15. 7.
Thursday - Prague-London
In the morning I was woken up by a) hunger b) travel fever c) the phone, Radka called saying she'd come pick up my bluey (mobile) and hand it over to my folks so it wouldn't just sit idle for those 3 months. Mráza made breakfast and I tried to force myself to eat - with that hangover it wasn't going too well. I decided to also go and pay for the travel insurance. I'm entitled to two months free through the credit cards, but anything beyond that I have to pay extra. Mráza dropped me off in Holešovice in front of the OZP, and there I paid for about 12 days with my last 200 CZK. Then at the Holešovice market I bought a Down & out daypack and a bum bag (520 CZK). After that I hurried back home, bought food for the trip and went to finish packing. Our plane was leaving (like Káča) at 15:00, but unlike her parents we only set off at 13:30, in Lenka's car. We were at the airport at exactly two, Lenka said goodbye incredibly bravely and zoomed off, we checked in and had a bit of banter with the young lady at the desk and then spent a while writing up our finances. We discovered we were short on gifts, so we bought 3 T-shirts with Prague on them, 300 CZK each!! Then we calmly boarded the British Airways plane and an hour later, after a snack, landed in London. Like taking the bus from Prague to Ústí. In London we tried to convince the BA reps at Heathrow that they ought to provide us with accommodation, because our plane to LA doesn't leave until 9:30 tomorrow morning. No luck. We found a place to sit and had something to eat. I discovered that I, crowned idiot, had left that chunk of paprika sausage and the cheese at home. At least I've got a loaf of bread:-(
16. 7.
Friday - London, LA
It's 4:58 in the morning and we spent the night lying on the seats in the airport hall. Luckily they're a bit padded and on top of that we're not alone here, so nobody pays us any attention. In the evening they announced about 25 times in five languages (guess whether Czech was one of them :-) ) that there was a fire at the airport and that we should stay calm. We thought there'd be some excitement, but nothing at all.
At around 3 in the morning some crazy alarm went off and howled like mad for about an hour. Otherwise boredom and a bit chilly.
At four I was so restless I didn't know what to do, so I set off on a recon. I found the departure gate (ha ha, see below), walked around the airport from the outside too and came across nothing interesting. Only on the way back, a computer with a touch-screen where, among other info, there was a map of the world with exhaustive information about every single little country (visas, transport, phones, health, climate etc., really detailed). I sucked out everything about Cuba, Guatemala and Honduras (including the phone and mail for the embassies in the USA) and I checked the credibility of the info on the Czech Republic and copied down everything important.
Then I finished reading Ikarie and luckily I managed to fall asleep again.
I woke up at 8:45 and the departure was supposed to be at 9:30. We calmly brushed our teeth as well, there's plenty of time after all, we're at the airport. So we walked to that gate I'd found at night, but our flight wasn't anywhere! We asked and everyone was rambling something about Terminal 4. In the end they directed us somewhere down into the basement and there stood a crowd of people waiting for a bus. That calmed us down a bit, but we still pushed through the crowd to the front and asked an attendant. He nodded that we were in the right place.
The bus came and we got on with an easy heart, thinking it was taking us to the plane. Rubbish!!! After about 10 km of driving it spat us out at a completely different airport building! It was 9:27 and the boarding time on the ticket was 8:45, departure 9:30. We walked into the airport hall and immediately an announcement: the plane to LA, gate 8 is now closing. Heart in our boots, confusion, a sprint and mutual relief at gate 8. The last two passengers had been found.
Luckily the seriousness of the situation only dawned on us once we were comfortably settled by the window of a Boeing 747, currently the biggest passenger plane in the world.
British Airways are no cheapskates, so unlike last time when we flew with Island Air, here a pile of stuff was waiting for us (a blanket, a little pillow, BA socks, a toothbrush and paste and above all food twice + unlimited drinks and treats) and headphones for free.
The flight was boring as usual, plus this colossus takes off about the way the metro pulls out of a station. I sat right by the window, unfortunately right in the middle of the wing, which is about the size of 2 tennis courts one behind the other, so I only really saw the ground in a sharp right turn (about 3 times out of those 10.5 hours). In front of us sat a gypsy family with about 100 brats, so you could never see the screen past them. They were showing nothing but rubbish anyway, except maybe The Matrix, which was however pretty hard to follow in English.
We landed in LA at 12:30 local time and it was again as thrilling as an express train braking in Holešovice. In these big planes it's terribly boring. No drops, no G-force, no vibrations, nothing. Only that long wing bent up and down pretty brutally.
Above LA there was one of those 3 right turns, so a lovely view of a disgusting city, like something cut straight out of SimCity.
After landing in LA we went through immigration and customs (before that we finished off (literally) Martin's baguette, right under the sign Fine of $25,000 for importing food, the rest we threw away.
I went through immigration and customs like a rose garden, Martin they hassled a little. We found our packs, even though friends who flew the same route a month earlier got theirs a week late with $550 in compensation.
A plane ticket to San Francisco would cost at least $91, so we set off to find Greyhound. A granny at the information desk practically led us by the hand to the airport bus (free), explained to the driver where we needed to go and gave us an itinerary. While changing buses we found out by phone that Greyhound costs $33 and the train $48. Then we got on the City-bus and it took us for $1.65 to the centre of LA (pizza $1.75) and we changed for the Greyhound Centre.
The ticket seller at Greyhound was the first white person since we left the airport (about 3 hours). LA is a revoltingly dirty, monotonous city, the whole way from the airport nothing but coloured (people), low little houses and tons of cars and smog.
We sat there with that pizza for about an hour, right in the centre, and the whole time not a single person walked past who inspired even a little trust! Horrible!
My depression only lifted inside the Greyhound building, probably mainly because by then the pizza had got into my blood. The ticket to SF cost $32.40 even with the student discount and we'll be there tomorrow at 6:15, which is exactly 10 hours of driving! That's as long as the trip from London to LA took. At least we'll get some sleep (this'll be the 3rd day of sleeping sitting up :-( ) and above all we'll arrive in SF the same day Jeff gets back from holiday. I also called his answering machine ($1.75).
Annoying waiting again, this time in the Greyhound waiting room. Then we moved outside and meanwhile such a queue had formed at our gate that we didn't fit on the bus. And on top of that, out of hunger I bought a lousy baguette, and for a terrible $3.45!! :-(
We got on the next bus, except Martin sat next to a hard-of-hearing Czech old man and I was left with 1/3 of a double seat, because the other 2/3 was taken up by an old, terribly fat black woman. There was no other seat left, because I'd been handing over our packs down below and Martin hadn't grabbed anything better.
In the end the woman was quite nice, but when she fell asleep she sprawled out even more and I slept almost in the aisle. In any case it didn't bother me much, because out of those 7 hours of travel all I remember is a stop somewhere at a Burger King.
17. 7.
Saturday - SF
Now we're waiting in the Greyhound waiting room again, luckily in SF this time. It's 4:30 in the morning local time, back home it's half past one in the afternoon, so we've been travelling for exactly 48 hours. We're waiting here for the night-time elements to calm down, and then we'll head off, hopefully by metro, somewhere into the centre, and wait for Jeff to come back from New Orleans and then we'll call him. I admired the cola machine here for being able to take bills too, but when I kept shoving one in, nothing. For 80c in coins a Cherry Cola did drop out though, the first drink since the golden days of British Airways.
Finally dawn came and we left the hall full of black guys. Down in the Greyhound hall we also found a brochure with a map. It was about 6:30, so with our packs we set off on foot into the city, thinking we'd call Jeff or Joe around eight and we'd be sorted. (ha ha)
On the map we found that Chinatown was near us, so we headed there. I need to buy a camera and that's where the best prices are. On the way we ceremoniously touched the pyramid-shaped skyscraper, probably the most distinctive building in SF.
In Chinatown we quite easily found the area with the camera shops, everything closed of course (by the way - it's the corner of California and Grant).
Along the way there were newspaper stands everywhere and there one member of our expedition had the brilliant idea of looking for the local free classifieds paper. And there on page 3 :-) I found an ad for a car auction. By then we were sitting in front of a breakfast-café that was still closed. When they opened, we set off to make some calls. Nobody was home. We decided to go back to the bus terminal, stash the heavy packs and go have a look at that auction.
