Creel
31th of July
Travelled to Creel by autobus. Played billiards at Best Western in the evening.
1th of August
Went to the Indians in the caves, the waterfalls and lake whatever. Bumpy car ride on the roof. Gave bread and money to small Indian kids. Went horse riding in the evening.
2nd of August
Started on a long journey, went to the huge canyon. Took the train to Los Mochis, slept at a hotel that was very nice.
3rd of August
Travelled by bus for the whole day. Got stopped a lot of times. Checking the same bags on and on again.
I think Creel was a place that’s very different to others placed we’ve visited. I talked to one of the workers at the hostel, and he told me what he taught about Creel. He meant that Creel was divided into to two. One part was the part that lived by tourism, the other part was the Indians that lived as they had been living for centuries. He also said that Creel didn’t have any culture at all, which I disagree on. I think watching the Indians in the caves and riding into their village was a great cultural experience. I found it very strong to watch all these small girls going around and selling bracelets to us. They were very young, and shy. They all looked very scared of us, even though they tried to sell us things. We gave some of the small kids in the Indian village some bread and some money. I think they got happy, but they still didn’t dare to look us in the eyes or say thanks. Afterwards they went to their mothers with the bread and money, and then it looked like as the mother was satisfied with their work.
San Diego / Santa Ana
4th of August
Arrived in Tijuhana, did the border crossing. Spent some time in San Diego, which was nice. Ate at McDonalds. Everything was clean. Fantastic to speak English. Very polite people. Almost artificial, but still they were very interested in us. Travelled to a fantastic hotel in Santa Ana. Nice night of sleep.
5th of August
Went to the Newport beach. Chillin’ and hanging out. Lovely, just like in the movies. People blading, playing volleyball, tanning and a lot of nice chicks and huge hunks. Funny cab drivers, discussing politics with them. Very radical cab driver.
Los Angeles
6th of August
Took the taxi to Hollywood. Big problems finding the correct hotel.
7th of August
I went to see where all the celebrities live in Beverly Hills and Bel Air. I taught it was thirty bucks straight out of the window. It was very boring. I can’t understand why people have any interest in watching their estates. We also looked in some shops in Bel Air. They are just so filthy rich, it’s disgusting. In one shop an average customer spent incredible one hundred bucks. Some of the houses were amazing, but I don’t understand why they want to live in Beverly Hills. Having a lot of tourists driving by each day to watch their houses can’t be that fun. Later on I went downtown to watch the city. Amazing skyscrapers and a lot of shops. Noticed that nobody was living there.
The finance district was extreme. It’s so high class building, and armed guards everywhere. The metro worked very well, but there was very little people taking it. Sat up at night and talked to a midget actor, and a songwriter that let me listen to his record. It actually was very nice, so I bought it. It was a funny experience. We talked till early in the morning. He played some guitar for us, and we talked about his life and how he was planning on becoming a star. He had actually spent 150 grand on the record that I bought from him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he turns out to become famous. I helped him burning some records, so he promised me free backstage passes for the rest of my life.
8th of August
I’ve noticed that there is a lot of signs that tells you what you can’t do, and how much the police will fine you if you break the rules. It actually seems like it’s working, because everything is so clean and tidy. During my days here I’ve been astonished of that everybody is waiting for green light to pass the crosswalks. Even though it’s a big traffic jam, and it’s totally safe to walk over the streets, they’re still waiting. I just thought that they didn’t want to take any risk or something, but Jamal told me that it’s because you’ll get a fine on 350 bucks if you walk when it’s red light. That’s extreme. I guess I’m lucky that hasn’t been fined already.
We spent the whole day at Venice and Santa Monica beach. It was fun to play volleyball, and we also talked to this seven years old girl that sold us some chocolate. She was working for her parents and was extremely mature to be only seven years old. When walking from Venice Beach to Santa Monica Beach in the evening we walked past some homeless people that were spending the night at the beach. One fellow was taking a shower in one of the public showers on the beach. I was freezing while walking on the beach, and there he stood in ice cold water. I guess he had a cold night in front of him. Seeing this kind of cruelty after watching all the celebrities houses from a limousine made me think about what kind of sick differences there are in LA. The world sure isn’t any fair place, but still I can’t stop feeling awkward when meeting poor people while travelling.
9th of August
Today we went to Universal Studios. It wasn’t as fun as I had expected. In the evening we held our presentations of three interviews we had made with Hollywood people. It went okay, even though I hadn’t done much preparation. In the evening we ate all together at an expensive Italian restaurant. It tasted very well, and it was cozy. Me and OC then went to Rush Hour 3 at midnight. It was entertaining, but a very thin story, typical for Hollywood. In the night I watched a couple of movies at the hostel with this girl I met. She was originally from Belarus, but was living in Hollywood for some months. She was very cute, and it was nice to meet here. She talked a lot about Belarus, and I was surprised because it seemed very similar to Norway. It seemed like as if they had advanced a lot from the time as Soviet.
10th of August
I went to the beach with Juliane and Krisitina for the whole day. I fell asleep for a couple of hours, so now my tan has finally gotten good. We were supposed to play some tennis at the end of the day, but we didn’t have time since we had to reach the plane to Fiji.
During my days here I’ve talked to a lot of people about the city, and there’re some quotes that I think is very suitable for the city.
“LA is not about what you do, it’s about who you are, and who you know”
“The people that drive around in fancy cars wants to make people believe that they’re filthy rich, those that are filthy rich take the metro.”
“This is LA man, this is the shit, NY is nothing, the money is here.”
