The Adventures of Team Parker

Unfortunately I don’t have an awful lot to say about LA. Well, there was one particularly funny thing. While on the bus from the airport to the hotel I kept seeing street names that sounded familiar, you know from movies and stuff and also an apartment block that I swear could have been the place that Cordelia lives in the first few seasons of Angel. Seriously, we’d go down these streets and I’d think “Angel. Angel and Gunn fighting vamps. Angel and Wes driving down this alley.” It was a very strange feeling.

And so if you’re not entirely assured of my movie geekdom right now, here’s the cherry on top. Sameer was trying to follow our route on the map he’d printed off Google but he only printed a portion showing the area just around the hotel and he didn’t know if we were coming from the top end of the map or the bottom end. So I looked at it and I said “Well, this is Pico coming up so if the next one is Olympic then I think we’re going that way.” I was right, Olympic was next after Pico (which wasn’t on our map) and that was indeed the direction we were going in. Sameer was totally shocked and wanted to know how I knew that. The truth is, I saw it in the movie. The T-800 chased Reese and Sarah through these roads in the first Terminator movie.

So we had a good laugh about it and he kept shaking his head in disbelief as we drove along. We got to our hotel shortly after. It was quite nice and comfy and we were on Santa Monica Boulevard which is where we were planning to go that day after we checked in.

Here we are at the Promenade on Santa Monica Boulevard, window shopping along with the rather quirky peeps from the area. Very grungy looking peeps with all sorts of odd tattoos and piercings and weird clothing. Tres cool. They had all the shops that you expect to see in the shoppy parts of town plus a few other quirky ones and some nice restaurants.

Santa Monica promenade

This is Sameer all excited about finally getting to make reservations at Beni Hana. (His class had a whole session dedicated to their business model last year.)

Beni Hana storefront

Hey everyone. We’re back online again (just for the day) so I’m going to try to update the blog quick quick. I know it’s going lose focus and all but beggars can’t be choosers. It’s quick quick or niks. Here goes:

The Grand Canyon — boo ya! Did you know that to get accommodation at the Grand Canyon you have to book a whole year in advance? Oh yes. We only managed to get our accommodation because someone had just canceled their reservations mere minutes before we called to book ours. They weren’t the spiffiest rooms in the world but they were in the canyon which was more than enough for us. And anyway, after our Yosemite trip I pretty much have no arguments with any room that has “bathroom included” listed among its features.

The day after watching the Beatles Love show, we caught the hotel shuttle back to the airport and hired a car from Enterprise car rentals. We always have some problem or the other with them and this time was no different. They assured us (repeatedly) that we’d be able to get a GPS unit with the car but when we turned up, they had all been booked out already. We were really mad but since they were the cheapest option anyway we just had to make do. We’d bought a map of Nevada from the Target near the hotel (for some reason, we couldn’t find a single bookshop in Las Vegas!) and the Enterprise people gave us a mini map as well and we used that. Sameer drove and I navigated and we managed to get there without getting lost. Okay, we got slightly lost once but it was right after we drove out of the rental lot and I put that down to nerves. We got back on track right soon though. Anyway, it was pretty much just one straight road.

Along the way, we stopped to check out the Hoover Dam, which we all remember from history. It was pretty nifty. I forgot that it was a hydro-electric power station and thought it was just for water supply. But as we came up to the dam, we saw these huge pylons running overhead and also a large substation.  We didn’t take any tours or anything coz we didn’t have the time or the money. Those people charge you just to get into the museum and the gift shop - shocking!

Anyway, on and on and on we drove. We thought it would be hotter the further we got into the desert but it wasn’t it actually cooled down! Yes, it turned out it was cooler in the Grand Canyon than it was on the streets of Las Vegas. Go figure.

Okay, so we got closer and closer and still we couldn’t see any mountains or anything and I was like “Hey, does this thing rise up out of the ground or does it just drop out from underneath you?” Well, we got to the park gates and it reminded us a lot of Kruger. Then we got to the Visitor Center that was set up right next to a spot called Mather Point. And this was the first view of the canyon that we got.

And yes, it just drops out from under you.

The rangers at the Visitor Center were really great. They were friendly and well informed and just gave us a wealth of information on what there was to do in the canyon. We’d heard a lot of things about rafting on the river through the canyon but it turned out the only one we could do in the time available was a flat water rafting trip out in Glen Canyon which is quite a ways away, closer to Page, Arizona, a city in the next state. So we nixed it. But darn. If there is ever a way to see the canyon from the canyon floor, if you have the time and the money and the guts (since half of it is white water rafting)  there’s a 14 day white water rafting trip along the Colorado RIver goes from one end of the canyon to the other and that looks like an amazing adventure!