After wandering around a bit we found the terminal and stashed the packs for $2/6h/piece.
Luckily the street with the auction was on our free micro-map too, so off we went. It was down in the harbour, about 3 km on foot. There were 130 cars for sale in an enclosure, a bidder number for free, the list of cars for $1.
Full of enthusiasm we started running around among the cars picking out a suitable candidate.
Requirements: an old big heap, as ugly as possible, as cheap as possible.
Out of the 130 cars we ticked about 10, of which 3 got a double tick, namely two Chevy vans, one VW Bus - camper and one pick-up truck with a canopy.
Among the cars outside the auction I also took a liking to a 1972 Jaguar, not running, white, for $250. But that one was outside our priorities, an interesting car, sure, but not for a trip to Guatemala.
At 12:00 the auction itself began. One auctioneer with a megaphone, one assistant and about 70 bidders. The auctioneer always started with some astronomical figure, like $2000, then quickly jumped down to either $500 or $100 before someone bit. Then the merry-go-round began. The auctioneer bellowed out numbers, praise and loads of filler words at enormous, machine-gun speed and every car was sold in about 1-2 minutes. Before we could even pull ourselves together, our first favourite was gone, and for twice as much as we wanted to pay. Otherwise though, everything was selling unbelievably cheap. For example an '88 Escort GT, a car in great shape for $200.
Suddenly the auction got to some Oldsmobile that almost nobody wanted, the price was $150. We knew nothing about it, we hadn't even noticed it before, but the price convinced us. I raised my hand and before I could lower it again, I heard: \"Sold, 54\".
I looked at the number on my shirt and that's when I realised that by pure chance I had just become the owner of a 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass, beige, 6 seats, and on later inspection we found it was in great shape, both technically and inside.
Unfortunately, the main goal, namely being a suitable car for our trip (also as a bedroom), this car did not meet. So we decided to keep taking part in the rather entertaining auction and buy one more, more suitable vehicle. We didn't much regret the 7000 CZK we'd blown, more like it's a good investment.
I probably missed out on our favourite Chevy van by hesitating too long, but it sold for $700 anyway and on top of that water was spraying out of the engine somewhere (sour grapes). Then we had our eye on one ancient truck with a canopy, but surprisingly people fought over it and it went up to something like $800.
Then we were about to give up, but I remembered there was still some estate car standing around somewhere. In the end we found it, saw it was pretty new and undamaged, so it would be expensive. We set a limit of 600$ and waited for its turn, resigned to the fact that it wasn't for us. Oddly enough nobody was really bidding on it and we bought it for 400$!!!! Chevrolet Celebrity 2.8 V6, 1984, little estate, great condition, silver. Both automatics of course and engines like out of a truck. Then we waited for them to sort out the paperwork for us (I could even pay the rest by card, because we didn't have enough money left). While waiting I went to have another look at the cars that weren't in the auction because there was something wrong with them. The Jaguar SJ6 from 1972, which had caught my eye already in the morning, still hadn't been sold! The body almost undamaged, just not driveable. Apparently petrol is leaking under the carburettor. A car that in Germany definitely sells for around 10,000 DM! I went straight off to pay for it, business is business. Unfortunately they told me it had already been sold. Luckily I looked so disappointed (I hadn't eaten since morning...) that they tracked down the buyer and he happily resold it to me for 280$. He paid tax out of the 250$, so he made 5$ on me. I hope it can be fixed. I had to pay for the Jaguar in cash, so we drove one of our cars into town to an ATM to get 300$ in cash.
.
.
My first card was already a bit tired (so far we'd used it for everything), but the ATM sucked out the second one.
I paid for the Jaguar, took over the Oldsmobile, with the idea that we'd pick up the Jaguar with a tow truck on Monday.
We went to get our packs and headed out of town, north across the Golden Gate Bridge, because that's where Jeff lives somewhere. We stopped at the viewpoint over the bay just past the Golden Gate and straight away asked a cop where we'd find a supermarket.
There was one right by Highway 101 on Seminary Road, so we settled down at it. We bought grub for 16$ and scoffed the sausages and the rest of the bread from home. Until the evening we rang round all our friends in SF a few times, nobody home.
Around 8 in the evening we konked out in the cars, our body clocks still aren't sorted. Martin also left Jeff a message that we were sleeping at the Safeway supermarket north of the Golden Gate.
Sunday 18. 7.
SF
In the morning I of course woke up at six already, but by the time I worked it out (that it was six) I was way too awake. I don't have a watch and I left my phone at home.
Around 8:30 I went to call Jeff and thank God it was Norma who picked up and not the answering machine. It turned out they'd flown in around midnight and until 3 in the morning! They were looking for us! They drove round all the Safeways in the area looking for a tiny rental car. In the end they got the whole SF police force on their feet!! And they were looking for us all night. Luckily they didn't find us, it would probably have scared us quite a bit.
So in a while Jeff came for us and led our car convoy to his place. His new little wife Norma welcomed us warmly and right away they dropped a nice bombshell on us! They'd already got married… And me, the idiot, dragging along a suit and shoes and telling everyone how I'm off to America for a wedding…
Well, at least it solved a huge dilemma for us, namely whether to hand over the wedding presents right away or only at the wedding.
Jeff got harnessed in the kitchen as soon as they got back from shopping (the Civic was bursting with food) and finished cooking around three - four in the afternoon. In the meantime their black neighbours came to visit, the guy black as Hercules (not the glue, but that Greek dude!) and her about 40 kilos.
For lunch there was amazing chicken with sage stuffing, potatoes, baguette, a salad of lettuce, strawberries, nectarines, tomatoes etc. and an amazing juice from blended fresh fruit.
For the following days Jeff also made us 1 m2 of šunkofleky and 1 m3 of soup, a sort of chicken-potato soup with bacon.
Then they showed us the computer, the Internet connection, and they had peace from us for a couple of hours. By the way, the whole time Jeff was cooking, doing laundry, mopping, cleaning up, Normie was picking her nose…
In my mailbox I had about 4 mails, one from Káča from Greece :), one from Viktorie from New Orleans and one from Texas from Ivoš and Petr. It's a really great thing to have a chat with so many people scattered all over the globe! On top of that a mail then came from Eva from somewhere in Colorado and I'm waiting for news from Tomík in Ghana!
Norma then also showed me the pool they have about 50 m from the house, shared by several neighbours, plus a pool table and ping-pong and a gym in the same building. The pool was empty. Apparently there's never anybody there.
Now I remember (together with Martin) that the chicken was actually for dinner, because for lunch there were sort of French potatoes with egg, fried bacon and loads of vegetables.
In the evening we chatted a bit more and the time difference drove us to bed. Before that Gabe came, Norma's son, and brought us two apple pies and one big chocolate one from work. We bashed some games on the Nintendo with him and then went to sleep.
Monday 19. 7.
SF
In the morning we picked the yellow Oldsmobile from our fleet (it still has valid plates) and drove down to SF. On the Golden Gate the bastards want a 3$ toll! :( Before the trip into town Gabe showed us the Best and Buy store and then one more where I could buy that camera.
We only got into town around 10:30 and drove straight to the insurance company whose address we'd found on the web. Ivoš gave me the web address, it's the only insurance company willing to insure a car on an international driving licence.
They worked it out at 240$ for 1 month, which is horrific, but unfortunately the Chevrolet estate is missing its rear plate, the one with the stickers with the validity date, and we only get new plates with insurance.
Unfortunately we didn't have Jeff's address and they need that. They entered us into the computer, but we haven't paid for it yet. We were supposed to be on the ship at 11:30, which we missed spectacularly.
Lunch was still waiting for us, we found the ship relatively quickly (Pier 96, Evans str.) and Jeff in his cabin too.
.
.
He didn't even go to lunch with us, we found the mess just fine too. (Finding your way around a 6-storey ship after six years, no big deal.) A little chicken with mashed potatoes was waiting for us and as usual we finished ourselves off with a pile of choco-cookies.
Then we dropped in on Jeff in his cabin again, he was pretty sour, probably because they wanted to send him for 3 months to another ship in Texas. Luckily 14 days after the wedding he didn't fancy it, he'd have to leave the day after tomorrow and without him we wouldn't get much out of this either.
