Prima di seguire la trascrizione ti invito ad ascoltare senza leggere. Con un approccio positivo e curioso, accetta il fatto che non capirai tutto, cerca di intuire il significato, poi dopo usa la trascrizione per arrivare ad una comprensione completa. Buon ascolto!
So in my last podcast, I happily recounted our UK road trip. We went from our home in north Italy to England and back by car. An amazing trip. If you want to listen to that, then that’s the last podcast I did. But it also reminded me of an amazing holiday we had back in 2007. We did a fly & drive and drove around the amazing California for two weeks.
The Flight
So the flight was from Venice to Philadelphia, the first leg and it was 9 hours, and I will never forget looking down at the Atlantic, the immense Atlantic Ocean, thinking it never ends, it was just huge! And so anyway, we finally arrived in Philadelphia and then after a quick turn around, we caught the next plane and another six hours later we arrived in San Francisco. We were exhausted! We got a taxi to the hotel. I don’t really remember much about arriving in San Francisco because we were that tired and we got hit by the jet lag straight away. We went to bed and we lost all track of time.
San Francisco
And so we woke up and we had then two wonderful days in the beautiful city of San Francisco. So the trams going up and down hilly roads, Alcatraz out in the Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pier Dock area with all the sea lions, the friendly people.
All you have to do in San Francisco is open a map and people want to give you help. Wonderful people in San Francisco!
And I guess my, yeah it is my favourite memory from San Francisco, is hiring a push bike, I say push bike because it was 2007 and E bikes didn’t exist in 2007, and going from the pier area in San Francisco to the Golden Gate Bridge, which isn’t in the city. It’s about half an hour’s bike ride out of the city, maybe a little bit more, I don’t remember exactly. And then biking across the Golden Gate Bridge, it was the start of September. The weather was beautiful, but it was cold and there’s always quite a strong wind, I believe, and chilly waters in the Bay of San Francisco. But the views were incredible and we cycled over the Golden Gate Bridge and then down the other side, which I think is a peninsula, on the other side and down to Sausalito, beautiful town. And from there you can load the bike onto a ferry and get the ferry back across the Bay. We got some amazing sunset views of the Golden Gate Bridge. We sailed past Alcatraz. We didn’t go to Alcatraz, but we sailed past it. And back to the city by the Bay. Wonderful place! I would go back to San Francisco tomorrow.
On the road
So after two wonderful days in San Francisco, we were ready to get into our hire-car and drive around California. We picked up the car and we headed off for San Jose. It was an amazing emotion for me just to be in a big American car and to drive on the freeways, something I’d seen on the TV. And America has this larger than life image and it was just quite surreal and very exciting to be there.
And so we drove to San Jose singing Dionne Warwick “Do you know the way to San Jose?” And now I can say yes, I do know the way to San Jose! And after that we picked up the, I don’t know whether we picked up the one, or first, or the famous freeway the 101 down towards Monterey.
But first, before getting down to the coast at Palo Alto we got a puncture, as you would say in America ‘we got a flat’.
And so this was 2007. This was the year in which Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone on 2G and, I was just looking at that fact before, it was the same year that Google Maps launched Street View. And so we were in California in a hire car with a puncture, no mobile phone, no sat NAV. And so we asked someone’s advice and we found a phone booth in a shopping mall and rang up the hire company. And we expected them to come out and change the tyre. No, no, no, what they did is they came out and just gave us a new car! So we got into our new car and we headed off, down towards the coast.
The Big Sur, Monterey – famous Golf Club there where all the celebrities go. And so we crashed Monterey Golf Club. We just walked in, took some photos and quickly left!
A lucky chance encounter
And went down the coast and along the coast we had a really lucky chance encounter with an incredible guy, he was on the beach walking his Dalmatians, his Dalmatians were playing in the surf and we got speaking to this guy. And we talked about what we planned on doing saying, “oh yeah we’d really like to go to Death Valley, maybe out to Las Vegas”, and this guy said, “whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down. Calm down. Hold your horses” sort of thing. And he explained to us about the huge distances. We were looking at the map thinking. “Oh, that’ll be about 3 or 4 hours” and in reality it would have taken about 8-9 hours!
So it was really lucky this chance encounter with this guy, and he was really so nice. He gave us a map and he also gave us a guidebook to the Motel 6 chain of motels. And both these items were life saving and they became the bibles we can say of our road trip.
Los Angeles and Muscle Beach – are we in a movie?
So after Monterrey we went down towards Los Angeles, we went through Santa Barbara. We didn’t stop in Los Angeles, we went through Los Angeles. We looked from the car at the Walk of Fame, where all the stars are, where the famous film actors and actresses have put their hands into cement. We went past the famous comedy clubs and then we went down to Santa Monica, which is basically the beach of LA.
