I went to bed early yesterday, after discovering I had a sore throat. It is much better now, and I can live with that. It would be too stupid, being Norwegian and have a cold in California in the summer. Anyway, I got up really early and it dawned on me that it was my birthday. Like, hooray, or something. I called home for the first time since leaving Norway. Everyone was well, even though they were worried sick about me. Oh well. I showered, packed and checked out of the very nice hostel. I walked the one and a half kilometre to the beach and spent some time watching the surf before I went and met up with Mo.
She took me to the local library, which obviously has benefited from a lot of rich people in this area. Four floors of books, fountains, fishponds and art exhibitions is pretty aggresive for a small town library, isn't it? One of the best libraries I've seen on my trip for sure. The reason for the quality of the library is probably the small oilpumps being everywhere in Huntington Beach, looking like small fortresses in people's backyards. Doesn't look too good, but I guess the money makes it worthwhile. The library has a really large collection of books about mental diseases. Humm. Interesting.
We had lunch at Olive Garden, which is Italian food. Very, very good breadsticks. I was stunned when they brought even more food after I had eaten some 20 of the breadsticks. Mo must have told the waitress that it was my birthday, as suddenly we were surrounded by the personnel singing Happy Happy Happy Birthday, or something, and they threw a cake onto our table. And it was free. Funny custom.
On our way to dropping me off we fetched some food for my journey at KFC. At 16:00 my bus took me away from Anaheim bus station and Mo. I had had my share of California beach-life. I liked. Even though it was just next to Disneyland, I couldn't find a smile on any of the faces of the people present. Hmmm.
Almost 2 hours later I was back at the LA bus station, and by a cosmic coinciden ce I met up with four guys from my class in Norway, who also were heading for San Francisco on the very same bus I had a ticket for. Weird. Still, it was nice to meet someone I knew for the first time in about 5 weeks. We all bragged about all the exciting things we'd done in the US lately, got on the bus, ate some of the birthday cake I had brought from Olive Garden and slept a bit.
The distance Los Angeles - San Francisco isn't at it's most scenic when it is pitch dark outside. Uhm. Or perhaps it is. Anyway, we arrived in San Francisco at 5 a.m. and the bus station definitely wasn't too cozy. I set down my cake for a few seconds, and all of a sudden the cake was full of poor people's hands, and the poor people's hands were all of a sudden full of cake. "Sure, you can have the rest", I told them, and they didn't object.
I got out my Let's Go USA travel guide and looked for a hostel that might let us in at this hour. The best shot I could find was Globetrotters Inn, and we walked straight there, with no wandering astray whatsoever. Rather impressive, given my background from the boys scout. They wouldn't give us a room, though, but let us drop our luggage there and told us to come back later in the morning. So, we went to Carl Jr and had breakfast. "If it doesn't get all over the place, it doesn't belong in your face" was the motto of the restaurant. We finished eating just in time to walk in as the first customers of the day at the Virgin Megastore, where we pretty much had the place for ourselves for quite a while. We used the opportunity to run in the escalators, we played on game consoles, we checked out the humongous mountains of adult CD-ROMs and made sure that there weren't any Norwegian ethnic music in the shelves. Goodie.
At nine we finally were allowed to check in at the hostel. I had a shower and went to Powell Street to meet the others for the first group visit with a company. I also have to find some bus company that is able to take the whole group for a ride to the vineyards and beyond on Sunday. *sigh*
I tried my luck at the Convention Plaza. I think perhaps I was the only person in the building wearing shorts and a t-shirt. So, the rather official-looking people looked rather suspicious at me, when I told them I needed a bus desperately. In the end they gave me a list of phone numbers to bus companies and politely escorted me to the elevator with golden walls. Such nice people.
We managed to gather about 20 Norwegians at Powell street, and we split into the available cars for sightseeing the hills of San Francisco. The steepness didn't impress me, really, but ok, it was a lot steeper than in other U.S. cities I've seen, possibly not counting Butte. Hyde street was the best one, I think. Tired of hills, we drove to the Dolby Laboratories, who kindly had offered to show us what they're doing, as a result of one of us crudely breaking all copyright laws by putting very protected Dolby information on the WWW in a rather impressive fashion.
At the appointed time, there were just a few of us there, lacking among others the above mentioned cruel Web artist. So, I pushed a button and did my best to trick the group there into the Dolby Fortress. I succeeded. We walked in and totally refused to drink any of the coffee the secretaries kept offering us. After a while the rest of the group entered the building, short-breathed after having discovered that the bus they had planned on taking there actually was non-existant. Our guide showed us a very well equipped building, where the part they are most proud of is the best movie theatre in the world, which is floating around some where in the building. They showed us some movieclips of incredibly high quality, especially when it comes to the sound. I think perhaps I became the first one to fall asleep in that theatre ever.
For being such nice Norwegians, they gave us a lot of documentation of their systems, probably thinking that we were really into sound, a cup and a key ring. We left, split, ate and slept.