But we didn’t have the time or the money or the guts, so we opted for the next best thing, an early morning hike down about a third of the way down the canyon.

We woke up around sixish and got started on the hike around seven. The ranger was really great. He told us a lot about the plants that grow in the canyon - such as the agave that grows over a foot in height each day or the juniper tree that kills off some of its branches when water becomes scarce - and animals such as the big horned sheep and the squirrels that grow fat on tourists handouts then get eaten by bobcats who start to hunt them along the hikers’ trails. He also told us about the geology of the canyon and how it was formed over time, through plate movement and the slow work of the Colorado River.

The view from Cedar Ridge (our destination) was amazing. Seeing the canyon from inside was totally different from seeing it from along the rim. I only wish we’d been able to get to the bottom. But it takes about 4 hours to hike all the way down and at least twice as long to get back up again. The temperature rises the closer you get to the canyon floor making it hotter and harder to breath. So if you want to go there and back again you have to hike down one day, camp out and then hike back up the next day. Only problem - you guessed it - accommodation on the canyon floor is scarce and gets booked out at least 18 months in advance.

While at the canyon we also attended a Star Party - this is where a group of local astronomers come together to give a short talk to park visitors, hand out star maps, and make their telescopes available for viewing. They set them up and let you look through them and point out things like star clusters, binary stars and planets. We saw Saturn and it’s rings with our own eyes, which was pretty cool. Also, we got to see an iridium flare as a satellite passed by.

I have to say, we were really quite surprised at how well the parks were run. Oddly, it reminded me a lot of Disney World. There were camps set up that had varying grades of accommodation, with all sorts of facilities including gift shops, food stores, restaurants and cafes, laundry facilities and information centers, they had regular shuttle buses that ran up and down and took you everywhere, and every person who wore a park uniform could answer whatever question you had. People were super friendly and helpful all the time.

Another thing that I liked about it was the fact that the park was so family oriented. Okay, we were still in a bit of a racial minority but it was nothing like going to Kruger. There were more nationals than foreigners (not true of Kruger) and there were entire families there on vacation together, with grandparents, moms and pops and kiddies thrown into the mix too. (Also, not true of Kruger.) I think it’s definitely something South Africa with all its parks can learn — how to attract young and old alike to the outdoors.

Anyway, afterwards we drove back to Las Vegas to catch our plane to Los Angeles. We like the Las Vegas airport for one major reason — free and fast internet! (That’s how you guys got my last two blog posts.) Other than that, here are some quirks of the place:

1. They sell Sony goods like cameras, headsets and MP3 players in vending machines at the airport. Ah yes, that was the day I really started to feel like I was living in an airport. You see those people sitting on the floor next to the vending machine? Well that was me, with the laptop plugged into a socket in the wall, busy updating my blog on the terminal floor outside gate C19.

2. They have slot machines for while-you-wait-to-board gambling in the terminal. You know, just in case you weren’t already broke from all the other casinos in Nevada.

And that was it for Nevada and Arizona. In tomorrow’s thrilling blog, all the details on our not-so-thrilling trip to LA. Till then.

Can you sense that I am high on unlimited internet access? Mwuahahahaha!!! There are some things in life that we take for granted, such as readily available, reliable and speedy internet. Now that we have it again, I’ve been going bos, checking all my mail, Skyping my rents, and catching up on my RSS feeds.  Oh and updating my blog of course.

Anyway, I’m supposed to blog on the Grand Canyon soon but I don’t have lus to do it now. In the meanwhile, you can see some of the pictures that I uploaded to my Picasa album. Meanwhile, here are some random observations re: travel.

1. You can tell a lot about a city based on your initial impressions once arriving at the airport. For example,  Islip (Long Island) - far from the madding crowd, provincial and beach oriented. Orlando - leafy, warm, and structured. (Disney is ingrained into the airport.) Miami - hot and gritty. Los Angeles - cool sea breezy, where everything is spread out and needs to be traversed via car, with a focus on external beauty. (I got this from the spread out terminals and the excessive landscaping. And so forth and so forth.

