Back in California
Trip Start
Oct 10, 2005
1
16
Trip End
May 24, 2006
Redlands,
California,
United States
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
after flying over Greenland (so cool!) and watching about 5 movies I magically landed in Los Angeles, where the weather was exactly the same as in Rome. I rented a car to get myself to Redlands, where some of my family lives so I guess I traveled about 24 hours without sleeping to get from Rome, Italy to Redlands, California.
My journey hasn't really ended, since every night this week in California I have somehow slept in a different place. I actually haven't even really gone home yet... although my grandparents' house in southern California kind of counts as home. My first re-initiation into life in America again was going to the Colorado River with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. Everybody in the family drove their own huge truck the 185 miles out to the house on the river, and once you're there there's tons of loud hot rod boats, party pontoon boats, and just normal ski boats
a socal sunset
. Everybody at Lost Lake drives a golf cart around. Since it was Memorial Day weekend there was a dance party every night, and a party all day at the sandbar. There were maybe 50 boats in this little lagoon and the dancing girls from the night before were dancing in hip-deep water. Everybody has a Bud Lite can in their hand. The weather at 100 degrees (38 C) was actually a little cooler than normal... I guess what shocks me the most about being back in America is just how much stuff everybody can afford to have. Big trucks, big boats, big motorhomes, big houses, whatever, and the money to fuel all that stuff. We are rich and in a way that no middle class in the world can ever experience, I think. What's strange is that when I was in Europe yeah I missed the convenience of having a car and all my stuff and whatever but I didn't feel like less of a person because I didn't have it. Nice clothes, a sharp brain, and a strong family are enough in Europe, it feels like. But somehow coming back to California I feel myself wanting more and better stuff almost more than anything else, like somehow I'll be a happier and more respected person with a nicer car. It even seems like people talk less here than in Europe... as if they've spent so much energy on their big toys that they don't have the energy to talk anymore. Or their money does the talking for them. Oh well, I guess I should just enjoy all this stuff that we have.
After the river I cruised out to Santa Barbara to visit Richard, a friend I know from school at Princeton. The surf was pathetically flat out in Santa Barbara, so we went on some pretty cool mountain bike rides and camped out on the beach and stuff. Next my friend Nick from school at UC Davis got me a temporary job with his company doing geology work in Long Beach... and finally after a week and a half in southern California I went out surfing in San Diego. The water was great and the south swell big. That's what I want to spend my summer doing, surfing in San Diego. Somehow it sounds nice but not as exciting as doing something in some far-off place. Can't have everything, I guess. It's super hot here in Redlands now, actually 109 degrees (42 C). Too hot to do anything... Well what's cool about all this is that even though I'm back "home" in California the journey continues...
-Mark
