detail, the hills, old-school trams (the dude let me pull the bell. I was 5 again. It rocked). It's got this weird micro-climate, where the mist rolls in and it gets freezing, then an hour later it's scorching again.
It's vibe reminds me a bit of Cape Town.

6) People smoke pot on the streets in groups. [Almost] anyone can join, but you have to be a hippie.
It's like Amsterdam, but less crowded. And it's still meant to be [somewhat] illegal. Although the lines are so blurred, it's tough to tell. Medicinal marijuana, available over the counter, is legal.

7) It's very gay. Straight people in some suburbs are the minority
It rocks. I'm not trying to get laid, so that rocks even more. Especially when they're being all obnoxious and dramatic in bars, or graunching.

8) I saw my head office to day
After staying awake for 24 hours solid [jesus f*ck the last time I did that I was 21], and shopping our tits off today in Macy's, Banana Republic and Abercrombie & Fitch [The guilt, the bankruptcy. But then Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren are affordable here. So there], we all migrated to Silicone Valley, where we'll be staying for the next 4 days.

The head office of my company blew my jetlagged and retarded little mind. There's a giant statue of a shark's tooth and a T-Rex in the middle of the grounds. And that's just the start.

It's incredible to be in the seat of where everything Dot com happens. The history, the boom, the crash, and the recovery. I am loving it.

9) I ate waffles for breakfast
I'm in America, dog.

10) I have now done a tenth of America
I have seen five out of fifty states. But that matters not. I'm going to be conferencing in the Computer Museum tomorrow. Hard drives and original Apple Macs and Google servers! Geekgasm!

Rocket scientists reign about me.

California has great juice.