Where in the world is James Xabregas?

Since my last post far too much has happened. I'm in New York now. I will be home in 10 days. Kind of looking forward to it.

San Diego was actually quite cool. I was ready to write off California as good for nothing before I got to San Diego. On the bus trip from Vegas, a fat smelly homeless guy kept running up and down the isle and getting in everyone's face. This was pretty much my last straw with the State of California. I was ready to go to Arnie's mansion and punch his dog. But San Diego turned out to be the complete antithesis of Los Angeles. It was trendy, laid back and easy to get around. And it wasn't sleazy the wasy San Francisco was. Stay classy San Diego.

Mexico was kind of crazy. I loved it. You can get Carona's for 50 cents. If you pay more then $9 for a bottle of tequila you've paid too much and you can get a fish bowl Margarita for five bucks. I flew into Puerto Vallarta with Simon and we caught a taxi to our hostel. I looked for a seat belt and when I couldn't find one I realised that I was in a slightly different world.

Our reasoning for going to Mexico was to meet up with a bunch of friends we knew from Big White. Well actually, the real reason was because I was chasing a girl.

James Xabregas: International Stalker.

I'll spoil the ending. Nothing happened. To the best of my reasoning I think I was cock blocked by another girl. Is that even possible? I don't know. I guess it should really be called beaver blocking. Dam*.

The first couple of days we hung out in Puerto Vallarta and ate plenty of tacos. The food in Mexico is brilliant. All attempts to recreate Mexican food outside of the country don't do it justice. We also met a couple of others staying at the hostel who were involved in some sort of volunteer work and travel program. There was a Dutch and a German guy, Alex and Dan, who were pretty cool. Alex kept insisting that I needed to check out a beach about 2 hours south of Cancun that was tourist free. It sounded cool but it was on the other side of the country. There was also a helpful American girl named Kelly who seemed to know a crap load about Mexico. At some point we all went down to Starbucks and had a frappacino. Did I mention PV is a tourist trap?

After two days a couple from the group had shooted off back to reality, and our possy was then comprised of 6 girls to 2 guys (however I have grave doubts over Simon's sexuality after witnessing his dance moves so the ratio could accurately be described as 7:1).

Question: If a man is in Mexico and there is no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong?
Answer: Yes.

It was quickly decided that Puerto Vallarta was boring and we went on an unplanned road trip. I had gotten kind of used to researching everything I needed to know about transportation and accommodation on the Interweb but it turns on the Mexican business aren't that turned on that yet. So at 3 o'clock in the afternoon one day we packed up all our stuff and the eight of us jumped onto a bus without any idea of where we were going, how we were getting there or where we were going to stay.

We ended up in Manzanillo, a big city on the coast, about five hours south of Puerto Vallarta. We actually over shot our mark. We were trying to get to a little beach town called Melaque. We ended up there the next day. It was quite a nice spot. It was a very small town of a couple of thousand residents. We got a bungalow on the beach for $10 a person.

Melaque was the type of place Mexican tourists visited. It was pretty much a prefect way to experience Mexico. For the next 5 days we drank Carona's and Tequila on the beach.

Simon left Mexico to head back home before I did, so when I got on the bus to go back to PV I was on my own. It was kind of sad to leave the group because I realised I was probably never going to these people again. I fell asleep while the bus played Cold Mountain.

About 4 hours into the trip, the bus was stopped by border police (there are police at all the state boarders). I was still half asleep so it scarred the shit out of me when a bunch of cops with sub machine guns boarded the bus and started ripping panels off the bus ceiling looking for drugs. They searched everybody's bags. Then they picked on me and a Dutch woman to go through our checked luggage under the bus. While we were doing that, one of the other cops was going through the stuff we had carried onto the bus. They completely mugged the Dutch woman. They took all her money. From what she told me later I think she had a fairly large amount of cash. I luckily got away without having anything taken. I kept all my valuables in my pocket. By this point I only had $80 in cash anyway so it probably wouldn't have mattered much anyhow. I figured they probably didn't want to steal my sandwich.

When I returned to Puerto Vallarta I found out that Alex, the Dutch guy that we had meet at the hostel, had jumped off the fourth story balcony and killed himself the day we left for Manzanillo. I instantly thought that was exactly like the movie The Beach and realised that I am a complete nerd.

