As you probably noticed, I can't be arsed writing about my vacation in this blog anymore. It takes too much time and no-one reads it. It's because nobody can be arsed about what I did 6, 7 months ago. Besides, I'm not even done writing the report in my own language yet. So I'm going to try and re-animate this thing with other stuff. What, I don't know yet. But you can bet it will be very superficial and funny as hell. At least in my head. :D Crap, I did a smiley.

Day eight: Anaheim

I called the car rental company people in the morning to let them know about our mysterious ‘Oil life 15%’ and after she had checked the handguide, the woman told me we were actually running out of oil. See? It really was that simple. She told us to exchange our car at an Alamo rental office down the road from our hotel, free of charge. Sniffle, bye little red Chevy Chase! Sniffle.

The upside of exchanging our good old trusted car, was that we got a bigger one in return, we could fit all our suitcases in the trunk. We had to dump one suitcase on the backseat in Chevy Chase because the trunk was too wee. Also, the new car was gold (GOLD! Always believe in your soul. You’ve got the power to know. You’re indestructible. Always beliiieeeve iiin!) which was getting us one step closer to driving a complete pimp mobile. We dubbed this car the ‘Chevy gold (GOLD! Always believe in your sooouuuul)’. Yes, including the singing.

I juuuust realized that we exchanged the car on the 20th instead of the 18th. Whatever.
Anyway, we went to Disneyland and its Tiny Castle. Don’t be hatin’, the castle really is SO tiny, it bugged us. In other Disney parks, the castle is our main reference point whenever we get lost and we want to get out of the jungle of Happy People and people with Stubbed Toes who think they own the right to a Wheelchair goddammit, and annoying little brats.

Hold me closer, tiny Castle:



Where were we going to find the nearest exit without a damn reference point? Luckily, at noon, we were meeting up with Katie, who knows the park like the back of her hand. I don’t know how people can ‘know’ the back of their hands, I mean, it’s all fun and games to have one (because it would mean there’s also a front of the hand and subsequently, a hand, which is always, uhm…handy), but it’d be more logical to say you know a place like your own home.
Or your walk-in closet. Or the smell of your pet rabbit.
Back on topic. We went in lots of attractions, like the Pirates of the Caribbean. Con had said that last time she went to Disneyland Paris, they had these pirates dressed up as Orlando and Johnny, but stupid old CaliDisney did not have them. Boo! After that, we went inside the Haunted Mansion and I managed to keep my eyes open for about a quarter of a ride. This is a record, people. I hate haunted mansions. They are haunting. Really!
Half an hour later, the Mansion was closed because it had broken down. This would turn into a pattern during the next few days. Either we’d go on a ride and a little later, it would break down, or we would want to go on a ride, Fast Passes at the ready, and then we’d find out it’s broken down.
We crawled our way through the Castle (we also had the chance to just bunny-hop over it, but the top of the tower is pointy and then we’d have no back or front of our hands anymore.
The three of us went inside Splash Mountain and hot damnit if I didn’t end up in front getting completely soaked, shirt, pants, shoes, socks, panties, every single thing. Hair, too. Great! Luckily, the weather was hot and sunny so I dried up pretty quickly. This is why they have no such thing in Disneyland Paris. If you end up getting soaked and the weather is not 2831 degrees and sunny, you’ll get pneumonia and frostbite. Or something.
Around 7pm it was time to say goodbye to good old cligeypoo. We bought Katie a fab vintage Mickey t-shirt in which she can totally impress all the cute designer boys at her office. Go Cligers, go Cligers! She’s awesome.
Con and I went on some more trippy LSD-inspired rides in Fantasyland, and then it had turned dark and we wanted to go on Big Thunder Mountain because it had been broken down all day. It reopened so we rode it in the dark which was pretty cool. Then we went to Indiana Jones, which was great too, a big ball came straight at us, wahhhhh! Then we watched the awesome fireworks (I wonder how much $$$$$s they shoot up in the air every night. It’s crazy). And after a long and fulfilling day, we strutted back to our hotel room.

Some pictures:

Day seven: Los Angeles - Anaheim

We went to the Pantages theatre on Hollywood Boulevard to try out for the Wicked lotto. No, it’s not a mean version of Keno, duh. It’s the lotto you do when you want to get cheap and really good seats for a show! Groovy. We did lottos when we were in NYC last year, to no avail. And this time we weren’t lucky either, all 3 of us entered with two names but nope, nada. I think statistically there was a bigger chance of winning the lotto after all this time than not winning it. So I think we were lucky in some way? meh.