What seems typical for the people living in Hollywood is that everybody is actors, artists or successful finance people. They are all trying to make the American dream come true. All the people we interviewed had a dream, and had figured out a way to reach their target.
11th of August
11th of August is a day that never existed for me. We skipped it, since we were crossing the date line while flying to Fiji.
Fiji
12-16th of August
We arrived Fiji early in the morning. From the first second we met smiling people, and people that wanted to help us. When first seeing the hostel we were going to live on for the next four nights I got very amazed. The location was incredible. It was ten meter from the beach. There were a lot of hammocks on the beach, and I really felt that this was a place where I could spend the rest of my life. I’ve never seen a more idyllic place in my life. I spent the first day at the hostel, playing volleyball, bathing and gaining energy. The Fijians turned out to be a very happy people with a joy of life that I really envy them. They didn’t have any material values like we do in the west. One guy I went out fishing told me that he couldn’t be happier. He had a family that he loved, he was healthy and had his primary needs covered. They look at life in a totally different way then what is common in Norway. While we’re struggling most of our life’s to get a lot of money we often happened to forget what really matters. The Fijians truly demonstrated that happiness isn’t about money.
Their way of living is very relaxed, and they never experience any stress. To me it was quite annoying, since everything took so much time. In the start I thought that they just weren’t service minded at all, but I learned that it’s all about the “Fiji time”. Asking reception clerk about activating my key card could for example take five minutes, since she always had to do some other thing in slow motion first. Ordering a Pizza in the restaurant took two hours, seriously.
Many people we met in Fiji had never been outside of their Island. They’re living in a misconception about what the world is like. Fiji sure isn’t like the rest of the world so it must be very strange to not know about anything else. A girl I talked to had one big dream, and that was to travel outside of Fiji. I felt a little bit awkward since I had just told her that we’re travelling around the world for five months, without really having to struggle to get the money.
It seems like as if the island has an impact on everybody that’s visiting it. Everybody adapts the Fiji time way of living. In Mexico City and Los Angeles everybody was short of time. People were running around with a fully booked schedule, in Fiji they always have enough time. As the Spaniard say “manana manana” which means tomorrow tomorrow. Like as if they’re saying don’t worry, we’ll sort it out later. Everything is going to be alright.
When we interviewed some people we found out that Fiji had recently been through a radical alteration. The last democratic government was seemingly corrupt and they did a very bad job. Therefore the military put aside the government and took the power. There are many different opinions on that solution, but at least some things have been sorted out. The crime rate is much lower, but on the other side there’s less tourism since many people are skeptical about going to a country where there just have been a military revolution. Some of them didn’t like to talk about it. It looks like it kind of has separated the people in to two different political sides.
I didn’t meet any Fijians that didn’t speak English, which is quite amazing. I found out that it’s because they have English in school, and that they can’t continue their studies if they fail in English. Even though tourism still is a big industry in Fiji, they’re not that clinging as people working with tourist in Mexico or USA.
I did a lot of fun things during my days in Fiji. I went skydiving and on a one day trip to a small island called Malamala. On the island we went snorkeling and we played volleyball against some Fijians. They turned out to be in a good mood and were funny. I had a great time, and everybody was so happy.
Melbourne
16-20th of August
When we first arrived Melbourne in Australia my first impression was that it was very westerly. It could well have been a big city in UK. Our hostel was very nice and clean, probably the best hostel we’ve been to. Actually everything is very nice and clean in Australia, even the water tastes okay. Melbourne turned out to be a city where I would fancy studying for a couple of years. I don’t really know why, but I have a feeling that the student life here is very good. I would love to live here since it’s a very sophisticated city, not very different to home, but sill with many differences. It’s winter here now, but still the weather isn’t at all comparable to a Norwegian winter. So the climate, the open people and Melbourne being a pretty big city makes me want to stay here for a long time. I think most Australians are very friendly, and it’s easy to talk to them. We did a couple of cool things as well in Melbourne. We visited the museum of Melbourne, which doesn’t really sound that interesting, but it sure was. We watched a documentary about dinosaurs at an IMAX cinema and watched many different exhibitions about humans and animals. It was informative and fun. We paid approximately half price on the museum since we were students. You get discounts everywhere in Melbourne if you’re a student, which is backing up my theory of Melbourne being a popular student town. The only negative thing about Melbourne is that it’s pretty expensive. Some things are at the same price level as in Norway.
I think the Australians are very proud of their own country and they do everything to keep it the way it is. For example they’re very strict on quarantine rules. You can’t bring anything from overseas without checking with the quarantine people at the airport. Elisabeth for example had a necklace with a shell from Fiji on her when we arrived in Melbourne. The quarantine officers were skeptical, but they allowed it. Bringing a banana for instances would have been impossible since they screen your entire luggage for fruit or anything else that might have bacteria on them. I’ve also seen some posters with hotlines you can call and tips
Honestly I don’t think there is so much to say about Melbourne. Both Mexico and Fiji was very different to what I’m used to so I got more strong impressions there. I also used pretty much time on the hostel, cooking food and just chilling.
Etter Melbourne har jeg vært i Cairns og tatt dykkerlappen. Svømte med turtles and sharks. Sjukt gøy. Nå har jeg dykkersertifikatet for resten av livet, og har fått meg en ny hobby. Dyr sådan. :-) Nå er jeg i Airlie Beach og skal bruke dagen til å chille på stranda. I natt er det nattbuss igjen. Oppdateringer kommer så fort som mulig.