2. If you are of remotely Asian descent and you happen to get a tan and find yourself in Florida or California, people will start addressing you in Spanish. And you’ll have exchanges like this with random strangers:

• Them: [ Spanish - spanish - spanish]
• Me: Huh?
• Them: [ ? Spanish spanish ? ]
• Me: Excuse me?
• Them: [ Habla espanol? ]
• Me: I don’t…
• Them: [ You speak English? ]
• Me: (vigourous head nodding)

3. If you wear flip flops you husband will step on your foot over and over and over and over and over again.

4. If you lock your bags, the locks will be cut off and the bags will be searched. When you enquire about this, airport staff will tell you not to lock your bags because this is seen as suspiscious. Of course, once you start leaving the locks off, your bags will still be “randomly” searched by Homeland Security. This may or may not have anything to do with your Middle Eastern sounding names.

5. On that note, people will often ask you or your spouse if you’re Indian, and then seem surprised when you say “No, I’m South African” in your South African accent.

6. If you travel from the East Coast of the US to the West Coast, you will still be on Eastern Time five days later. You may find yourself waking up at 5am in the morning and being really tired by ten o’clock at night.

And I think that’s it for observations from me for now. I have to go shower and hit the road again. Hopefully that Grand Canyon blog will be up by tomorrow morning.

Okay, so time for more drama. Sameer has come down with the flu! Our first day in LA and he is lying in bed with a fever and shivering uncontrollably. Anyway, I think I’m getting it too coz my throat is all scratchy and I can’t seem to keep my eyes open. But to keep from falling behind with the blog (we will probably be netless again in a day or two) I’m going to take some time to recap our two days in Vegas.

Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s probably loads of fun if you want to

• get drunk
• get high
• get laid
• get broke

As we were not looking to do any of these things, we didn’t find it particularly exciting or in fact even remotely interesting. Lasting impressions of this town were that

• It was frakkin’ hot! (A whopping 40 degrees that just hit us like a wave as we left the airport.)
• There wasn’t a book store in sight! (What, nobody reads in this town?)

Our guide book told us to wander down the strip to see some of the feature points of the various mega-casinos such as the Bellagio and Mirage. But it was soo insanely hot that after a few blocks we were miserable and overheated. By midday our flip-flops had started melting and it was all down hill from there.

Okay, sure the casinos are really awesome looking. The interiors made us think of the kind of excess that previously reserved only for Roman emperors and Egyptian kings in the old days. But eventually all these special features (synchronized water fountains at the Bellagio or the lion habitat at the Mirage) started to look like just more excess and all the slot-machine filled rooms started to look alike.

As we wandered past people playing cards or roulette or the slots, we started drawing parallels between drug or alcohol addicts and gambling addicts — you see it in that glazed expression they have when they pull the little handle on the side of the slot machine. Very creepy!

The other odd thing was the sheer number of high end shops set up inside the casinos. We read that this is because, though the house rarely loses, when they do, they want the gamblers to cash their chips asap. This is because a person with cash is more likely to spend it, and where better to spend it than at shops inside the casino. Surely only someone who’d recently hit the jackpot would would pay $750 for a high heeled, open toed, leopard print shoe, Jimmy Choo or no.

Anyway. The only reason we were in Las Vegas, other than as a way station to the Grand Canyon, was to see The Beatles: Love show by Cirque du Soleil. The Cirque du Soleil is a mega-circus troop of 3500 performers who perform in 15 shows in 40 countries. According to Wikipedia, each show is

a synthesis of circus styles from around the world and has its own central theme and storyline which brings the audience into the performance by having no curtains, continuous live music and performers change the props

Among others, Cirque du Soleil’s repertoire of shows include O which is a water themed show, Zumanity which is an adult themed show and La Nuba which is a fairy tale.

Love is a Beatles themed show and the plot revolves (loosely) around The Beatles’ rise to fame. The sixty performers who make up the cast include four little boys representing The Beatles, a quartet of mop-top Teddy Boys, and others characters drawn from The Beatles music, such as Sergeant Pepper, Mr Kite, Lady Madonna, Father McKenzie, Elanor Rigby, Lucy (in the sky with diamonds) and so forth.

The show is set to prerecorded material from The Beatles catalog. The music was taken from original studio recordings which were rearranged by George Martin (the Beatles original producer) and his son Giles. The soundtrack samples 130 songs which are fused together to create 27 fresh tracks. My personal favorite from among these is the mournful, acoustic version of George Harrison’s While my guitar gently weeps. (Compare this to the original.)

The “synthesis of circus styles” is evident in the wide variety of performances involved, from trapeze acts to ballet style dance sequences, rollerskating acrobatics and, much to our amusement, a gumboot dancing Lady Madonna who’s James Brown-like husband shouts “Woza matata!” during his performance.