Martin called Joe that we'd drop by around 13:30, so we set off. On the way we stopped at the Jaguar and told them we'd pick it up tomorrow. Joe has a pretty big flat near the centre of SF, it's Bryant str. 1732. Jeff rents a room in his flat, super furnished for 350$ a month. Two girls live there like that as well and Joe has it for free. The whole flat costs 1200$ a month. The prices here are terrible!!
We chatted with Joe and his mate and promised to drive him to the airport tomorrow. He's flying for 10 days to New York and Boston to see his mum.
From his place we headed back to the insurance company, but on the way I remembered that we actually still don't have the address, because Jeff told us he first has to ask Norma!!! So we went for a drive up one of the many terrible hills in SF and enjoyed it like a rollercoaster. Those climbs are really unbelievable! Then we headed to Chinatown, I still want to buy that camera and one more for my dad.
We parked at a kerb with a red line and no parking meter and headed straight for the area with the photo shops. I walked into the first one, asked about a camera and 3 guys caught me in the net of their sales tricks. After an hour of haggling and discounting I got to 700$ for 2 cameras, a case, 2 films and payment by credit card. Unfortunately it turned out I also had to pay the California tax (70$) and on top of that they pushed a UV filter, 2 lithium batteries and a lens cap holder (60$) on me. In the end it wasn't exactly cheap, unfortunately. (Canon EOS 500 for me with a 28-80 lens and Canon EOS 5000 with a 36-76 lens for dad.)
I was pretty exhausted and sour from it, we walked around Chinatown a bit more and then went back to the car. Of course some bitch on a motor-trike was just driving away from it and there was a ticket behind the wiper - 25$ :(. Fuck!!
We set off towards the pub where Joe works, he invited us for dinner. (Conecticut str.) We eyed up the waitresses, scoffed a pretty decent chicken steak (unsalted), pancakes with vegetables, a baguette, 2 beers and to finish we let ourselves be finished off by a terribly heavy cheesecake. I had to go for a walk.
We got to Jeff's around half past nine, past the Golden Gate we stopped at the viewpoint again, but I couldn't get the Canon to take a night photo.
On the other hand I then took plenty of photos of Norma watching TV, of Jeff scrubbing the whole house, cleaning the bog and so on.
Then Norma went to bed and we unleashed a huge battle on the Nintendo, the screen split into 4 parts, me, Martin, Jeff, Gabe and his mate Nick. I got some nice shots of them, especially of married, 40-year-old Jeffie getting all worked up about it :)
Tuesday 20. 7.
San Francisco
We got up only around 10:30 and after breakfast (choco-cookies) we set off straight away to find a tow truck so we could get the Jaguar to the ship to put it together. On the way we got petrol, the fuel gauge doesn't work, so just to be safe for 15$. At 12.70$ it already overflowed, meaning the tank was full when we bought it. Which means that in a car costing 200$ there was still about 100 litres of petrol!
We wanted to rent a trailer and tow the Jag ourselves, but 1.) we don't have a tow ball 2.) the rental would cost 50$, the tow about 35$. We drove to the Jaguar and I called the tow truck. We even managed to start the Jaguar, but then it died. We led the tow truck all the way to the ship and unloaded the Jaguar in front of it. It's a fenced, guarded spot, it'll be fine there.
On the ship we found the Blue Book on the web and found out the market price of our cars. We bought everything for about 30-40 % of the real price, which is pleasing.
The cook and the chief engineer invited us to dinner and it was such a huge beef steak with rice that I last saw one like it six years ago on the same ship, but in Baltimore.
Then we sat around a bit more in Jeff's cabin and agreed that we'd leave our car (cars :)) here and go with him and in the morning again. We'll save 3$ for the Golden Gate.
No sooner said than done. In the evening I also tasted Jeff's soup, it burned like hell, but otherwise excellent. I mailed home, Martin beat Gabe in some fighting game, they were yelling like devils while doing it (Martin less).
Wednesday 21. 7.
SF
We were supposed to leave today at 7:00, now it's 10:20 and we're still hanging around here. Jeff's asleep, he called work that he'd be late.
We set off at 12, took yellowy Oldie at Jeff's place and drove it to the DMV, i.e. the local traffic office. I bet Martin a beer (and won) that they'd give us plates and the registration papers without insurance. It cost us 1.5 h of time and 68$, but it would have cost the same even with 20$ insurance. Now we have the plate 4 FUE 8 on the silver hornet Chevy.
On the way back we stopped again at the viewpoint past the Golden Gate and drove home. We scoffed the rest of the chicken and the bread we'd bought on the way at the Safeway on Seminary. We also scored a membership card there, so we have discounts in every Safeway in the USA...
After the chicken we finally went to try out the pool, first ping-pong, then a few laps. Jeff came over to us saying he'd got some letter from Greece and that apparently it's in Czech, whether we'd translate it for him :). Then Gabe came as well, we had a match in ping-pong and billiards.
Norma wants to grill chicken today, so on our 4th day in the USA we'll have had it for the sixth time!
The chicken was pretty awful, burnt and super dry, but as sides there was cheese, vegetables, strawberries and burnt bread, so we heroically ate it.
Gabe showed us a bit of a Monty Python film, unfortunately exactly the one I'd already seen once on ČT2 (about a 10-minute sequence).
In the evening we mailed some more and croaked.
Thursday 22. 7.
SF
Jeff woke us up at 7:15, but we'd finished breakfast by about 9:30. We set off to hunt down some car polish, which we only managed in the next town, San Rafael. Then we polished the yellow one and vacuumed the silver hornet, now we're rotting here again, because Jeff's in the bedroom with Norma again, Gabe's studying and there's nothing to do.
What happened that evening I don't remember any more, so probably nothing interesting.
Friday 23 July
SF
In the morning we drove off right after Jeff to his boat, borrowed his car and took the yellow one to 3rd street with big signs $450 smogged etc. Then we got busy with the Jaguar, Jeff gave us a whole box of great tools, we cleaned the plugs, the carb, the cables, the distributor, topped up the petrol (it has two independent tanks), but above all we found the manual choke. I topped up the battery and put it on the charger, but it was done for anyway. With the cables and the choke the Jaguar caught straight away and after a while it was running pretty acceptably. Unfortunately we couldn't take it for a drive, because Jeff's battery didn't fit in there and it wouldn't go on ours any more.
They invited us to the boat for lunch and as usual we stuffed ourselves splendidly (especially me, because I had the spaghetti with crab meat twice)
The crew was amused by the story that I'd had a steak as big as yesterday's here 6 years ago on the ship Admiral Calaghan (i.e. the same ship as now...) in BaltimoreJ
At about three we went to show the yellow one to the first person interested, a two-metre black guy in a white shirt who wanted it for his sister. He likes the yellow one like crazy, only he discovered that the banging from the boot isn't the jack, as we'd thought, but the exhaust hitting the bumper. (All it needed was bending...)
Then we went back to the boat, did our mails and had a shower and then set off home through the Friday SF jam.
In the evening we still wanted to park the yellow one in front of Safeway, except I meant the one where we slept on day one and Martin the nearest one, so we got lost and both came back an hour later.
Late in the evening, after a huge dinner (like every day - we've both GOT FAT!!!), Norma put some film on the video for us. Nobody except Jeff remembers more than 10 min. I woke up on the couch at three in the morning.
Saturday 24 July
SF
Crazy day today - Contents:
1) I lost Jeff and Martin
2) We're moving Jeff from Joe's to Norma's
3) During the move the car got sold
4) Swapping the wheels on the Civic
5) Get the photos developed, check out the area and the Novato car mart
6) Basketball with Gabe and Dave + ping-pong and pool
7) Martin cooked spaghetti
8) Cleaning and work till late into the night
In the morning we set off into the city with Jeff, because he wanted a hand moving stuff from the flat to Norma's house. Yesterday I rode home from the boat with Jeff in his car and because Martin had trouble following us while switching from lane to lane in a 5-lane jam in downtown San Francisco, I remarked that he drives like an \"old German\". Well, and this morning Martin told me he'd rather ride with Jeff, because he does drive like an old German after all. So he went with Jeff in his old sports car and I followed them in our even older yellow one. The very first bigger junction from the house looked something like this:
Unfortunately I mixed it up with the one right after it, which looks something like this:
Jeff pulled into the middle lane and I merrily into the left one, thinking I'd drive merrily alongside them. Then it dawned on me that I was at the wrong junction. So from the left-turn lane I needed to go straight!!