We had some lunch near Casa Cligers, then we packed our suitcases and said goodbye to miss Katie. Not before we forced her to check this little screen on our car’s dashboard that said ‘Oil life 15%’. WTF does it mean? Katie advised us to call the rental company people to be sure what it means, but no light had been flashing or anything so it should be okay.
Anyway, we said goodbye, not for long because we’d be seeing each other again the next day.

We drove to Anaheim and arrived at our hotel after half an hour or so. Dumped all the luggage crap in a corner, and walked to Downtown Disney (the shopping/dining area of Disneyland). Got some drinks and went to the movie theatre [CI-NE-MA] to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. AWESOME movie, go see it. Oh, it’s not in the movie theatres [CI-NE-MA] anymore I think. Get the dvd! I loved it. It even got applause at the end! There was no break in the middle of the movie (as they have over here) and I didn’t have to pee at all. So good!
After the movie we walked back to our hotel and we passed the House of Blues and saw a sign outside saying
PLAYING LIVE
TONIGHT
JEFF TIMMONS
JORDAN KNIGHT

Ahhh! Jeff frickin’ Timmons of former slush-band 98 degrees, he SINGS? For real? We have a long-going inside-joke about Jeff Timmons so we laughed and then there’s Jordan Knight as well, but since we had just seen the first episode of the Surreal Life on Dutch tv we decided to refrain from buying tickets to see this skeeve-fest and go back to our hotel instead.

Day six: Los Angeles

We woke up in the morning and waited for a THUD outside the door. No, Katie doesn’t live in the ghetto, where people are shot right outside their doorstep. That’s like so OJ ’94, man. We waited for the new Harry Potter book to arrive. We waited and waited and nope, no book. The mail man had come and gone. Nothing. Katie had to drop something off at a friend’s house at 11, and she’d be back as soon as possible so we could continue hacking her computer and browsing through her closets and stuff. Cool! We have gained some useful facts by staying at Casa Cligers. She has a pretty pink, girly bathroom. It’s too cute. She has lots of books. Which could indicate that she reads. OMG! She drives a stick-shift car. That’s just crazy. She has a huge pink bag in which she keeps everything. She has a cell that always rings. She drives the stick-shift car while rumaging through her pink bag, looking for her cigarettes while she talks on the phone. Also, you can spell the name ‘Clay Aiken’ by taking some letters from her name and shuffle them. Told ya. Closet Claymate.

I had some time left to have an IM conversation with my sister on the other side of the world.
THUD. Fed Ex! The book is here! A few minutes after that, Katie came back and we packed up and drove to another friend of her’s, in Venice. While she installed a new computer there, Con and I walked a few blocks to Venice Beach to check out the scene. How hip does that sound? Very. Venice Beach was nice. Lots of colourful people there, people playing basketball, girls breakdancing, people who tell you this book will cure cancer, people who are standing holding up a screenless tv-frame and talking through it, people making horrible, horrible paintings, people talking to themselves, dazed and confused tourists (hi!), people who want to tell you the future, people playing panpipes. Oh, and there was a beach! But since I’d rather be dressed up as a Frankfurter sausage in the middle of a Bon Jovi concert than wearing a bathing suit on a crowded beach, we decided to just look at it from afar. Ahh, pretty beach.







After all of that, we drove to more touristy places in LA. When we were driving out of Venice, Con spotted Rydell High (Venice High School in real life) from the movie ‘Grease’. That was fun. Katie made a U-turn so we could check it out again to make sure and we could take pictures.
We parked at Rodeo Drive and I tried my very best to spot any stick-insect bobbleheads wearing glasses the size of pizza platters and holding little Gucci bags and a tiny ugly dog, but nope, no dice. Only saw a couple of papparazzi walking outside a store looking at their camera-lcd screens. We went inside one of the shops and it pained me to see they ask $130 for the ugliest pair of shoes in existence. On discount. Seriously, they were so ugly if I’d wear them and I’d walk into poo, I’d be ticked off because of the turd I’d ruined.
We then drove through Beverly Hills. Pretty houses, indeed. Also, the bigger the house, the bigger the hedge around it and we didn’t have one of those handy star-maps with us but Conny being the spotter that she is, saw the Osbourne’s house. I didn’t. But it’s cool, I know where I want to live when I get rich and famous and totally loaded. Not Beverly Hills! No, Mulholland Drive! It’s awesome. We went there and it had more big houses, but these were more bohemian-like, funkier, less pretentious but still huuuge.
We stopped somewhere along the road to check out the Hollywood sign.



