Stu described me as a maverick rebel since I’ve been traveling. Sweet term and I spose kinda true. Not the maverick part, while that would be super nice it reminds me of Tom Cruise and Top Gun and I’m not naïve enough to think I’m as special as a pre-scientology Tommy – that was special stuff. No I am infact talking about the rebel part. Coming off of a 3 week roadtrip with 3 Eastern European guys that I met on Couchsurfing (sorry fam, don’t freak!) I’m starting to realize that that was a little crazy. Good, but crazy.
Igor, Sasha and Artem (“it’s ARTEMMM not ATOM you Australian! Speak English!”) are not Canadian. They have been living there for 10 years but they are not Canadian. Silly me, I thought they almost would be. I happen to like Canadians. They speak as if they have a perma cold and they’re also not American, two obvious pluses. But no, these boys are certainly not anything other than Serbian, Siberian and Kazakhstani raised Russian (Borat jokes aplenty, I can assure you).
We roadtripped through LA, Santa Monica, hung with the crazies in Venice and then chilled up the coast to Santa Barbara, where we met the delightful circus performing wunderchild Fabian, before hitting San Francisco. There we lost Sasha and I made my way to Santra Cruz to see the lovely Gabriella, I tricked the boys into eating – and liking – tofurkey, before heading inland to Yosemite. We there perfected the art of the sleeping human sandwich in the car before undertaking an epic jaunt of rock climping, leaping and jumping. We then missioned it to Vegas, arrived at 4am along with the hookers in Maccas, slept in the car on the strip (pure class!) before doing the Vegas thing and getting drunk and going to the casinos. Some nudist hippies awaited us in the hot springs of the Boulder City canyon, before heading to Flagstaff, we karaoked, missed the Canyon, went back to Flagstaff, back to the Canyon, then drove through the Mojave desert like stealth in the night. I don’t remember what happened next… I think we arrived in the O.C. That’s right, we met the ‘colourful’ Liz and partyed with her CS buds before we all missioned it to the airport for our next, solo, destination.
I’m glad I went with them. I’m not going to lie, it was a hella pain sometimes. Eastern Europeans are not exactly laidback Aussies when it comes to traveling, and no amount of Borat jokes can get them to show those pearly whites at the best of times. However they have some serious Spidey skills when it comes to climbing rocks, and made even tree-hugging, nature dwelling, toful loving me apprectiate the mother a whole lot more. Thanks to all the climbing, my impressive backpacking biceps are even more steely and fear raising than ever before.
Needless to say, with all that drinking, car sleeping, starbucks and more drinking I was in desperate need of a break.
Only I arrived in Minneapolis to be told we were driving the 2 and a ½ day journey straight to Southern New Orleans to cover the oil spill for the news.
Naww shucks.
Very happy it worked out with the 3 Eastern European/Canadian Guys, I must say I was alittle scared and worried for you…..Did’nt tell Family much about it, just incase they freaked out!
Dont know about sleeping in your Car in Las Vegas…glad I just found out about that.
You would have been the avocado in the sandwich sleeping ! (that was my first colourful thought) I bet you were sleep deprived xx