So I had to brutally shoot out in front of a van, overtake it and get away. The van and Jeff must have had to brake a bit. Unfortunately, only about 100 metres past that junction both Jeff and the van turned off left into some car park and I drove off and left them. I thought something had happened to them (that they'd crashed into each other because of me or something), so I preferred to clear off with that uninsured car and waited for them at the motorway on-ramp. After a while I went back, but couldn't see them anywhere. I decided to wait for them at the flat in SF, which is a good 30 km away.
As I found out later, my little stunt made Jeff go white with rage, he called me every name under the sun, that he doesn't want to pay $10,000 bail for me to get me out of jail and save me from having sex with a 150 kg black guy and so on. They were turning into that car park because there's a car rental there and they wanted to rent a truck for the move, which they also did.
From Joe's flat I called Norma to say I was waiting for them there and she called them on her mobile, the one she'd lent us. They were round the corner anyway. Jeff was fine by then and when I explained to him that going straight from the turning lane wasn't on purpose because of racing, but a plain stupid mistake, he was fine. As a punishment he sent me to the petrol station for cigarettes and it was sorted.
Then we started loading the furniture into the truck. Meanwhile I called some bloke who wanted to buy the yellow one. Yesterday around noon we parked it for about 4 hours in the port on a busy street and we already have 3 people interested. This one said he was coming for it right away.
So during the move 4 black guys turned up, listened to the engine and one pulled out the cash and wanted a discount. I didn't give him one, so he shelled out $450 in cash and off they went. Five minutes and done, $200 earned. Martin and Jeff were gawping like crows that before they'd managed to load 2 chairs onto the flatbed, the car was gone!J
Then we finished loading the stuff and took it up to Corte Madera, to the house.
Meanwhile Norma, on a \"mobile\" command, cooked a bucket of scrambled eggs, some vegetables and so on, so we stuffed ourselves. Then Gabe, Dave, Martin and I went to play basketball, ping-pong and billiards. (Meanwhile we'd of course unloaded the truck and arranged the furniture.)
In the evening there was another enormous dinner with several courses. They really do feed us great here, we've both got fat!
Sunday 25 July
SF, Benicia
In the morning we got up at an unholy hour, unfortunately not early enough, as it turned out later. Yesterday I found an ad in the paper that there's another car auction just down the road from here. Encouraged by yesterday's success we decided to go there, Jeff with us. The viewing of the cars was from 8 to 9, we arrived at 8:45, so we got to look at bugger all. Even so we decided to pay the $500 deposit and take part. There were 320 cars for sale, most of them either cars donated to charity (tax deductible) or cars confiscated by the police. (Whoever doesn't pay the fines stuck under the wiper won't find his car one day. A $500 car probably isn't worth paying, say, $600 in fines for...)
Plan of the place:
The cars drove up in front of the audience one by one and the bidding went on. The caller again talking at a terrible speed, out of which you could only make out the price, and only now and then; with every car he started at $2000 and when he got down to $100, somebody bit. Mostly it didn't climb higher than $500-600, occasionally with trucks, Volvos and Mercedes up to $1200.
Unfortunately the only info we had about each car was a view from about 10 m over the heads of a few noisy stinking black guys, of a car flashing past, plus the make and year from the list. Even so we couldn't help ourselves and bought several cars. Namely a Ford Tempo '86 ($300), a Ford Tempo '90 ($400) and a Dodge '83 truck with a camper shell ($900).
Generally all the cars at the auction were 2-5 times cheaper than the ads in the papers we bought on the way. (Those American Sunday papers which, when you take them to the recycling place on Monday, weigh about as much as all the print from a Czech newsagent put together ....J)
Around noon about 150 cars had been sold, so not even half, and we'd had enough, both of cars and of the whole auction. The whole thing is mainly for the spectators, but at the same time it's business. We missed a few really great cars, but when a car gets 20-30 s on average, it's easy to miss something. E.g. a smaller truck around '90 for $550, a Ford Taurus estate in great condition '92 $1000, a Volvo 840 '88 for $650 (market price $5000!!)
When we got back from the auction (BTW it was about 80 km and a $2 bridge on the way) I stopped off for the photos I'd handed in for developing yesterday. It cost $16 and it's no miracle, I have to say. Oh well, the first roll with the new camera.
Then there was another great lunch and then Martin and I simply collapsed into bed and fell asleep. We hadn't slept properly for 3 days, yesterday the move and basketball, today the auction after getting up at 7:20, the stress that we'd blown an average half-year's income in Czechia on 3 cars we know nothing about, it just floored us.
When we got up, we got down to work with Jeff. We arranged the new furniture and cleaned up the house, where up to now only 2 pigs (Norma and Gabe) and 2 cats had lived. E.g. Gabe has about 20-40 cm of bedding on the floor of his room made up of: a walkman, a CD-man, a twin cassette deck, plates with leftovers, socks, T-shirts, wires, a laptop, a blanket etc. Norma still hasn't unpacked 10 days after coming back from holiday ...
The cleaning kept us going till late into the night, and it still wasn't finished.
Monday 26 July
In the morning we wanted to set off to Benicia to pay the rest for the cars and above all to find out what they look like. Yesterday I withdrew 2 x $500 on the cards, today I should have more available, because I have a weekly limit. We need another 400, because this auction only takes cash.
The cards gave us nothing at all! They're apparently still on European time, so yesterday's withdrawal was already Monday in Europe. When we're in the shit, we go looking for Jeff. Of course we're to come for the $400 right away. So we set off on the hour-long trek to the port in SF, first 15 km on the motorway, then the Golden Gate for $3 and then another 15 km through the jam downtown.
Already with the money, by pure chance right at the port we got onto highway number 80, which surprisingly leads all the way to Benicia.
On top of the $500 deposit I paid another $1410 (3 cars + fees) and we found out that not only are all the cars filthy as hell inside, but on top of that: the Tempo '90 has a dead engine, because smoke pours out of the oil cap like out of an exhaust, the Tempo '85 (and not '86) has a rattling air con, and on top of that, and that's the worst, the truck we wanted to drive to Guatemala across the whole of Mexico not only has no air con, but not even power brakes or power steering (try turning the wheel of a 3.5 tonne car without power steering) but above all the clutch slips like crazy !!!!L
Well, anyway we decided to bring the cars to SF one by one, two of them even have valid plates. First, with terrible suffering, I drove the truck home. On the flat it didn't do more than 50, turning was almost impossible. A while after we got back, Jeff turned up.
We told him what horrors we'd bought, but he didn't let our lousy mood affect him and immediately started coming up with plans. At about 8:30 in the evening we set off for the remaining two cars. First I drove the Tempo '90 down to downtown SF, in front of Joe's flat, and then Martin the Tempo '85 to the same place.
The Tempo '90 has air con (which at night and around SF is useless) but above all so-called Cruise Control, i.e. a speed limiter, so on the motorway you set the speed you want, take your foot off the gas and can go to sleep in peace. It drives itself, shifts itself and the motorway is straight as an arrow and has 6-8 lanes. We got back home sometime after one in the morning.
Tuesday 27 July
SF
Today obviously has to be devoted to the cars. We did want to get up, but after yesterday there was no chance. We only got into the city at about eleven. We bought shampoo for the interior, got some sprays from Jeff and above all we found a great place to work on the cars. It's a kind of self-service zone a block from Joe's flat, vacuums, washers and plenty of space, all unsupervised and coin-operated. Nobody's going to care what we're doing here.
The worse news is that our so far completely trouble-free silver hornet estate has started leaking oil L Martin claimed it was from the gearbox, so without any closer inspection of the crime scene we went to the shop across the street and for about $8 bought something that's supposed to stop the oil leaking, plus oil.
As you can already guess, the problem was somewhere completely different. The oil is leaking from the engine, somewhere around the water pump.
