Say Seven already in SF: cartime.
Today is the day we have to pick up the car we reserved. When we booked our flight at the ANWB, we also reserved a midsize car at Alamo. A basic 4 or 6 cylinder, four seater. We arranged to pick it up in San Jose, where we would stay according to our schedule. But the schedule has changed; we are still in SF more than 100km North of San Jose. After calling Alamo car rentals three times, we still couldn't change the pickup location to SF airport. So, we got up early for our free breakfast, walked a mile to the BART station, rode it for 40 minutes, took the caltrain for over an hour to Santa Clara, the bus to the San Jose airport, and a shuttle to the car rental companies. Luckily there were no lines at Alamo. We showed our nice voucher for a Midsize car, when Bart suddely decided we needed something different. Think luxury, sun, California. The smell of asphalt in your nose, the sun on your skin and the wind in your hair. Goodbye boring midsize, hello cabrio sportscar! We picked a 2006 Chrysler Sebring Convertible with only 3400 miles on the odometer.
Today is Winchester Mystery house, Apple and Google visit-day. Topless (the car not us) and with the airco on full cold, we drove to our first destination. The car was great, and with that I can sum up the whole day: great car, lousy day. The Winchesterhouse was as expensive as Disneyland but the garden was nice for some photos, Apple only had an open store, and Google even kicked us out of the parking lot before we arrived. Not that it was not predictable, but still frustrating. We drove back to sf, got some tan along the way. Parking here is $12 a night, and we have to pick the car up at 7AM!
We didn't want to eat out so we bought some food a a local 'Safeway'. Fruit vegetables and candy is very expensive, but the meat is cheap. Real strange. We spent $5pp total on a steak and salad and went to bed.
In stead of pictures, I present a list of innovative american inventions I came across.
- Orange cones saying 'wet floor' when there are only two drops of water on the sidewalk. Great to avaoid lawsuits.
- Rotating doorknobs which lock by pressing a button in the middle. Turn it to unlock and open the door at the same time.
- Self lighting gas furnace: turn the knob and it fires sparks untill the gas is on. No maches or extra buttons needed.
- Automatic cash return machines. Pay $7.75 at a cashier for groceries with a ten dollar note. She hits the $10 key, and the cash register spits out the correct change.
- Unscheduled busses: the schedule sais they come by every 6 minutes on average, depending on traffic contidions.
- One knob showers: turning the knob turns the water on, turn further to make it hotter.
- Pedestrian traffic lights showing how many seconds there are left to cross.
- Chat radio. 24 Hours of a semi-comic-disc jockey talking to people or himself.
- Asian recycle plan: scary little asian women collect plastic bottles for money. They have gold teeth, so it must pay well.
- Two floor trains with open middle. Looks really comfy and large.
Cool car things:
- Refuel without gasoline vapour, there is a rubber sleeve over the gaspump pistol.
- Windshield sprayers are in the wipers themselves, wetting and cleaning the entire glass.
- When driving, no matter how fast you go, keep your lane. You can pass other people left and right.
- Radio turns off only after opening your seatbelt.
- Lights turn on automatically when it gets dark
- "Panic" button on car remote. I dont know what it does, and I don't want to know.
- Pickup trucks. Now I can say a Hummer is a small car. Really, it is TINY compared to the ford f250's and Cadillac Escalades driving around here. They jack them up half a meter and hang a 15 meter mobile home behind it. Possibly even another car on a tariler! Look at this: http://www.americanwheelandtire.com/gallery/albums/upload/Ford/F250%20Lifted.JPG
That is 7 meters of V8 powered, airconditioned, glorified redneck heaven on four wheels.
Today is Winchester Mystery house, Apple and Google visit-day. Topless (the car not us) and with the airco on full cold, we drove to our first destination. The car was great, and with that I can sum up the whole day: great car, lousy day. The Winchesterhouse was as expensive as Disneyland but the garden was nice for some photos, Apple only had an open store, and Google even kicked us out of the parking lot before we arrived. Not that it was not predictable, but still frustrating. We drove back to sf, got some tan along the way. Parking here is $12 a night, and we have to pick the car up at 7AM!
We didn't want to eat out so we bought some food a a local 'Safeway'. Fruit vegetables and candy is very expensive, but the meat is cheap. Real strange. We spent $5pp total on a steak and salad and went to bed.
In stead of pictures, I present a list of innovative american inventions I came across.
- Orange cones saying 'wet floor' when there are only two drops of water on the sidewalk. Great to avaoid lawsuits.
- Rotating doorknobs which lock by pressing a button in the middle. Turn it to unlock and open the door at the same time.
- Self lighting gas furnace: turn the knob and it fires sparks untill the gas is on. No maches or extra buttons needed.
- Automatic cash return machines. Pay $7.75 at a cashier for groceries with a ten dollar note. She hits the $10 key, and the cash register spits out the correct change.
- Unscheduled busses: the schedule sais they come by every 6 minutes on average, depending on traffic contidions.
- One knob showers: turning the knob turns the water on, turn further to make it hotter.
- Pedestrian traffic lights showing how many seconds there are left to cross.
- Chat radio. 24 Hours of a semi-comic-disc jockey talking to people or himself.
- Asian recycle plan: scary little asian women collect plastic bottles for money. They have gold teeth, so it must pay well.
- Two floor trains with open middle. Looks really comfy and large.
Cool car things:
- Refuel without gasoline vapour, there is a rubber sleeve over the gaspump pistol.
- Windshield sprayers are in the wipers themselves, wetting and cleaning the entire glass.
- When driving, no matter how fast you go, keep your lane. You can pass other people left and right.
- Radio turns off only after opening your seatbelt.
- Lights turn on automatically when it gets dark
- "Panic" button on car remote. I dont know what it does, and I don't want to know.
- Pickup trucks. Now I can say a Hummer is a small car. Really, it is TINY compared to the ford f250's and Cadillac Escalades driving around here. They jack them up half a meter and hang a 15 meter mobile home behind it. Possibly even another car on a tariler! Look at this: http://www.americanwheelandtire.com/gallery/albums/upload/Ford/F250%20Lifted.JPG
That is 7 meters of V8 powered, airconditioned, glorified redneck heaven on four wheels.
posted by Branko | 11:26 PM
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