The performances were absolutely out of this world. With all the flipping and flying, twisting and turning it’s only halfway through that you realize no one is wearing a safety line. They’re hanging from the ceiling and flipping meters into the air and all of it no-strings-attached. Awesome! We were not allowed to take pictures inside the theater so I don’t have anything to show except these shots snapped as we entered and exited.

I’m really glad that we went to see the show because I’ve since found out that the show is contracted to The Mirage for the next ten years! There is no other way to see this show than to go to Vegas and see it at The Mirage. Apparently, the set on which the cast members perform cost $100 million! I can absolutely believe this because it is built in sections which can be elevated and lowered as required. Performers disappear under the stage or rise up out of it depending on the manner of their entrance or exit. (Some times they just come out of the wings, at other times it’s from within the stage.) There are rigs and pulleys set up above the stage, from which giant screens are lowered during certain parts of the performance. Performers also slide across from the outer sections of the arena over to the center and perform on objects suspended above the stage. It is really awesome!

[ After posting this yesterday, I found a teaser trailer for the show on YouTube. It gives a pretty good overview of the show. ]

And that was pretty much the be all and end all of Las Vegas for us.

The only other remotely interesting thing we did was volunteer as members of a test-audience for an NBC tv-show viewing. They let you watch a pilot episode for a TV show that may or may not get to air and then as you a series of questions about how you felt about the episode. The proposed show was called Ghost Adventures and it was like all those silly documentary type ghost hunting shows that come on TV except it was terrible! Oh lord! Sameer and I were in agony. Firstly not our type of show and secondly, cheesy! We can only hope that it will never get to see the light of day but I bet this piece of detritus will not only get on TV but be renewed season after season. Urk…

Oh, one final observation. We found it really amusing the way these guys in brightly colored t-shirts that said “Hot girls direct to you in 20 minutes or less” would hand out business cards to guys walking down the street, regardless of whether they were with wives, kids or girlfriends. And on these business cards, a number and address and pictures of nekkid women with melon sized jugs. That became our Vegas catch phrase - “melon sized jugs”. What’s the attraction? Why the enormous jugs? And then Sameer started analyzing it. Like, business wise, is this really the best way to attract customers? And then we figured, they have to be making loads of money because there are three or four guys on every corner handing out these cards. And they don’t make eye contact with the women. They just give a sidelong glance to the guy and hand him this card, held low about waist height. They don’t say anything, just hand over the card with the woman with melon sized jugs on it. Most of these men, who as I said are travelling with family, just drop the cards on the ground so all over the Strip, you look down and you see these tatty, porno business cards that have been dropped and trampled on. And you think “Thank God I don’t live here!” and then you love Chicago even more.

We got to Miami Friday afternoon and had to make our way from Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood airport to Rabia’s parent’s flat in North Beach. The easiest way to get there was by taxi but that would have cost us about $90. After our experiences with the Lynx bus in Orlando (it was cheaper and easier to use than everyone made out) we’ve decided to opt for public transport as often as possible for the rest of our trip. Thanks to nifty online trip advisors, this was really easy. So from the airport, we hopped on one bus to Aventura Mall (where Britney Spears once stripped nekkid to the delight of young male shoppers) and 40 minutes later took a connecting bus to North Beach. The journey was alright. Sameer and I had to sit separately coz the bus was quite busy and he was quickly befriended by a tall, smelly bergie. The guy proceeded to tell him all about the local area and about how many six packs he could guzzle while waiting for a Greyhound bus to Tampa. He got off a few stops before us and as he passed me he said “Hello, I’ve just been chatting to your chico. Hope you have a nice trip.” I found that pretty funny. It’s the most recent in a long list of similarities between intrepid hubby and my father. “Chico” – cracks me up!

So after a minor altercation with the horrible apartment block manager, who didn’t want to let us in without signed documents from Rabia’s parents we finally got up to the flat. (Rabia’s dad ended up phoning the woman and saying something that got results fast. )

Anyway, here’s the view of the beach out the one window.

And here’s the view of a marina, the city itself, and some posh homes, out the other window.

Although we’d originally considered going touring through some of the more historic parts of Miami and perhaps making our way down to Key West, we were so drained after Orlando, all we wanted to do was chill. So here’s a list of all the things we did on our two days in Miami:

• Sleeping late
• Having enormous breakfasts at IHOP
• Lying on the couch
• Watching Dr Who
• Reading tabloid magazines and The Notebook
• Going to the beach

That was pretty much the extent of it.

Sleeping late. Hmmm… There’s so much to be said for a good lie in. When we were in Orlando we woke up really early every morning so we could be done and at the parks when they opened, and all the hustle and bustle and heat and humidity made us really tired. So when we got to Miami going to bed without setting the alarm was a godsend. Lying in bed after we’d woken up listening to morning sounds and just dozing or lazily planning out our day was soooo good.