So far we'd been dealing with the least problematic car, namely the '85 Tempo. Its only fault was that inside it was totally, but totally shitted up! (mould, fungus, caterpillars, a ton of filth etc.) Martin threw himself at it and in about 3 hours he turned it into a beauty. Jeff saw the car for the first time only after it had been cleaned and straight away he had a go at us for whining about what cars we'd bought, saying this one's great and he likes the truck too. By the way, the truck's clutch could be adjusted after all, so now it drives just fine. The steering wheel turns fine now too, I pumped the tyres up properly. On top of that we decided (together with Jeff – his idea) to have the whole truck resprayed, which could be around $130, as Jeff said. So I washed the truck and drove it over to show it at the paint shop Jeff had called beforehand. A super fat but likeable owner (a proper white guy, which is not at all a given in SF) estimated the prep work before painting (dented fenders etc.) at $200 and the spraying at another $200. We picked a colour, with me bringing it there in the morning and it being done on Friday afternoon. He also said it'd be a good idea to sand down the bed floor and take the cap off.\r\n
In the evening Martin and I bought flowers and wine for Norma, because they really do take great care of us. (well, Jeff more, but he'd smash the flowers over our heads J) \r\n
As usual, like every woman, she was thrilled with the flowers.\r\n
There was another giant dinner, and then unfortunately I don't know, because today is Sunday evening and because of all the running around cars all week there was no time for the diary, only for the Net now and then.
\r\n\r\n
Wednesday 28. 7.\r\n
SF\r\n
In the morning (J around eleven) we drove over to Joe's and took the cap off the truck (maybe already in the evening), we sanded down the bed floor, because apparently that's not included in the price. Then we took the truck to the paint shop on 3rd street. \r\n
Next problem on the agenda was a battery for the Jaguar. There was supposed to be a scrapyard somewhere near Jeff's boat. We found one at the corner of Evans and 3rd, the place looked horrific, a mess, filth, and the behaviour of the employees and the owner was beyond compare. The most frequent word combination was fucking motherfucker and after about 15 minutes of waiting they came out with the fact that they simply don't have a suitable battery for us.\r\n
When we got out of there, we felt quite relieved. Luckily we found another junkyard round the corner, they had a battery like new, and for $22 we even got a 48 h warranty on it!\r\n
That solved the battery problem, but another one surfaced, a considerably worse one. Our silver hornet, destined to transport our two bodily shells to Guatemala, started leaking oil. We looked at it yesterday and it's leaking somewhere around the water pump and the distributor.\r\n
Jeff recommended a place on 3rd where they might be able to help, so we dumped it there to have them figure out what's what. He should know by 17:00, so we walked over to the boat, because there's always something to eat there and Jeff keeps telling us funny stories. An unbelievably inexhaustible well.\r\n
We almost forgot that someone had called: \\\"I want to see your car at five\\\". It must definitely have been a black guy, because he didn't say who, where, which one, why, phone number, name, simply nothing. Anyway, it was clear it'd be one of the Tempos.\r\n
We rushed to pick up the hornet, the mechanic informed us that it's leaking around the distributor and the repair would be about $69 an hour of labour. I promised him we'd bring it in the morning, while inwardly already cheering about how we'd buy an oil seal and replace it ourselves.\r\n
We each waited by one of the Tempos, about half an hour, but nobody showed up.
\r\n\r\n
Thursday 29. 7.\r\n
SF\r\n
In the morning we loaded a pile of junk from the house into the hornet (it really is big!) and with Jeff we took it to the SF Catholic charity. It was all old junk fit for the dump, but in the USA you take it to a charity as an antique, for which the charity issues you a receipt for a huge sum that gets deducted from your taxes.\r\n
We drove to Joe's for the necessary tools, which we usually leave there overnight, and went back to the boat to deal with the Jaguar. I put the battery in and the Jaguar started up just fine. I ran it around the parking lot and whistled happily about driving around America in a Jaguar!!J Then I started washing it and was amazed at how it was coming up. That white paint of its wasn't faded at all, it was simply just dirty. After washing and polishing it looked absolutely amazing! Then Martin took a ride too and we left the Jaguar in the parking lot in front of the harbour. It looked there as if some Rothschild had driven out fishing in his gleaming Jaguar.\r\n
Then there was lunch, the cook had saved us two overflowing plates with a beef steak the size of a pig, loads of crab meat, broccoli and spaghetti. It was excellent, we almost burst. Then we went back to Joe's and took the '90 Tempo to the car wash, we washed its engine properly and polished out the flaking clear coat on the metallic paint. It was only a little better, but considering the state of the engine, the paint is a mere trifle. This car is the worst thing we've bought here.\r\n
Then we waited in Joe's flat for Jeff to come, he was supposed to bring us a roll of paper for \\\"For sale\\\" signs for the cars. That's the most widespread way of selling here, because an ad costs about $30 and a dealer $100/month. You simply park the car with a \\\"For sale\\\" sign somewhere on a busy street and wait by the phone.\r\n
At the same time Joe was supposed to arrive (fly in) from New York today and we'd promised him we'd come pick him up at the airport. Since Jeff doesn't have a second key, I called him that I'd wait here for him and Martin would go to the airport alone.\r\n
Said and done. Martin left for the airport an hour before the arrival, it takes 20 min max, so he had plenty of time. I waited for Jeff, who turned up in a while. We were chatting and suddenly Joe walked in. He saw us sitting there, said hello and then asked where Martin was. That's when it hit me that something's off here. Joe came by bus!!!\r\n
Poor Martin is running around the airport somewhere and Joe is calmly telling us how he enjoyed the New York bars. Only after an hour did it come out of him that, the inconsiderate idiot, they'd landed 40 min early and he didn't feel like waiting. He probably didn't believe anyone would do what they'd promised, judging by himself. He says he called from the airport, but nobody picked up. No wonder, when he let it ring 3 times so that it wouldn't by any chance cost 35 c for the answering machine. I didn't manage to pick it up in time!!\r\n
Martin came back 2.5 hours after leaving, pissed off as hell that he hadn't found him and on top of that he'd paid $5 for the parking lot and another $5 for gas.\r\n
Jeff bought a few chicken burgers at McDonald's, and deliberately let Joe go first, so he'd offer us something, ask if we wanted anything, seeing as we'd lost the whole afternoon because of him, not to mention the money. It didn't even cross his mindL. And that's after he spent 14 days at my flat and at my parents' cottage, the whole of last Christmas. Jeff rents a room at his flat, which we now sometimes use during the day as general headquarters, and Joe had Jeff pay for it as normal, the usual $350L. When we found out (on Sunday) we immediately moved all our stuff and Jeff's stuff out of there and left it empty.\r\n
At about eleven at night Joe came round saying he was going to some bar, whether we were coming with him. Martin wasn't too keen, but in the end, sure. We stopped at the ATM for money (the card works again) and withdrew – Joe $20, me $60. Then we drove the hornet somewhere into town, parked and then walked back about half the distance we'd driven. We got to the bar and Joe was over the moon that there was no queue. Outside the bar stood 2 black gorillas checking IDs with a torch. They examined each one for about five minutes. They rejected my ISIC card, Martin didn't even have that. Apparently we have to have passports!!L That really pissed me off! So Joe went inside and we drove back for the passports. Of course by then there was a queue of 20 people. We got inside at about 00:30.\r\n
It was so packed you couldn't even walk, but they had Pilsner beer, so we had one right away. First Joe paid, then us. There were loads of beautiful girls there, then unfortunately (or rather luckily!) Joe's mate pointed out to me that some of them are guys in drag and immediately showed me a few examples. You can only tell by the Adam's apple!\r\n
There was an amazing mixture of colours, races, sizes, sexual orientations, a real Babylon. Here a Mexican girl making out with a black guy, over there an Asian girl with a white girl, over there a black guy with a white guy etc., simply a totally racially and sexually tolerant society.