I ended up sharing a taxi with Dan, Alex's friend, to airport. He had been trying to get a flight back for the last two days but they kept cancelling it on him. He was flying back home so he could meet Alex's parents and attend the funeral.

Dan told me the whole story while we waited for a respective flights. He was pretty much distraught. Alex died in his arms while the ambulance officer was making a cup of coffee, no joke. He showed me a copy of the newspaper which had printed the police photos of the scene. Surprise surprise, it's not hard to bribe the cops in Mexico. Dan was kind of pissed off because one of the papers had printed his full name and home address and had also said that the death was a murder and that he was the killer.

After a long silence I turned the conversation and tried to get his mind off the topic. I found out that Dan was a sound engineer for Ramstien. Apparently they use a team of about 100 engineers for their live shows. Crazy.

Eventaully we parted and said goodbye and I got on my plane to New York City.

*Spot the bad pun.

The week in review

The last week has been hectic so I haven't really had a chance for an update lately. In the mean time I've been to San Francisco, Yosemite Park, Las Vegas and The Grand Canyon. I've only got a couple of minutes to lay this all down so I'll come back latter and give you a better account of my adventures.

Las Vegas smells like the fabric conditioner that they use on my car after I've taken it for a service. I believe Showgirls to be an accurate portrayal of Las Vegas in the 90's. I saw a show called The Blue Man Group which was awesome. It's hard to explain but if a Daft Punk video clip was a 2 hour stage show then this would be it. The Grand Canyon would be pretty nice if it wasn't filled with fucking Japanese tourists and the bastard Indians weren't trying to take you for a ride. Think Cairns except desolate and shittier. San Francisco is a really beautiful city marred by Oriental "massage parlours" every 100 meters and a plague of homelessness. I cycled across the Golden Gate bridge (you can hire bikes) and I randomly met a cool German girl who was staying at the same hostel as me in the process. Yosemite National Park is really awesome. I went there on a day trip bus tour and I really wish I had done an overnight stay.

I'm going to San Diego tomorrow.

Portland: Land of Ports

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Seattle to Portland

On my second day at Seattle we met up with Caleb and Rob, to Aussie guys I knew from Big White who came down to Seattle so they could get a cheaper flight to New York.

They went and checked out the Space Needle (that big tower in all the photos of Seattle) and all the other things Simon and I had done the day before. We went walking up to Capitol Hill. Our destination was Volunteer Park where Bruce Lee is purportedly buried. On the way we found a lot of cool stores with old and random books and just the most random things that I want to buy and horde. If I had a magical suitcase that could weigh nothing no matter how much I put into it, I would probably go to town on my credit card.

We kept walking up to the point where I realised that we were well and truly lost. After some nifty directions from some helpful locals we eventually found the cemetery. When we got there it began to rain, as it usually does in Seattle. I realised that the place was an Asian cemetery and as such one in four of the people buried there were named Lee. Simon wanted to press ahead for the search but by this point I was cold and wet and well over Simon's search for some dead dude's grave. I also realised quite quickly that Simon's general sense of direction sucks the balls so I took charge and we eventually found a bus stop that took us about 2 blocks from our door.

That night we hung out with Caleb and Rob, and we watched a few episodes of Flight of the Conchords on Caleb's laptop.

The next day we all went down to the Pike Place Market across the road from the hostel. It was a pretty cool market. There was a rib cook off going on and it smelt pretty good. I also got my photo taken outside of the very first Starbucks (there really is one on every corner). We then went down to the Seattle Aquarium where I got some fun photos, which I someday hope to post up on the Ineterweb.

The next day, Simon and I parted ways with Caleb and Rob and we caught our bus to Portland. About 20 minutes into the trip the bus got rear ended by a mini-van and we were delayed by an hour and a half while we waited for the cops. I'm not sure what the big deal was because when I saw the damage it was only a fender bender, but the bus driver was fretting.

We finally arrived in Portland at abut 4:30pm. Simon wanted to walk to the hostel with our backpacks despite the fact we had no idea where we were or where the hostel was. I put I stop to his foolish notions and we caught a taxi for five dollars.