As we used our last day in SFC to see Golden Gate bridge we took the chance to visit the museum of computer history in Mountain View which i can really recommend. We had a very nice tour there and have seen a lot including the first Google production server. As we already were in Mountain View we surely had to catch up at the Google HQ.

Afterwards we drove to Santa Cruz, as our plan (if you can call it one) was to use California #1 to go south. In Santa Cruz we had dinner and went for some bowling. We also enjoyed the Boardwalk named gaming lot – where we left some bucks playing air hockey.

As we wanted to use our travelling time as much as possible we used to make some more kilometers before catching a motel. So it came that we ended up in somewhere of nowhere and couldn’t get a motel for about 1 and a half car hours. The drive along the pacific coast on California #1 however was awesome. We had no full moon but growing moon i guess and so you could see a lot of the moon light flickering in the ocean. Finally we dropped at a motel in San Simeon at the other end of nowhere. It was a nice but short stay as we catched up in the morning and took our trip down to LA. In LA we stayed at a hotel i’ve already been once earlier this year. In the evening we grabbed our dinner and had some nice beers near Hollywood Blvd in LA.

Next day our choice fell on Disneyland in Anaheim, as we didn’t get up early in the morning we came there at about 4pm and so only had 4 hours left to enjoy the stay. I can recommend the space mountain ride. Most of the other stuff is probably only funny if you get there with children. After we had our dinner at IHOP (International house of pancakes) we stayed at a motel near Newport Beach (yes, as in O.C. California) which was – well, cheap.

Today we had a trip to newport beach and afterwards dropped by at San Diego. Here we’re staying at the Sheraton which i’ve also been earlier this year (at this time named Radisson). We weren’t able to get our trip to San Diego Zoo as BJ catched a cold (which i had earlier last week), so we took the rest of this day off and i enjoyed my stay at the jacuzzi.

Our plans for the rest of the trip are not quite sure, maybe we drop to San Diego Zoo tomorrow or we go directly to Las Vegas. We’ll see. As i had some time today i finally made it, to upload the photos.

At our first day BJ bought an iPhone and we used most of the afternoon trying to get it unlocked. After browsing various different sources we found a practicable way and after that enjoyed exploring the iPhone. What a way to spend the first full day in SFC.

We extended our shopping on the next day were 3 more iPhones were bought. After unlocking them we enjoyed grabbing some casual wear from GAP. Some nice Converse-like shoes rounded my buyings and we finished our day in a near-by steak house which was looking awful, but the food was quite good.

As we wanted to go for some culture here too, we went to SFMOMA (Museum of Modern Art) the next day and afterwards enjoyed the fine weather while grabbing some mexican food. In the evening we catched some cocktails in the Hyatt atrium bar and afterwards looked for some clubs, but we weren’t able to find any of our given tips.

Yesterday we finally have been to Alcatraz which was a real pleasure, if you ever come to be here you definitely should give this trip a chance. I recommend though, to either go to the ticket desks very early, or a day before. You could also buy the tickets online and just grab them at a seperated desk. This saves you about an hour. The trip itself is very informative and the island keeps a lot of spirit. The view on the bay and SFC is also awesome.

Today we’re going to round up our SFC trip with some trip to Golden Gate and want to give the nightlife a second try. Hopefully saturdays are more successfull. Tomorrow we’re going to leave SFC and start our trip to Las Vegas, we currently haven’t planned too much, so i can’t tell you a lot in advance, yet. But i guess we’ll keep you posted.

Our trip started in Vienna on last sunday at about 8am in the morning where we headed to the airport. Everything worked smoothly as we could go over the long lines at the Austrian airlines desk (which are there since i can remember) with Gerhard’s frequent traveller status and use the business class check-in desk. After a coffee break we took our 9 hour flight to Washington D.C. and arrived on-time. But, as always in Washington this fucked up just everything. We could go about 25 meters from the plane exit where the queue for immigration started. I dropped all our plans to catch our 2 hour later connection flight to San Francisco immediately.