\r\n\r\n
After several beers and shots we even worked up the courage for the dance floor, they play the 80s here, i.e. the stuff they played when I was at a disco for the first time. At about two it emptied out a bit, I was standing alone leaning on the bar, watching the goings-on. Suddenly a beautiful young lady appeared, sexily dressed, black bob, silver all over her face, and came straight at me, and pretty close at that! She slipped her leg between mine and looked straight into my eyes. For one thing I was already sufficiently fortified with Urquell, for another I'd heard a thing or two about American emancipation, so it basically didn't even surprise me. Here's an almost literal translation of our relaxed, intimate conversation:\r\n
Her: \\\"Hi, how are you\\\"\r\n
Me: \\\"Fine, how about you\\\"\r\n
Her: \\\"Me too\\\" (snuggled closer)\r\n
Me: \\\"Where are you from?\\\"\r\n
Her: \\\"From New York\\\"\r\n
Me: \\\"Really? What are you doing here?\\\"\r\n
Her: \\\"Nothing much, do you have money?\\\"\r\n
Me: \\\"Sure, what for?\\\" (I was already starting to guess, plus I had $12 behind my belt)\r\n
Her: \\\"So you can screw me!\\\"\r\n
Me: \\\"Yeah, well, I don't know...\\\" (or something like thatJ)\r\n
Her: \\\"Do you have $500 on you?\\\"\r\n
Me: \\\"You're not that good!\\\"\r\n
Her: \\\"I sure am, you bet\\\"\r\n
PAUSE \r\n
Her: \\\"Okay, $300 and I'll blow you too\\\" (by then she really was close, with her hands too)\r\n
Me: (I pretended to think for a while) \\\"I don't think you're that good anyway\\\"\r\n
Her: \\\"Never mind then, bye\\\" and she floated off on her beautiful long legs to hunt elsewhere.\r\n
Good thing I can count, so I know that $300 is the average monthly income in Bohemia.\r\n
At about three Martin set off on foot to go to sleep, Joe and I got thrown out about half an hour later and one of his mates gave us a lift in an off-roader right to the flat.
\r\n\r\n
Friday 30. 7.
\r\n\r\n
In the morning we had to get up really early, because both Tempos are now ready to be sold and they need to be placed somewhere visible. That has to be done in the morning, while there are still parking spaces. And on top of that I was supposed to be at Jeff's at quarter to eight so I could chat on-line over the Net with Káča. In the end I more or less made it, we managed to get a connection, but it was quite a disappointment. The response was weak and slow, both technically and humanly.\r\n
At least I got breakfast, though after yesterday's boozing I didn't much fancy it anyway. Then we took the Jaguar to the spot Jeff had recommended. It's a little parking area by the fire station, at the corner of 3rd and another busy street. It seems you can stand there indefinitely and above all everyone waiting at the traffic lights can see it. In the first 1.5 hours we had 4 interested people. In the meantime we managed to buy a gasket for the hornet's distributor, it wasn't an oil seal for $15, as we'd expected, but a rubber ring, 5 pcs for 99c. J\r\n
While Martin was fixing the hornet by the boat, I was off to a date with the first buyer. When Jeff saw I was about to walk that kilometre on foot, he was hugely astonished and forced the car on me.\r\n
I sold the Jaguar completely easily and during the sale yet another guy ran up saying he wanted it too.\r\n
Meanwhile Martin replaced the gasket, which was easy, but unfortunately that threw off the ignition timing, which wasn't so easy to set. In the end it runs again though. I washed the Chief's car so he couldn't bitch about us using the ship's water to wash ours. He has a new Mustang convertible and the alarm was honking at him the whole time I was washing it. Luckily you couldn't hear it, because in front of the boat there's a huge compressor they use to sandblast and paint one of the tanks from the inside.\r\n
Once we'd sold the Jaguar so nicely, we immediately had more appetite for the other cars. Some black chick came to look at the '90 Tempo, saying she'd take it on Sunday, because she's leaving on holiday somewhere today. Plus the fat guy from the paint shop called saying the truck is done.\r\n
Before we were all supposed to head home together with Jeff, we had to move the Tempos. They were parked on 3rd, where you can't park overnight because of street cleaning. We decided to put the '85 by the fire station and the '90 on Illinois, where that auction was. We wanted to let Jeff go ahead, because we'd been held up on the ship making a shelf for the bedroom (the ship has completely equipped workshops including a lathe and material for a whole new ship J). On top of that, Jeff fixed Joe's plastic broom, which I broke while sweeping out the Truck. Some Mexican moron came up with the idea of making a broom handle out of a plastic tube, so it snapped like nothing.
So Jeff was supposed to go ahead, I'd park the '90, walk over to Sršáň (it's close) and drive to pick up Martin at the fire station, where he was taking the '85. I got there, the car locked and Martin nowhere to be found. I thought he'd walked out to meet me, so I drove back. Our finished truck was already standing on the street in front of the paint shop, so I gave it a good look over and found out they'd botched it pretty nicely. Well, what can you expect, a full respray on a cow like that for $200.
It dawned on me that Martin had gone ahead with Jeff, so I drove to the '85 to see if there was a note. There wasn't.
I drove to Joe's, figuring I'd wait until Jeff got home and told me he'd brought Martin along. In the meantime I loaded another pile of his stuff that he still had at Joe's into Sršáň. In the two or three years he'd been paying that rent, he apparently slept there about 20 nights (he's got plenty of room on the ship), but he had the place furnished great, and he'd hoarded enough junk for 20 years.
Of course after about half an hour Jeff called saying he'd brought Martin, so I set off after them.
Saturday 31. 7.
We were supposed to pick up the truck early in the morning, Jeff said he'd ride along with us and that he'd wake us up, since he's on duty on the ship. He woke us at half past nine, the paint shop is open till eleven and it's a half-hour drive. So off to the city without breakfast. I paid for the paint job, we dropped Jeff off and drove to our favourite spot at the gas station by Joe's. We glued and bolted back on everything that had to come off for the painting and bought spray paint for the rims and the rear bumper.
In the meantime a few people called about the '85 Tempo, that spot by the fire station is really great.
I sold it to the first guy interested in the '85 right away, about 5 minutes later another one was supposed to show up. We quickly brought over the '90, which is pretty similar and even almost the same colour. They did notice, but we gave them a discount, so they wanted it. Unfortunately they didn't have enough money (a young black couple, her with a butt growing into potentially enormous dimensions). They were about $70 short, so would I take them to the bank, they asked. Sure.
The bank was closed L, so they wanted to go to some neighbourhood of theirs to borrow it. It was a horrific black neighbourhood on the edge of town under the freeway. The houses pretty solid (they got those from the government), but mess everywhere, filth, car wrecks, brats and above all I was the only white guy there! I pulled my cap down over my nose and played invisible. They didn't come up with the money anyway, so I drove them back and told them to call when they had it.
We got back to the truck, the rims and the bumper were already sanded down (we'd borrowed 2 drills with wire brushes from the ship), so we degreased them, sprayed them with primer and then with chrome-aluminium spray. Originally we bought 2 small cans for the bumper, in the end one was enough for the bumper and all the wheels! It looked great.
Since the wind was blowing like a bastard (it blows here all the time), we drove into one of the bays of an abandoned car wash to do the spraying. When Martin was driving out of there afterwards, the right front wheel dropped into a huge uncovered drain right in the middle of that bay. The whole wheel fitted in there (and a truck wheel is pretty big!).
There was no driving out of it, plus the gas ran out because the thing was tilted. Luckily there was a young Canadian guy nearby with a beat-up van and he pulled us out with a huge chain. First he was pulling with his handbrake on, but then Martin gave him a tip and we were out.
After that we just gave the engine a proper wash and it was already dark, so we headed back up home.
Sunday 1. 8.
SF
And half the holidays are down the drain! In the morning we drove Jeff to the ship again, on the way some black guy stopped us saying he'd definitely buy our Sršáň. (We drive around with a For Sale sign on it for 3x what it cost, just in case.) He looked like he really wanted it, so we stopped by the auction place to see what they've got new for us.
They've got three gorgeous Voyagers with AC there, each one more suitable than the last!
That black guy never called, so we're hesitating again about whether to go without AC.
Around two Norma and Gabe came to the ship, Gabe's flying to Texas for 14 days to see his dad. They even invited us out to lunch at a Mexican joint – a cafeteria, but I felt kind of crappy, so I had mine packed to go. I'd wolfed down some bread with jam on the ship and it was probably pretty old. Serves me right, I shouldn't devour everything I come across.
When they left, we sprayed the silver stripes on the side of the truck, and when Jeff got back he declared that it looks like a carnie's car, because the stripes are too thick, and that we should take them off. We had to admit he was right, plus we hadn't stuck them on straight. (We put the camper shell on the truck yesterday.)