And it was really there more than anywhere else that we just felt, well, I guess in all of California, we just felt like we were in a movie because both my wife and I, we’d grown up watching all the amazing American films and TV series on the television. So I’d watched the A-Team, Knight Rider, Chips, all these fantastic American TV programmes. They were so much better than the English ones. They were so much more dynamic, had so much more action. The stories were always more exciting. And so I grew up on a good diet of American TV and so did my wife Laura. So she obviously watched a lot of Friends. Similar things to me. We’ve both watched Happy Days. And so wherever we went in California, it just felt really surreal, like we were in a Tarantino movie or something and above all also when we stayed in the motels! The motels were fantastic because they were just like cliches from an American movie, an ice machine on every floor, a small swimming pool! And it was just so cool being in America.
So next to the motels, there was usually a diner of some kind. I remember off the top of my head Denny’s diner. And that was where people went to eat. That was where people went to eat their breakfast if they stayed in the motel. And so we went there and it was obviously eating in America, where we were confronted by the huge portions, the portions of food are ridiculous. So you have two choices. You either overeat and really stuff yourself or you leave food which is never a nice feeling because you’re sort of wasting food, or you ask for a box and you take it away. I remember one morning we went for breakfast and the breakfasts were massive, like all the portions. And my wife said “I’ll just have the pancakes”, and the American waitress just sort of said “What? Just the pancakes? Is that all you’re having?” And when these pancakes arrived it was a huge plate. She was completely unable to finish the portion, crazy!
So where were we? Down in Santa Monica, yeah. Along the beach there. People, yes, really do roller skate along the beach. There are weight lifters on muscle beach. It does just look like one of the movies and after that we went down to San Diego. San Diego was a beautiful city as well. Interesting harbour. They have a huge aircraft carrier in the harbour or they did when we were there, I don’t know if that’s still the case.
You have to take all this podcast with a pinch of salt because I’m talking about things that I remember 17 years ago, so I presume Motel 6 are still working and anyway.
San Diego Zoo
So anyway, we were in San Diego and for one reason really because my wife wanted to go to San Diego Zoo. Above all, because she has a passion for pandas and there they have some pandas and they just had some Cubs. So there was these little pandas. And San Diego Zoo, I have to say, was on the whole, a fantastic experience. We were there all day! And I know people probably have mixed feelings about zoos, but I did get the feeling in San Diego Zoo that they were all about conservation. There were certain animals there that didn’t exist any longer, for example, in the wild. And so they were into preservation. I remember in particular, for example, the polar bears. The polar bears were fantastic. They had a huge enclosure. You could watch them swimming under water. And they were living in a permanent Arctic summer, in California, permanently on holiday! Anyway, these polar bears looked happy, as did I have to say, all the animals.
So after San Diego, we were very close to the Mexican border, but we decided against going to Mexico because we were worried about getting stuck on the other side, about problems with the border. We didn’t know much about that, so we didn’t want to risk it. And time was ticking on, about half the holiday had been consumed and we were at the halfway point. So we headed back North.
America, it’s time to downsize!
We went to an amazing County Fair in Pomona, which was quite an experience because along the coastline everyone looks like a movie star, most people seem pretty fit and beautiful. And when you go inland, people noticeably get poorer and also bigger, people were also fatter. And this we attributed immediately, quite obviously, to the bad diet. There are the classic fast food outlets, the cheapest thing you can buy is a hamburger, junk food, and people obviously have, a lot of them have bad diets. I’m not saying everyone was fat, but there was a noticeable increase in the size of the general public.
Automatic rifles on sale!
Another interesting experience we had was we went to a Walmart supermarket, one of the most famous chains of supermarkets in America. And yes it is true! You can buy a gun over the counter in Walmart. And so it was a little bit shocking and quite surprising, even though we knew this happened, but to see it. Automatic rifles on sale over the counter in a supermarket. And I don’t think I need to add any more comments to that.
So after that we headed north, slightly east towards the big parks and first we passed through Palm Springs and I remember we arrived in Palm Springs late in the evening and it was completely dark. And when we got out of the car, we couldn’t believe the wind. The wind was so strong and noisy, and it just … was around all the buildings, and we thought we were in the middle of a hurricane. We could hardly stand up in the car park. It was really weird. And so we entered the motel and had something to eat and then we went to bed. And the next morning we realised why there was this huge wind, because as far as we could see to the horizon there was just field after field of wind turbines. Never ending wind turbines! I don’t know, maybe powering not just Palm Springs, but maybe half of California. Amazing. I’ve never seen so many.