Also, I have to say, this time really helped us develop a new appreciation for Orlando and the theme parks. I think we were a little critical of the parks at the time (prolly coz we had such high expectations) but as soon as we had some quiet time to look back on it, we kept reminiscing about this ride or that ride or some aspect of the park setup that we really appreciated.

Having enormous breakfasts at IHOP. We spotted an IHOP across the street from the apartment complex when we got there and I’ve been wanting to go since we got to the US. We never made it to the one in Chicago but here was one right on our doorstep. We decided to do IHOP breakfasts for both days while we were there. Here’s a picture of our first breakfast at IHOP. Sameer got an omelette which is served with a triple stack of pancakes on the side. I got a slice of stuffed French toast that was drenched in strawberries and cream, which was served with a side of eggs and hash browns on the side. I mean, wtf? It seems IHOP has it’s own definition of “side”. You’re probably wondering “How on earth do people actually finish all this stuff?” Believe me, they do. Needless to say, the next day we wisely decided to share breakfast.

Lying on the couch. This activity is severely underrated in life. I’m sure many of you reading this have couches of your own and spend many happy hours lying on them listlessly. But you’ve probably never realize how revitalizing and emotionally uplifting this activity can be. Well, spend half a year with no home and no couch and you will soon realize the value of it. (I actually have a picture of Sameer lying on the couch but it was slightly unflattering what with the bed hair and vacant expression so I’ve left it out at his request. )

Watching Dr Who. Yes, we finally watched our way through the rest of season one of Dr Who! Except for one particularly slow episode titled Father’s Day, it was really good. The best part – and I mean no disrespect to Christopher Eccleston – was the introduction of the new Doctor, played by David Tennant, in the Christmas Invasion special. Okay, he spent the first hour lying in bed in a pair of very British jim jams but then he got all feisty and awesome. Sameer and I have spent the last four days saying “A big, old, threatening BU’ON!” at random times throughout the day. (You have to see it to get it.) But now I’m Dr Who-less until I can get my hands on season two, and that probably won’t happen for at least a few more months! Nnnoooo!!!

Reading tabloid magazines and The Notebook. There were a number of old tabloid magazines in the flat when we got there and I think I read my way through about five copies. They were all dated last Feb so make of that what you will. But sometimes a girl just has to read a trashy tabloid! Also, on beach oriented vacations it’s always good to have a pulpy book around. When we were at the airport I was on the verge of buying something Stephen King. I felt I had to have a page turning horror or romance novel on hand. Incidentally, there was a copy of The Notebook lying on the kitchen counter when we arrived so I read that. Nicholas Sparks, oi! Well, I read it through in one evening and it was soooo cheesy and awful but at the same time very gratifying.

Going to the beach. Yeah! The first day we just went to the beach the was right next to the flat. It was a little rocky just stepping in but the sand silted out after that and the water was blue and warm and there was barely a wave around. It was great. The next day we went to South Beach and wow! That was incredible. Bluer, clearer, warmer, and many many more people! We couldn’t wait to get into the water, and there we stayed for hours and hours. And then we got sunburnt. There’s always a moral to a story like this. We put on loads of sunblock and stayed out of the sun during the hottest part of the day but still, I ended up needing to buy an enormous tube of after sun soother and my skin was tender for days after. But I’d probably do it all over again.

As for Miami itself, well I suppose I can’t really comment since we never left South Beach. From what we saw it was a bit sleazy (how many piercing places and tattoo parlours can you have on a single street?) and we actually didn’t feel that safe walking around. I mean, you’d probably feel less safe walking around Cape Town or Durban but we’d just come from Chicago and more recently Disney which makes you feel like you’re walking around encased in bubble wrap.

Oh, and the nekkid ladies! I can’t end the blog without speaking about the nekkid ladies! It’s frikkin hot in Miami. Very, very hot and people wear very, very little. And actually it doesn’t seem that unusual and though people are walking around in pretty much pieces of string with the barest scraps of cloth attached to cover areola or the beginning of a butt crack, it actually doesn’t seem that strange. But it’s so normalized that you don’t get a feeling of skankiness. It’s just people and bodies. When we were in the water, I saw a group of women walking by topless (this is allowed on certain beaches). I had contacts in so I had a good view of what was happening when they walked by. (Sameer wasn’t wearing contacts so he missed the entire episode. Shame, shame. ) Hardly anyone turned to look and everyone sort of minded their own beeswax. And I found that very interesting.