The California Trip (December, 2005)

The California trip 1-14 December, 2005 / It was, like, so cool dude!

As I'm writing this it's not even 3.30pm and it's already dusk. From that anyone with half a brain and some knowledge of geography should have figured out that I am now back in Helsinki, have been for almost a week. At the end I didn't wanna spend too much time in front of a computer when in California, so I decided to do this after I got back. So, here, finally, is the story of California that involves James, me, Ferry Corsten's amazing set and, well, sunshine:

Not to waste too much time on the unimportant events of my journey to San Diego, let's just say that after 8,5 hours from Helsinki to New York, I was a little tipsy and completely at a loss regarding what time it was in my head. Another 8,5 hours later (3 waiting, 5,5 on the plane) I finally get to San Diego after hearing random people complain how it was the longest flight of their lives. try leaving the continent for once! :D And at the airport in San Diego James awaits, making the sitting in the planes and watching bad movies (Must Love Dogs, come on!) worthwhile.

Being exhausted from travelling, I got a good night's sleep Thursday night (by the time James and I got to his house it was already Friday noon in Finland) and pretty much avoided jetlag completely. Friday was then spent in a coffee shop and hanging out with another friend of mine, Eeva, who moved to SD over the summer with her husband. Around 5pm started what turned out to be The Big Night Out: Around 5 pm we went to a lounge called Air Conditioner for a drink and then headed to Baja Betty's gay Mexican place for dinner with Eeva and then to a pub called Shakespeare's to meet some of James' colleagues. From Shakespeare's James and I went to 4th & B to hear Ferry Corsten spin. (At this point I should add that until James had told me a couple of weeks earlier we'd be seeing Ferry Corsten, I had no idea who the guy was. I dig dance music a lot but my knowledge of it is notoriously bad.) All I can say is that I think that Friday night was one of the best nights out ever. FC played an incredibly good progressive trance set (James told me it was progressive:), the people we were dancing with were totally into it and in general the best thing was to be partying with James again. Victor Dinaire, who was spinning after Ferry, was really good too. We left around 3am and went to Trent's (James' friend whom I'd also met the year before when there) for a bit and then proceeded to the after party. At this point it was 6am and we'd been out for 13 hours. It took us another 4 to get back to James'. It's pretty much a no-brainer that Saturday was a lazy day and all we did was go eat and see Rent in the cinema. (By the way, Ferry Corsten's a resident at the Avalon in LA and Crobar in NYC, so if you're there, go check him out.)

Probably because of the excess partying and the travelling, I got pretty ill around Monday, but it didn't really stop us from doing anything, and while James was doing his school stuff, I was hanging out with Eeva. We went shopping in San Ysidro (you can see Tijuana from the mall) which was dirt cheap. It's a big mall right on the US/Mexico border and it's got most of the big chain stores like The Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy (all owned by the same company), Puma, Brooks Brothers and so on and so on.
I also went to see the Harry Potter movie, which was actually very good. Definetely the best Potter movie so far (like all critics have said). We also saw Syriana, which is a movie about the US, oil and the Arab world. The movie itself is quite bizarre and has a lot of weird, unrelated elements, but I did like it. I think it's fair to say, tho, that I especially liked it because it shows how ridiculous the Americans are, but also how ridiculous the Arabs are (if you wanna read more about what I think of the Middle East, go read my scribblings from my 3 month Middle East odyssey). As a movie, it did have a lot of problems, but it definetely is worth seeing.

All in all I had a great time in San Diego. The best thing was to spend time with best friend James, but other bonuses included seeing Eeva & Chris and getting away from the greyness that is Finland this time of the year. What ever its vices, California is great. Who wouldn't wanna live in sunshine?

As a final note about the trip, some musings about America the beautiful:
The easiest thing in the world right now is to be critical of America. Of their consumer culture and need to drive everywhere. Of their foreign policy and fervent Christian tendencies. Of their lack of knowledge and interest in the rest of the world. Yes, America the country tends to piss you off with its world police politics and megalomania, but it is also the only remaining superpower and I think we'd be in deep trouble if the US decided to stop giving a crap about the rest of the world. I really do not agree with most of the Bush Admin's policies (actually, I agree with hardly any of them) and I really really hope there will be a Dem White House (and Congress!) after the next elections but I also don't agree with the blind America-bashing that's swept over Europe in the past 5 years. Yes, we need to be critical, but shouldn't we also be doing something? Right now Europe is like a huge sand box where the biggest kids are bickering about who's castle is the best and who's homemade gibberish sounds the coolest and should be used by all the other children while at the same time the smaller kids just sit quietly in the corner. We need to be critical, and I think this Admin has made some pretty serious mistakes (Iraq being just the tip of the iceberg) but what if Europe was stronger and more united? Imagine how much good could be done if Europe and America worked together! Maybe a stronger Europe would balance American arrogance and ignorance. _{Or maybe I'm just daydreaming due to serious lack of sunshine in Finland}.

I disagree strongly with the war in Iraq simply because in my opinion there was no justification for it. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Saddam is gone, but what is the price for it? Anarchy that will last for how long? I spoke about the war with a lot of people in the Middle East and pretty much everyone said the same thing: I'm glad Saddam is gone but America was not right in deciding to go to war. The Iraqis I spoke with said that first they were happy the Americans came, but have since then began to hate their presence. If you march into another, sovereign nation claiming there are weapons of mass destruction, overthrow its government, declare the war ended and are still there 18 months later there's something going terribly wrong. Obviously the issue is greater than Iraq and the infamous WMDsa and I believe this would have happened if America had marched into Syria or Saudi Arabia or Iran. There is an underlying distrust towards the US in the Middle East and until things really begin to change on the grassroots level, I don't see how terrorism will end.

Dec something, possibly Wednesday, 2005 / Cold is what killed sightseeing

When you step off the subway on Times Square at 8.30am the first thing in your mind is not McDonalds. But when it's -4C and all you're wearing is a denim jacket, you'll take any warm place you can get. I've never been as happy to see a McDonalds as I was this morning when, after a 4 hour flight from San Diego to new York and 12 hours to kill before the next flight, I got off the subway at Times Square at 8.30am and realised that everything was still shut.I had all these plans to go to ground zero and walk around Manhattan and see things but NO NO NO, it was too fucking cold for any of that! So instead I warmed up a little bit at Mickey Ds (like any other bum in New York..) and then went next door to Virgin Megastore to kill time and my banl balance. I did eventually emerge from there and walked outside, basically making my way from Starbucks to Starbucks as there's one in every block... At noon I then took the subway up to Columbia university and met an old friend for lunch, which was super nice.

So all in all my day in the Big Apple wasn't as productive as I'd hoped, but seriously, it was just so COLD! How does anyone live in that climate? Oh, wait, I live in Finland, it gets colder here... I really want to move to California =)