We then drove on to Hollywood Boulevard. The Kodak theatre was nice, lots of shops and restaurants and stuff. And HEY it’s that place where Ryan Seacrest had his short-lived show! It’s THAT place? Oh I didn’t know that! Hm, you learn something new every day. Anyway, Mann’s Chinese Theatre looked exactly the same as the one at Disney’s MGM Studios in Orlando, FL. I mean, if you’re going to make a replica, make sure it’s not as big as the real one, Disney. Sheesh. We were on a mission, because my sister had visited LA 2 months before I did, and she’s a big Elvis fan and asked Fat Elvis (who happened to be walking on the blvd, even though he’s supposed to be dead. Dude.) where his Star was and he told her where it was and then she looked and looked but couldn’t find it. So it was my mission to find it.
We asked Cat Woman (did the total embarrassment of her recent film make her throw herself onto the hamburgers and fries? Girl can use a work-out) and she sent us to the complete opposite direction (it later turned out). Jimi Hendrix, same story. He did tell us he always loved coming to Amsterdam. He bummed a smoke from Katie and in return we got our picture taken with Jimi.
After a long search, we finally found the Elvis Star, right at the start of the Walk of Fame, next to the Beatles, under 4 Oscar-statues.

And we found this:



It had turned dark and it was around 11pm when we drove back, on our way back we stopped at a Barnes & Nobles and got our own Harry Potter books. Got back to Casa Cligers, had tea and read the first few chapters of our books. Woo!

Day five: Los Angeles

We got up and called a taxi to come pick us up at around 9.30am, to bring us to Universal Studios Hollywood. The taxi-company’s phone number was provided to us by the one & only Katie/cligers, and it was reliable, since it got us to our destination in a little over 20 minutes, for only 26 dollars. This is important information you’ll need a little further on in today’s recap.

Universal Studios rocked. I’ve been to the one in Orlando, FL a couple of times but this one’s even better, because it’s right bang in the middle of all the hustle and bustle of Hollywood and all the tv shows and stupid movies, and not so stupid movies, whereas the Orlando people just nicked some props from Hollywood and put them in their park where they were growing mould. The Hollywood’s still aliiiive, it’s aliiiive! Now I’m going to look really stupid if it turns out that the Orlando ‘Studios’ are also very much active. Ah forget it, I look stupid anyway, who’s gonna notice?

There were some new attractions, including ‘Fear Factor Live’, featuring a very cute guy called Chris, in a bright yellow overall. His job was to hype up the crowd by making us yell and scream and by showing us glassy boxes with tarantulas in them. All he had to do to hype us up was to just stand there in his little yellow overall, and be cute. That’s all. No spiders needed. No screaming and yelling. Well, screaming… uhm, okay.
The Fear Factor show consisted of 6 dumb volunteers who had to do gross stuff like spinning around for a minute or two, then drink a mix of fish guts and seaweeds in one go. They also had to put themselves under high voltage. It’s what you go to amusement parks for, right?

We walked along some sets, including a ‘European’ one. The most European-looking part of the set was us.
The London phonebooths didn’t look alike either because the sleazy pictures of Ivana and Helga who would show you a good time if you would call this number were missing inside the booth. Bad research.

The Backlot Tour was really cool, it drove us past a lot of famous sets, like the one that was used for War of the Worlds. I tried to block the fact that Tom Cruise DNA was all over that rubble and took a picture.

Tom wuz 'ere.



I drove past Wisteria Lane! EEEEEEE! And they were shooting! EEEEEEEE! And we had to be quiet! EEEehm. Ssssh. Unfortunately, we didn’t see anyone famous and we didn’t see the main street used in Desperate Housewives, but we got to see some side streets which was cool.

After we’d seen just about everything there was to see in the park (it was so big, it had 2 levels! OMGcanyoubelieveit), we got out onto the Citywalk, which is basically a one-street Universal Studios shopping/dining/party area. Tons of tacky stuff was sold, and there was a fun ‘80s band playing called the ‘Rocket Scientists’ or something. We went to the Hard Rock Café because it is our mission to visit every HR Café in the world. Long way to go, but so far we have about 10. We don’t have anything to prove it though. Our fat guts maybe. Yeah, that. Anyway, hamburgers and big fat fries, hurrah! We sat in the U2/Guns n’ Roses/Nirvana corner.