Jeff picked out new stripes, I returned the stuff we hadn't used (spray, step-hedz, oil) and instead we grabbed black spray for the engine and those new stripes. It's really great that you can return anything you don't use.
Then Jeff left, we finished it up and parked the truck at the port, where the workers will supposedly fight over it tomorrow morning. (Today's Tuesday and not a soul has called yet L)
In the evening we were supposed to go to the movies, but because of a minor marital spat we set off late and so there wasn't anything decent playing anymore. So we went for a beer and a few appetizers at a rather nice bar. We stuffed ourselves nicely there (just on appetizers – cuttlefish, chicken drumsticks, garlic fries, olive pizza) and washed it down with beer they brew right on the spot. Then we came back home and Norma put on a movie on video and, unfortunately, made popcorn too. American decadence!
Anyway, it was an excellent film, I was the only one who even watched it to the end. It was about confusion in sexual orientation, a guy fell madly in love with a beautiful girl who unfortunately was a lesbian. At the same time his best friend fell in love with him. It reminded me a bit of that bar from Thursday.
Monday 2. 8.
In the morning we had a date with the buyer for the '90, he paid a $100 deposit, yippee!
We looked for Jeff on the ship and didn't find him, today we held back and didn't devour anything in the kitchen!!J
We drove to the post office, Martin should have a letter from Lenka there at Poste restante. I've already got 4 from Káča, 2 to the ship and 2 straight to Norma's.
We didn't find the post office (the right one) and I got another fit of bilious mood from hunger. So we quickly drove to Joe's to finish off the leftovers of the Mexican lunch. I called the buyer of the '90 on his cell, he said 20 minutes at the car.
At the car he was still haggling, but I told him we'd clearly agreed in the morning and that in the meantime I'd turned down 3 buyers (nobody called J). So he coughed up what he had. It was still $100 less than what we advertised and 3x less than what he'd have paid for a similar car (but in good shape) at a used car lot.
Then we drove over to Jeff's to show off and work out the next plan. He was pissed at Joe, because Joe called him twice yesterday about it being the 1st of the month and where's the check. As if Jeff ever owed anybody anything!
We also drove to Joe's to load up the last remnants of junk that was left there and Jeff went ahead home. On the way we wanted to stop at the market for fruit, for gas and Martin at that post office. We ran out of gas on the busiest street in San Francisco! L !! (Van Ness). Luckily I managed to cut across 4 lanes to the curb and we pushed it a bit (3m).
At the gas station (luckily 3 blocks away) they didn't want to sell us gas until we showed them the can it was going into. (Of course we had bottles from the trash.) Another California law that infuriated me. You can only fill approved cans and the attendant has to check the approval before filling. Besides that, you pay in advance here L. It forced us to buy a plastic approved can, it cost $3.50, luckily it's pretty handy, holds 1 gallon.
In the evening we went for a swim in the pool and afterwards I even managed to get connected with mum and Zuzka, which was really nice and we had a chat.
Tuesday 3. 8.
SF
I got up at twelve, spent the whole day writing the diary (6 days behind L), meanwhile Martin fixed Gabe's awesome go-kart, so we went for a ride around the neighbourhood. It's gas-powered and pretty fast, it was such a laugh that it attracted a comely kindergarten teacher over to us. We were driving around on the adjacent basketball court, you see.
Jeff has an acting class today, he won't be back till eleven, so we worked up the nerve to invite Norma out to dinner.
We drove (in her Civic) to San Rafael, about 5 km north on the freeway, to their favourite Thai restaurant. It was pretty good, we chatted about how she and Jeff met and so on. At the end I ordered a fried banana, and when they brought it, it looked like a sausage on a grill.
On the way back we stopped at the video rental place, rented Kolya, Saving Private Ryan, The Crying Game.
Martin studied Ryan, I chatted with mum and Zuzka again.
During the conversation Gabe interrupted me, he's in Texas and wanted to log on too, which wasn't possible because I was yapping away on his account. So I asked Jeff, and he logged me in under his.
Wednesday 4. 8.
Yesterday I found out we've got a nail (a screw) in Sršáň's tire. So that needs fixing fast.
We wanted to move the truck to our favourite spot by the fire station, but the battery was dead. We went to borrow jumper cables from Jeff on the ship and got a sandwich for lunch right away (4 cm of beef slices between toast bread).
We moved the truck and while Martin was having the tire fixed, I locked the keys in the truck. After about an hour of trying we broke into our own car, and that at the busiest intersection in eastern SF. Then we drove over to buy AAA membership and picked up maps and guides. They raised the membership to $63!L
In the evening we first took in the horrific garbage dump uncovered under Gabe's bed and then The Crying Game on video.
Oh and before that we went to knock around some ping-pong and pool.
Thursday 5. 8.
SF
I went to bed at three and at half past seven Jeff woke me up, saying he needed someone to follow him to the garage, that his water pump is crapping out. I then drove him back and he rode to the ship with Norma. He didn't want to borrow our Sršáň, since it's not insured. Then I collapsed into bed again and Martin kicked me out only at 12.
I finished the letters, took them to the post office and bought a brush. Then I sanded and painted the boards for the shelf Jeff's putting together for the bedroom. Martin fixed the dishwasher, vacuumed the whole house, washed all the blankets from Gabe's room, tried once again to adjust the ignition timing on Sršáň, glued the sagging ceiling back up, tried to fix the thermometer, fixed the brakes on Norma's bike and generally just goofed off.
For lunch I cooked potatoes and breaded chicken thighs stuffed with ham, which Jeff brought yesterday. (Probably from the ship's galley J)
Then Jeff arrived and set about mucking out (very fitting) Gabe's room. That lazy brute went away for a year, he knew some girl from Germany would be living in his room (exchange programme) and he still left an insane pigsty there.
Norma, so she wouldn't by any chance have to help muck out that cattle shed, spent about an hour on the phone with her relatives and then went to cook dinner. (Both good for us, she got out of the relatives how things work in Mexico and we're happy to devour dinner too J)
Martin watched Seven on video and I chatted with Zuzka and mum on the net.
Friday 6. 8.
SF
In the morning we drove over to see Jeff on the ship, we wanted to make new signs for the truck and lower the price. We really should get going already, 3 weeks as guests is plenty.
So we carefully painted signs with the new price in the cabin (and it wasn't as much fun as it sounds, the bigger one went across the whole windscreen, and the truck's one ain't small!) and then we chatted. Phone. Personally I didn't even dare hope it was for us.. It was. Meet at the truck in 10 min, I've got the money. It was a black guy, Frederick (about 50), and his young black employee, he inspected the engine, pulled out loads of hoses that we still don't know what they're there for, took it for a drive, said O.K. and the old man forked out the price without a word, the one we'd already agreed on on Wednesday when he called the first time.
We went to brag to Jeff, he wrapped it up soon after and we drove straight home.
The evening plan was to get properly hammered, partly because we hadn't done it with Jeff yet this time, partly because we need to celebrate the successful end of the business part of the holidays and the start of the more interesting, travelling part. We'd like to clear off tomorrow.
But oops! Norma had another row with Jeff over some nonsense (we'd been slaving away on her house all week and she did sod all!) Now she'd driven off somewhere to a pub for food (too lazy to cook), and when she got back, Jeff was sitting on the bed chatting with me. As soon as I left she threw it in his face that she's trying her best here while Jeff lounges about with me. And that she's fed up with sharing him (Jeff) with us.
Jeff brought it to us straight away, hot off the press, pissed off as hell. We work as his confessional, you see.
We started packing right away and went to bed early. Actually Martin still ate that dinner with them, I'd eaten bread with cheese beforehand, I thought dinner wasn't for us.
Saturday 7. 8.
SF
In the morning we got up around ten, Jeff wanted to come with us to the auction where we'd bought our first three cars on day one. We already had about 20 of them picked out from yesterday, and in the evening I looked up their market prices on the Net in the Bluebook at WWW.kbb.com. The auction was less interesting this time, because lots of cars didn't sell due to the set reserve price. But whatever did sell was always at least $1000-2000 cheaper than what the Blue book said. From yesterday Jeff had his eye on a BMW 735i, '85, of course a fully loaded automatic.