The Joshua Tree Park
So anyway, then we moved on to, wow a real great memory for me, the Joshua Tree National Park. Now, if I say Joshua Tree, if you’re a fan of U2, you know immediately that one of the most classic, and for me one of my favourite albums of all time: the Joshua tree by U2. And on the cover of the album, there is one of these trees, which isn’t actually a tree. it’s not a cactus, it is a succulent. And it was such a pleasure to go to the desert and actually touch one of these trees. Singing, obviously some U2! But yeah, that was a fantastic thing to do and another thing was also the experience of being in the desert. The desert was very hot and quite scary. There were a lot of signs everywhere saying “make sure you take enough water with you, and when you’ve drunk half of your water, keep drinking your water, and when you’ve finished half of your water, you know it’s time to head back”.
The Desert
We got out of the car at one point, under this scorching heat. And we had a walk over to these rocks, this rock formation. And there was one point where we almost lost the trail. And we weren’t sure whether the car park… “was it that way, or is it that way?”. And I can tell you that there was a moment of panic because, yes, the desert is a scary place. But anyway, obviously we quickly found the trail and the car park again, but it felt pretty dodgy.
Sequoia National Park
So after the Joshua tree, we then moved on to the Sequoia National Park to see the huge sequoias, ancient trees, some of them as wide as a house, as wide as an apartment! And these trees are incredible. They’ve been around since the time of the dinosaurs, some of them, and they just keep growing. I don’t think they’re sawing them down anymore. They’re not chopping them for firewood anymore, but there in this wonderful park and it was quite moving to touch them. They have this amazing history and energy about them and the size is just breathtaking.
Yosemite National park
So we went to the Sequoia National Park. From there we also went to Yosemite. In Yosemite, they have the huge El Capitan, which is the largest monolith of granite in the world. And you can stand underneath it, obviously from some distance, and with binoculars look at all the climbers. And it’s also famous for the free climbers. So, these crazy free climbers go on to the El Capitan and some of the parts of the mountain are smooth, like pieces of glass. And there’s one documentary, which I can’t remember who the guy was, about this free climber who did the whole of El Capitan in one day. Free climbing, jumping across different crevasses. An absolutely crazy guy! Well, I say crazy, obviously very admirable what he did, but I think you have to have some kind of strange relationship with fear or your emotions to be able to do that kind of thing. Incredible.
Camping with bears!
So when we were in Yosemite, we stayed overnight in a tent because there was this place called Camp Curry, which was set up as a simple holiday destination in the ‘50s. And it was quite cold. I remember at night in this tent, we didn’t have enough bedding, so we shivered together, but it was very well organised.
And one of the most interesting things about this place in the Sequoia area and the Yosemite area is there are a lot of signs up warning you about the presence of bears. And I’m not sure if they have grizzly bears, but above all, brown bears. And so when we went camping, they said, “OK, be very careful. Don’t leave any food on show in your car and that means no colourful wrappers otherwise the Bears will break the windows to get to the food. And if you have any food when you’re camping, don’t take it in your tent”. And when they say any food, they also mean toothpaste. So they have this locker, this steel box next to the tent with a padlock and they say put everything in there.
And we did, I admit at the start, think it was a bit of a touristy gimmick, you know, “ooh, beware of the bears, the bears are going to get you!” thinking it was like a touristy thing. And anyway we were there that evening and I was inside the tent and I heard Laura outside say, “Nick, Nick, Nick there’s a bear!” And so I quickly went outside and I managed to take a photo, which came out very blurry. And you can’t really see the bear. But there was a brown bear passing our tent, so that was obviously very exciting, very, very exciting!
Baseball
So anyway, after that we headed west again back towards San Francisco. We had our second to last night in San Francisco and then we went to a baseball game. We wanted to go and see some classic American sport. So it was baseball or American football and we found tickets for a baseball game. And yes, it was long. I don’t remember how many hours, but it went on and on, and it wasn’t just baseball. The people there were very friendly and we didn’t know what was going on really. So they explained some of the rules. We bought a book I remember on the rules of baseball, which I guess are complicated on a par to cricket in England and also the length of the game, even though cricket now has a shorter version.
And between the different innings of baseball the public do different things, and so for example, if I remember rightly, there was the 7th inning stretch in which you’re invited to stretch. And the whole stadium gets together and does it together. So we all go and do this stretch, you know, in a typical American gung ho fashion. You know, and then in another innings, everyone goes off and gets a hot dog or whatever. I don’t remember exactly now, but it was a fantastic atmosphere and we completely entered into the party spirit, really good.
And then after the baseball game, well, that was our last day, really. We went back to the motel. I think it was the next evening, if I remember rightly, we went to the airport in San Francisco. Got a taxi there. I remember our suitcases were too heavy. I think I had to remove some shoes or something from the suitcase. And then the flight home.
I know this has been a bit of a long podcast but it is just fantastic remembering, I think one of our best holidays so far, our fly & drive to California, which I, even though it was some years ago now, I’m sure it’s still fantastic and I thoroughly recommend it.
What an involving and interesting description. You gave me the possibility to follow you and your wife spending this wonderful time in America in a great way! It was like watching a movie!
Tks a bunch for sharing!