http://www.makepovertyhistory.org Phil's Phworld: CALIFORNIA - Thousands of Words

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

CALIFORNIA - Thousands of Words

"Sure, San Diego is a nice city," my friend Olivia has been telling me for the past couple of months, "But I don't actually live there. I live in the middle of nowhere with nobody for miles around and it's much less interesting." Well, that's not enough to put me off a visit, especially when (A) The west coast is one of the few American coasts which has so far eluded me and (B) I have a habit of finding dull things interesting.

Flying is becoming something of a cliche at this point in the journey. I've taken four flights in the past two days and there are only so many distractions on most US internal flights. You don't quite appreciate how big the States is until you realise your flying times from coast to coast are roughly the same as the flights to get to the place from Britain in the first place: only with no free meals and only one inflight movie with Amanada Peet in it. Snaps to United Airlines, though, for hooking up their cockpit / flight control communications to the inflight radio system.

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Modern fountain with pretty water feature meets skyscrapers. San Diego all over.

Cosmetically, California is alien territory for most Europeans. We just don't get the desert. So despite Olivia's continued protests of dullness as we departed the city and headed for the hills, I got very excited as we passed through miles of semi arid mountains wondering why the local rock formations are so very big. As you get further from the city, the rocks get bigger and the roads finally give up trying to be American and barge straight through them, allowing much winding through spectacular mountains.

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Reason one why any visit to California should take you outside the cities.

It's a landscape which couldn't be boring even if the scrubby vegetation got burnt away just leaving a load of rock (which, funnily enough, happened last year) Obviously various other Californians agree, which is why the area is littered with expensive houses clasping onto the sides of the hills and some bizarre colonial landscaping which Disney spends most of its time trying to recreate in theme parks.

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Olivia at Ramona Castle. Apparently a batty European woman decided she wanted a two hundred room castle in the middle of the desert which, from the outside, looks like a big cottage. What you can't see, to the right, is the big tower which looks like a lighthouse.

Still Olivia protested boring surroundings. Finally we reached Chez Tabert: a house which looks like a fort on top of a hill surrounded by other hills with incredible views for miles around from San Diego on one side to miles of awesome splendour on the other. Based on my fairly limited range of travel so far, I can safetly say that it's probably the most incredible setting for a house in the history of the world, ever. "See what I mean?" Olivia tells me.

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The view from out the back of Olivia's house. Dull, dull, dull... Except for the hills and mountains, of course.

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Sunset from the hills with San Diego on the horizon. The mountain in the foreground is called Mount Starvation. Don't ask me why.

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