Fat! Yum!



After dinner, it had gotten dark and we were tired and full of fat food so we didn’t really feel like calling up the Well Respected, Reliable Taxi Company provided by Katie, but jumped in the nearest cab available instead and headed home.
It would’ve been nice if the driver’d know which way to go though. Because he went halfway around the city, asked us for directions, stopped for 5 minutes to check his map (he did this when we were only a few miles away from the house), and then asked us to cough up 55 dollars for the 45-minute ride. GULP.

We got our stuff together a bit and chilled out on the Most Comfortable Couch in the History of the World, and waited for Katie to arrive. Tension, teeeensioonnnn! What if the cops who had come by the previous day were right, and she really IS a 83-year-old crossdresser from Saskatchewan? Oh my God, what if she was Playboy Gramps? Fortunately, when she finally arrived at 1.30am, she turned out to be awesome, not resembling a tiger at all, and very friendly. Con was delighted at the fact that she has a US Weekly subscription and knows just as much useless celebrity trivia as she does. We talked for a while and gossiped about you all hahahahahaaaaa! And then we went to sleep, I stayed on the MCCitHotWorld while Katie decided she wanted to sleep as close to the doorstep as possible, because the new Harry Potter would arrive there the next morning and she wanted to keep an eye on the arrival. Crazy!

Day four: Santa Maria - Los Angeles

We were able to sleep in for a little while, since the trip we were taking that day wasn’t expected to consist of a lot of places we really wanted to visit. We had been dreading this particular day, because we were going to LA, and LA is a city, a big city, actually it’s a whole lot of big cities rolled up into one big city, with lots and lots of cars and lots of lanes and EEK. Scary.
I’d figured out that by driving on the PCH1 as long as possible, we’d get to see more pretty beach towns and we’d avoid the scary Interstates as much as possible. It’d take a little longer to get there, but hey, plenty of time, as long as we don’t enter the LA area around 5/6 pm, it’s okay!
The landscape changed from hills and green to dead grass and hills and bigger houses and more surfdudes! Yay for surfdudes! I felt like I could run into David Hasselhoff any minute. Don’t worry, we would’ve tried to swerve around him elegantly so someone else could run him over if they wanted to. I’m not being mean, but once you have ‘I’ve been looking for freedom’ stuck in your head, you want to do such thing.

We were dead hungry because we’d expected to come across a town with edibles much earlier, but that wasn’t the case. Every time we’d see something shimmering in the distance, we thought it’d be a little town with a restaurant and a place for me to pee, but no. Trailers, trailers and more trailers. Shiny, shimmery trailers. Finally in Malibu, there was a little road going uphill to a private beach. Big parking lot there, where you could park only if you’d spend at least $20 on food and paid $3 on your way out. We were hungry and we had to use the restroom, so we didn’t even have to think twice about it. The restaurant/beach thing was called Paradise Cove, we sat and ordered some food which was lovely, the only annoying thing were our loud neighbours. Two guys and their trampy girlfriends, who were very, VERY loud and annoying. One guy used the word ‘buddy’ at least 3 times in every sentence. ‘Okay, buddy buddy, that’s alright, see ya buddy!’ When he was on the phone to someone. ‘Ooooh buddy, buddy, bud-deeeeee!’ To the waiter when his dessert arrived. The foursome was accompanied by a rather strange old man with thin white hair combed all the way to the front of his forhead. He sat at the end of the table, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, kakis, a belt with the figure of a naked woman and a Playboy necklace. He just sat there and listened and sometimes he’d say “”Heh, you guys are crazy, heheheh.” He also got up once to take a picture of the trampy women, saying they were “For my magazine.”
We dubbed him ‘Playboy Gramps’.

Our table at the restaurant with some stuff on it. Woo!



After a while we were back on the road, heading for LA. We got to Santa Monica, and it was 5pm and we were shitting ourselves, but we wanted to move on so we did. Eek! It went smoothly, though. Just a few minor traffic jams. We would be staying at Katie’s place, which most of you will know as the infamous cligers. Katie was out of town that day, she wouldn’t be back until midnight the next day, but we were able to get into her house anyway via a supersecret procedure which we’d thought up before we left Holland, and it’s so secret I can’t tell you in case anyone here decides to execute said procedure and trash poor Katie’s home. Haha! Send me enough money and I will give you a clue. It could be a letter, it could be a colour, it could be anything, it could even be something simple as a fingerprint. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with this particular procedure. Just, send me money, alright? Thanks. Anyway, we got into the house! And there it was. The Most Comfortable Couch in the History of the World. There was also a bed, but I claimed the couch. It will be mine! There was also a computer which Katie had left on so we could hack into her accounts and read her crazy online conversations with various Claymates. Muhahahaha! We got some food and sodas at the cornershop, watched cable and played the radio-stream of one of Holland’s main radio stations on the computer.