After about 2 and a half hours we (Bijan and me) came finally through the immigration. Where it seems i was the only trustable person, because Bijan became a C status meaning he has to go through 2nd inspection at the customs. And, even better – Gerhard and Herbert disappeared! *DOH*

Asking the people that looked informative we got the information that they could just be sent to further inspection at immigration, otherwise they must have came by. Not bad, Gerhard is really travelling quite often to the states for business reasons, so i was really wondering if that could even be. Then i remembered that the DHS officer also asked me several times why i was so often in the states recently and why always for short trips (about 3 to 5 days). When i explained he seemed satisfied however. Nevertheless, after helping some guys from germany and south-tyrol with their claim for lost baggage we finally found Gerhard and Herbert again and – yes they had a 2nd inspection run. Which was, as they told us seemingless, except of the lost time. Maybe something to be proud of, i got a 1 with underline on my immigration – so no 2nd inspection. Keep an eye on that.

So, after we made that we grabbed our luggage and went to the United desk to check for some alternative connections to San Fran. There were 2 more flights this day, where the 2nd one was allready sold out totally (Remember our line – i guess there were some more people going further to the west coast ). So he gave me the option to get on the stand-by-list to San Fran. That was really an impressing option, i couldn’t even decide which one i should decide for. Okay, after we’ve waited on the stand-by-list we finally were told that the plane is full (what a wonder if there are about 10 people on the stand-by-list). So we couldn’t get any flight to SFC today anymore. But, our luggage was already on it’s way. *STRIKE* After we got the tickets for next days first flight at 7am we headed to Austrian desks were (oh wonder) nobody was there anymore. At the SAS desk nearby (Austrian told us we should contact them if there are any problems) also nobody showed up. So we tried our luck at 3 information desks where no one was. After i was finally slightly pissed-of we jumped on a car and drove to a near by Holiday Inn and booked our accomodation for this night ourselves. I’ll keep you posted if Austrian will pay for that when we’re back.

As Bijan was the only one of us who has never seen Washington we decided to do a quick trip (at this time we didn’t know – how quick) to the center so he sees the main tourist attractions. So we headed with a cab to the nearest metro station (Vienna Fairfax) from where we took the next metro to Federal Triangle station. At this time it was about 10:30pm already. As we didn’t want to pay over 100 bucks for our ride back we made a 1 and a half our trip to the Washington monument, Lincoln memorial, 2nd World War memorial and saw the white house in the distance. At about 1am we finally came back to our room and fell asleep for 4 hours till 5am to catch the 5:30 shuttle to the airport. The flight to SFC then was pretty seemingless.

Arriving at SFC we brought our stuff to the Hotel and i had a shower since we’ve been travelling for about 40 hours now. HOW refreshing. Then we enjoyed our lunch at Quiznos and had a long walk to get to know SFC a bit. We headed over market up to Lombard street and down to Fishermans wharf. There we had some calorie-bomb in form of a crepe. After that the day was over for me, as i really needed to give my body a rest because i’m experiencing a heavy cold since 4 days and try to manage that.

As soon as i come to upload there will be some photos on my flickr account.

If i find the time i’ll keep you posted.

One consolation about it, i have my 2 week holiday starting in less then 2 weeks. *YES* Viva Las Vegas …

I’ll catch some sleep now – still a bit jet laggy.

You can find my pictures of the trip here.

Universal Studios were really nice, you pay the entry fee of about 60 bucks but don’t have to pay anything for the shows afterwards. Compared to Disneyland that’s really cheap then. I really liked the Terminator 2D show and also had a lot of fun riding The Mummy. It’s not that big as a Disneyland so you can do almost anything in a one day trip. As mentioned we headed there at about 12am and we did almost every show in there.

In the evening we were looking for the Mood Club again. As we didn’t find it yesterday we had more luck this time. The waitress at the bar we’ve been beforehand knew where it was. But she told us that the Element Club would be much cooler and we should hook up there later on. So we did but Element Club was really awesome – nice girls and good music. So a good end for our last day in LA.

Today Keith gave us a ride because he had to go to LA for a meeting somewhere in Marina del Rey too. Thanks for this again, Keith! We found a cheap hotel nearby Hollywood Boulevard which is not the cleanest but for sleeping and a shower it’s sufficient. Also a nice aspect as we thought we wouldn’t have any internet here is that someone in the neighborhood has left his wireless network open.

So today we checked out the nearby Hollywood Blvd and found out that the walk of fame is not such a big deal and also the rest of Hollywood was a disappointment for me. But i guess it’s like in most cases where you have to big assumptions of what you’ll get. There’s no business like show business.