Unfortunately, the ship is on sailing standby, they're supposed to go somewhere to the Far East. So Norma banned him from buying anything, because then she'd have three cars on her hands. So Jeff wept over a BMW for $1600 (Bluebook $6,300) and then, when we drove down to the ship, he found out they're not going anywhere.
By the way, we went to the ship because I'd lost the keys to Jeff's room in Joe's flat somewhere and I hoped they were on the ship. All that was there was my cap, the keys probably stayed in the truck when we were breaking into it with them.
We went back to the house and until 2 in the morning we shifted furniture, scrubbed, put up shelves and washed the carpet (Martin) with a borrowed super-machine. Norma did (as always) sod all. For lunch she heated up some leftovers. (Thank God even for that...)
Around nine we set off for dinner to an Italian joint. We sat there for over 2 hours, we had about 5 starters and similar bits of crap, wine and a main course, and the hard cases (Jeff, Martin) then had a dessert too. I could barely walk out of there. When we got back we didn't feel like it, but we still finished the complete clean-up.
Jeff was as pleased as a little kid, after 2 months of grind he'd finally made the house usable!
Sunday 8. 8.
SF
Yesterday Norma came up with the idea that we surely can't leave yet, that she has to take us to some park or whatever, so supposedly we'd be getting up terribly early and going. That was some fit of warm love for us, or something. She got up at half twelve...L.
Martin helped Jeff with the house from the morning, I tried out the window film we'd bought against the sun and the nosy parkers and drove straight off to exchange it. It wasn't black enough, you see. Luckily in America you can return anything without giving a reason. I swapped it for a blacker one, but that one has to be glued on and it's more expensive. On the rear window I left the lighter one, which is supposed to hold by static electricity. I was sticking it on all day and, unlike in previous years, the result was almost flawless. Even the static film holds and the Sršáň now looks like a mafia limousine!
Towards evening Norma was setting off to buy something to eat, so I decided to go with her and cook them dinner. On the way I came up with French potatoes and bought all the necessary ingredients. Then I switched all my brain cells on and thought about how mum makes those French potatoes. I worked out that the potatoes probably have to be boiled first and then you chuck the rest in.
They all nearly ate themselves to death, they liked it so much, only I was cursing myself for going overboard with the pepper. I'm the only one who doesn't like spicy stuffL.
After the potatoes we also scoffed 2 loaves of French bread that I'd also bought, with three jars of excellent jam that Norma had bought.
That room upstairs that served as a store for all sorts of junk, Jeff cleared it out and kitted it out brilliantly as a tasteful study. He also completely redid Gab's room and shuffled ours around too. It finally looks like a place fit for humans here. Thanks to Martin's efforts, the black-and-brown maps have also disappeared from the white shaggy carpets all over the house.
Monday 9. 8.
SF - Mariposa, Ca
W E ' R E O F F ! ! !
At last, after 3 weeks of preparations (financial and material) we're heading for Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba! We loaded up our six fives, some tools from J. and off we go. We stopped by the ship to say goodbye and then whoosh, all day southeast, towards Yosemite National Park. We got there in insane heat around four and got a punch in the face right at the entrance. Admission $20!!!L
Grinding my teeth I paid, hoping we'd see the seventh wonder of the world inside. Nope. The Krkonoše crossed with the Alps, streams, waterfalls, rocks, but above all and unfortunately, hundreds and thousands of cars full of tourists.
We stopped under one of the waterfalls (a car park for about 120 cars completely full) and set off to have a look at it up close. Over terribly slippery rocks (even the dry ones were slippery) we scrambled right up under the waterfall, for which it rewarded us with an amazing rainbow.
Warned by cautionary leaflets with a photo of a car smashed up by a bear looking for food scraps, we headed out of the park for the night. Besides, we had nothing to eat. The first food shop was about 40 miles from the park. We bought some cheap nasties and then ate at the hated Burger King (6 years ago they towed our car from the Burger car park for $100!L). It was similar, but there was plenty of it and it was hot.
We slept by the road heading back to Yosemite.
Tuesday 10. 8.
Yosemite - Fresno
In the morning Martin got up earlier and drove me, asleep, down to the river in front of the park. There we washed and had some disgusting cereal with yoghurt for breakfast. The plan was some hike in the park and the sequoias. We found some waterfall on the map, about 5 miles on foot. We drove into some village where a good 300-400 people lived (what on earth do they live off in the middle of a deep forest?). We even met a deer with donkey's ears. Then we parked, put on our boots and set off. The path took us under some hidden waterfall (more like we got lost than that there was a path there...) and I was gripped by climbing passion. I started scrambling up the rock alongside the waterfall and Martin had no choice but to follow me.
When, with all my strength and a fair bit of risk, I scrambled all the way up above the waterfall, I had the feeling I'd made the first human footprint here. I sat on the rock, watched Martin below me and mused that Yosemite is actually beautiful, you just have to walk somewhere where an American's foot can't go without a car. And as I'm sitting there, a high little voice next to me goes \"Hi\". A beautiful slim ballet student from San Francisco had scrambled up after me. (Well, not that she'd scrambled up after me, more that she wanted to get somewhere those mangy tourists wouldn't set foot..!). A while after her her blokeL scrambled up, and then Martin too. We left each other to contemplate in private, said goodbye and climbed the rest of the waterfall and carried on along the path to the next one.
At the sequoias the car park was even bigger and even fuller. The one-ton lady tourists were even willing to walk to the first sequoias, the sportier ones to the others as well. But at the fallen sequoia that people used to drive cars through while it was alive (which is why it fell) we were alone. It was 5 miles from the car park, you see!
We were hungry as dogs again and basically nothing in the car. So we set off out of the park towards civilisation and finished off the leftovers on the way. By the time we came across an All-you-can-eat sign (scoff what you canJ), we were basically full.
In the first bigger town (Mariposa, I think) we found a Vons supermarket and bought some fried chicken something with fried potatoes and bread. We wolfed it down in the car park and then we just drove and drove and drove, first south towards Los Angeles and then east towards Phoenix. I'd been asleep since about 11, Martin packed it in around midnight at a Rest Area and went to sleep too. Luckily the Sršáň is big enough for sleeping, so we've got a decent airfield in the back.
It's just that girl hitchhikers won't have anywhere to sit (unless....J).
Wednesday 11. 8.
San Bernardino + Good Year, Ca - Phoenix, Arizona
All day, in terrible insane heat, through desert with cactuses and little towns indistinguishable from the ones in Africa last year, we drive and drive and drive and drive.
In the evening we arrived just before Phoenix in the little town of Good Year, stuffed ourselves at McDonald's, got on the motorway towards Phoenix, found out we were actually already in it, which doesn't suit us for sleeping, so we went back to that McDonald's in GoodYear. We've been sitting here for about 3 hours now, writing our diaries, washing in the washbasin in the bogs, watching the fat and the less fat American, Mexican, Chinese, Filipina girls and generally everything that walks past. We'll probably sleep in the car park in front of McD.
Thursday 12. 8.
Phoenix - Mexican border
In the morning we drove into downtown Phoenix and at a petrol station we tried to phone up the address of the local AAA. Without success. In the end the pump attendant found it out for us.
At the AAA we finally exchanged that terrible wad of dollars from the cars for Amer. Express cheques, we wheedled out the maximum amount of information about Mexico and mainly we wanted to pay for car insurance for Mexico. The American one isn't valid there and mainly we haven't got any J. Which in the end was the problem, because AAA only insures on the basis of US insurance. Now I can only say thank God they didn't insure us there. See tomorrow.
So we also asked about the nearest car parts shop, bought a temperature sensor there (engine temperature in the desert is quite useful information…), filled up with the cheapest petrol so far ($1.24/gallon) and got hold of a handful of pins to fix the fallen fabric back onto the Sršáň's ceiling.
And then we drove again in that insane heat heading south, we stopped in the retirement town of Green Valley to shop at Safeway and arrived in a little border town…
The insurance companies were already closed, so we crawled through the local shopping centres for purchase-hungry Mexicans and bought a car fridge ($70), a tin opener and a kit for repairing flat tyres.
We slept in the car in front of KFC.
The continuation is Mexico.