Day three: Monterey - Santa Maria

Our next destination was Santa Maria, home of the Jackson trial, no really. That’s all we know about the city. Cultural barbarics. We drove along the Pacific Coast Highway 1, where there were lots of ‘Vista Points’ where you could park the car, get out and enjoy the scenery. Now, being from Holland I get excited about speedbumps because WOO, HILLS! Imagine my reaction to all the hills and mountains and high cliffs and stuff. I wanted to get out at every Vista Point. I mean, what if the landscape would suddenly turn flat? Like in Cinderella. Not that she turns flat at 12 o’clock, but what if from one point to the other, the magic would be over and it would be back to being dull again? Just like that. Wasn’t going to happen though.



Most of the times the road would look deserted, the only traffic were the odd tourist and RV. I’m not calling tourists and RV odd, but you know what I mean. Although sometimes they could be odd. Look at me. Anyway, around 10am we drove to Big Sur Park, bought a ticket and a map at ranger Bob’s. We called everyone wearing a ranger hat Ranger Bob during our vacation. It sounds funny. To us, at least. Looking at the map, we saw there was a little trail leading to the Pfeiffer Waterfall so we thought we’d go and check it out. As short as the trail may have seemed, it was one long, torturous sandy road going uphill except for the few parts where it was flat for a few inches, and there were stones and little rocks that were loose and the path was narrow and did I already mention I was wearing a skirt, flip flops, we had no water with us and it was a thousand degrees? No fun. We finally arrived at the falls, sweating like a pig, foaming at the mouth and it appeared that the waterfall was nothing more than a tiny dripping stream of water. That’s what it looked like to us at least after going through hell. Maybe it would’ve looked nicer if we could’ve parked the car, walked 5 steps and gone ‘oh look, a waterfall, isn’t it pretty?’

It looked like someone was peeing over a rock. We dubbed it 'Pee Falls'. Also, we're 12.



Once we were back in the car we drove on southwards. We stopped and got out near a beach where we saw lots of sea elephants, lying around, doing nothing. Once in a while one would flip its huge flipper and throw some of the sand over it to stay warm. And then one would sit up straight and make the weirdest sound! If empty trashcans could grunt and holler, it would sound like that.

Big, ugly, noisy and smelly, but still cute. Nature's answer to Shrek.



Around 2 o’clock we arrived at San Simeon, where we went to Hearst Castle. I could tell you the story about William Randolph Hearst, but really, just Google him or watch Citizen Kane, I’m lazy! Ofcourse the movie wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the visitor’s center or during the tour, because it’s evil and tells nothing but bad and sad things about Hearst. I’d thought I’d see a whole section dedicated to the film, with props and stuff but I should’ve known better. It’s like worshipping at the altar of Kevin Spacey and expecting a movie still of Pay it Forward on it. You’d rather pretend it didn’t happen, so don’t mention it. Gives the man a bad name. Anyway, the castle, very pretty, want all of it, so I can throw parties and swim and sit in 14th century church benches. Ofcourse, I can sit in old church benches at home if I go to church, but you know what I mean. I can invite all the cool people and let all the drool people stand at the gates while they wait for me to let them in. Which I don’t, because I’d be rich and mean and very powerful. I would then consider running for president, something Hearst did as well. Ofcourse, in my case, I would win the election. There were lots of antiques and gold and nice flowers and orange trees, very pretty. And a little movie theater that I was in love with.

This is Hearst Castle's pool. Get me a room there.



The dining room. People like Chaplin, Gable, Churchill sat here. The seats looked very uncomfortable and the table was really small. Glad to see the rich & wealthy had to suffer too back in the day.



At the end of the afternoon we drove on to Santa Maria, where we stayed at a very pretty hotel. We didn’t do much that night. Just lazed around, watched tv, and we got food at Jack in the Box, a toothless lady worked there and there were lots of weird people hanging around and if you combine that with the stupid commercial of JitB with the guy with the ball as a head, I don’t think I’ll ever eat at Jack in the Box again.