(Like) I'm in California

Wow. Nine months since my last post. I guess life gets in the road. Or maybe I was just waiting for something to write about, and now I've found it. I'm in California on business, and California is the place of impressions (both banal and profound), so I'm going to write about them.

That's right. California. The place where the word 'like' is so frustratingly common that it probably needs to be made an article in the English language, where being blonde is de rigeur and where the sun really does seem to shine more than it does in Queensland. I landed in LA, like, and immediately proceeded through the bus-terminal-like (that was a real 'like', as in a proper use of the word to indicate a simile) airport and to a waiting hire car. And then it was straight out of LA--via the traffic on highway 10340772-I (whatever that means)--and on to Santa Barbara. Along the way I had a strange sense of disconnection. The signs I passed by made me feel very much embedded in a Hollywood cop show, sitcom or song; Sunset Strip, Venice Beach, Santa Monica Boulevard, Beverly Hills, Malibu, Orange County flowed past me until I wasn't sure whether the experience was real or whether I'd been transported by Wonkavision into some TV programmer's idea of Heaven.

But then I reached Santa Barbara, and all was made good. What a beautiful town, even if it was populated by said blondes with brightly coloured shopping bags bearing all the right labels. The Spanish architectural influence shines through in a way that isn't tacky at all, not like when you see it on the Gold Coast. And the food that I did get to try--vegetarian mexican with fried black beans, tofu and (admittedly tasteless) cheese--was actually enjoyable, if not necessarily as richly flavoured as I might expect in Melbourne. I spent a day realising that underneath the cliche that first confronts you when you arrive in America were warm people who were proud of who they were and just wanted to help. It was easy to spend a day in Santa Barbara. The Santa Barbara Museum of Art was exceptional, with a brilliant collection of Asian artifacts (pictured will be posted up as soon as I can), the courthouse was beautiful inside and out and free, with a view from the tower that would cost money most places, and the town itself was about as picturesque as one could imagine, recalling the adobe walls and laced ironwork of an era long past. An archeological site (that's right, in the most hip of hip places), El Presidio de Santa Barbara, matched any historical site in Europe as far as transporting one back in time goes. Yes, not as grand as the abbey ruins in Canterbury or as culturally alien as tombs from pre-historic Japan, but transporting nonetheless, and somehow more immediate. You could feel Lt. Jose Francisco de Ortega pacing the Presidio after even 225 years, wondering how to protect the Spanish territories from the English and the French.

But such a day had to end, and that night took me to Lompoc, a town atmospheric for a very different reason. At Lompoc, and in the surrounding Santa Ynez valley towns, I saw less class and more kitsch. I also finally articulated my problem with tipping. And, somewhat unexpectedly, I once more touched on the wonders of America. But that's for the next episode, where I 'll tell you how I experienced Obama, Denmark, Hiroshige, olives and coffee all without leaving the States.