Dreaming and Achieving
the little city is not getting any better, but it’s Spring after all, so YEAH!
Matthew enjoys new places, but when we’re driving around Bishkek, he’d say “I want to go to Sydney” every once in a while.
On the other hand Dolphin is progressing with better pace and that keeps us up and rockin!
Spent a couple of days in San Diego… great city for vacation, fun and a little bit of romance. I made a few pictures and now I can”t breathe evenly when I watch’em. Yes, yes, I love her…
We left Miami and arrived to LA, loaded with big deal of impressions and conclusions. Now it’s changing. I mean, really the two states are SO different. In Australia you don’t see such a striking difference between states and cities, even distant ones. Here, in US, they are like totally different countries.
Miami, Orlando (Florida)
“Love & Hate” experience. Florida made our mood bouncing from excitement to sadness and back… all the time. And the mistake was to judge entire country accordingly.
Ok, step by step…
First, we were SHOCKED to see that majority of cars on the reads are huge SUVs! We rented a small Chevrolet Cobalt and felt like we’re in gas-guzzling hell. Oh yeah, those people really need more oil. I mean a LOT more oil. And the sad part is that it’s always 1 (one, uno) person in each car – they buy freaking monsters for everyday commuting! All this carelessness grows, en-masse, along with economic downturn and never-ending oil wars, let alone global warming and pollution. Why bother, when you can comfort your precious patooties in a 4-6lt drive-train and hit local MacDonalds (drive-trough, of course) for your own part of American Dream – Big Mac, chips and coke – all separately packed and complimented with plastic tools. Who the fuck cares about environment here?! I know there’s black and white and grey, but we happened to see a little too much black in FL.
Oh, and here’s our white car:
Chevrolet Cobalt. 2-door. 30MPG.
Then, streets are not as clean and nice as they are in Sydney. They are not too bad, but oh-so-famous “American roads” are nothing to drool for. In fact roads there suck. Big time. Signs, markings and surface dated almost everywhere. You can literally feel that the US budget is limited.
Customer service is mostly poor. Hotels, cafes, tours, etc. – all of them. Sometimes you feel OK, sometimes you’re left neglected, but would still get a handsome “18% gratitude” added to your bill.
Food is another “problem” here, for us vegetarians anyway. It gets worse in Orlando or in between Miami and Orlando.
Driving is a little stressful. It’s not India or Kyrgyzstan, but it’s not Australia either. Americans have to learn how to be nice on the road.
Disney World is huge, but its “popularity” ruins the magic. How about standing in line for 30 minutes for a 1 minute ride? Hoards of people, high prices and junk food built and image of ‘stables’ in our minds.
on the other hand…
Monkey Jungle is a cool place – small, cozy and relaxing. Monkeys are hanging out in the forest while you walk through a “cage”. You can put raising into small plates that hang on little chains and monkeys pull those plates to take raisins. Inverted zoo, if you will, but it feels so much better than the traditional zoo.
Butterfly World is amazing! It’s a magical place… Matthew had butterflies sitting on his finger in no time and was really thrilled. No ride at Disney World could compete with THAT feeling.
The beach
at Miami Beach is pretty nice, clean and well-organized. Water is a little cold, but OK. We managed to squeeze a few hours to “touch the sand”, rented a “gazebo” and some food from Ritz Hotel enjoyed every single moment there.
Children’s Museum is the #1 attraction we’ve seen in US so far. It’s not a playground and not a museum. It’s both, in one. Matt did groceries, visited a dentist, learned about Jazz, deposited money to the bank, loaded a ship and more, and more, and more.
The conference was a success. Great people, new friends, exciting opportunities. It just couldn’t be any better.
Los Angeles (California)
… is different.
Yeah, it really is very different and we like it much, much more than Florida. Still doesn’t beat Sydney though (or maybe it’s our bias).
Toyota Prius is VERY popular and you generally see lots of smaller cars, which is great. We rented a Prius for a few days too and now love the car. Thumbs up to Toyota!
There’s no city. I mean LA is by all means a huge metropolis, but not that much a city. There’s no proper ‘center’, no architectural flow, no special style. It’s just a humongous heap of EVERYTHING. Small building, large building, tiny building, all mixed and spread.
If I were to name the single best reason to live in LA, I name the “Whole-foods Market“, which is a local chain of food-stores selling strictly organic products. Organic dog-food, vegan chicken breasts, organic wine, shampoo and even recyclable shoes. Hip? You’ll like it. We love it.
Hollywood is fake.
We love The Promenade in Santa Monica for the buskers-performers who manage to surprise and impress us every week.
Santa Barbara is a neat little town with a couple of nice streets. Not much more than that. Fells like Windsor to me (part of Sydney).
Beverly Hills is expensive, pretentious and millionaire-y. Nice place to walk though.
The Grove at Farmers Market
Getty Center is phenomenal! That’s what American Dream should have been – build a beautiful inspiring villa, fill it with artwork and share with people.
OK, ok, ok I’ll slow down for now. It looks like shorter but more frequent posts would work better.
So far, we like America – it has everything – opportunities, beggars, millionaires, crappy roads, good food, junk food, bad suburbs, good suburbs, mustangs, priuses, you name it. We’re not staying, but we’ll be frequent guests for sure.
Miami and LA pics:
Ok, we’re in Miami for 2 weeks already. Our second time here and again.. lots of impressions, lots of photos, lots of work, lots of fun. I’ll be posting more about this trip shortly. One thing for sure – this time it was GRRREAT for business! www sex view
The dream has come true. Well, it has come true 3 months ago, but it’s only now that I have a chance to post about it. So, we made small DIY trip on the car. Julia planned and booked everything and we had an unforgettable adventure.
So, here’s the map of the route (blue line – way to Hobart, green line – way back to Sydney):
I won’t go into too much detail, just some general observations and a few pictures…
First thing that comes to mind – Tasmania is BEAUTIFUL. Tasmanian nature and wildlife just blows away anything we’ve seen so far. It’s like being in a huge wildlife park.
Second… Melbourne is cold, windy, busy, trendy and very inspiring. Architecture is beautiful. Feeling of style and art is in the air. We loved it.
Third
– Tasmanian roads are full of smashed mammals. Birds eat them.
Forth – mountain tracks in Tasmania are beautiful. We missed mountains of Kyrgyzstan until this trip. Not anymore.
Fifth – gotta love small towns. Maybe we’re fed up with urban (of you can use “Castle Hill” and “urban” together) live in Sydney, but for some some reason we enjoyed small towns the most.
ok, let’s take a look…
We did it. The romantic and exciting trip to Sydney Opera House succeeded! So how’s it been…
Parking.
SOH has it’s own underground parking – it was almost empty and only $15/day flat.
The Opera.
It was both great and surprising. As much as I can judge voices were superb and performance captured us for the entire 3 hours. Surtitles were clearly visible and we could even understand some words in Italian. Costumes are not what you would expect… not classic at all. It feels like a modern/simple clothing and spartan decoration actually accentuated the main subject – voices and characters. So, we went out with a decision to be back again.
The date.
Julia was just taking my mind away. The most beautiful woman ever.
