Portland - San Francisco - Santa Clarita
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Bo en Tim
23 Oktober 2016 | Verenigde Staten, Portland
We were really excited for Portland, heard a lot of good stories about it. And luckily the weather was not that bad. Portland is known for his rain.
And yes, what everybody says about Portland is true. It is a cool city. the energie is really good and feels free. We just discovered the city and the tips we got from the locals. There were some nice neighborhoods with a lot of small shops and bars. So we checked those out. Portland is also known for his donuts. The VooDoo Donut. We even waited in line to get one... we had the famous one with bacon and a really sweet one. Tim and I are not the ones who like sweetness that much.. so it was a bit to much for us. But we can say we did it. Like real "super tourists". It was Saturday night and we already had a few beers. So we decided to go to a comedyshow. It was a really good show and we laughed a lot. We ended up watching two shows. It is always fun to do something in a city that locals do.
The only thing what we didn't liked that much was the fact that there were a lot of homeless. It seems to be kind of a culture there. People choose for the life style and homeless from other places are going there to feel accepted. The people in Portland are very liberal, maybe a bit too much. There were whole camps of homeless people with tents and stuff. And first of all, i don't have a problem with homeless, guys. But also i never saw that many. It was a bit sad to see and we have no clue if Portland does something to it.. It was an experience....
The second day we joined Frank and Marleen with their host. He showed us around, we saw a lot of crazy stuff. We even ate a pear-bleucheese ice cream. It was really good!
We discussed if we wanted to stay a day longer because we enjoyed ourselves. But then we decided to go to the lovely coast. We drove up to the coast and spend a night at the first stop we saw. Because it was a bit rainy, the sea was wild and the wind hard. But no matter what kind of weather, the beach is always nice. So we did some beach hike. We felt like new after that.
The next day we went down the coast. We took the famous highway 1. And every time we saw something cool or read something nice we stopped. It was really relaxt. we didn't had a clue were we would sleep that night. Just go with the flow. We saw some beautiful coast and did some nice hikes. What was kind of weird but if you hike to the coast than you are going through a rainforest or something. It made us think about the jungle in Suriname. It was beautiful. And if you walked further you ended up at the beach or between rocks. It was a big difference in landscape. We had some nice campspots on the way down. We camp on a cliff next to the beach. and saw some really nice sunsets. We really enjoyed ourselves.
Before we went to San Francisco we went to Redwood National Park. There we did some backcountry camping. We walked a trail next to the tallest trees they had and camped out in the "wild" (Still a little campground just not accessible by car). The forest is beautiful. I think they have the tallest trees there. We felt really small and overwhelmed by nature, again...
In San Francisco we were staying at a hostel and met awesome travelers. Thats something different than only the Americans traveling around in their RV's. It was a lot of fun. We helped cooking for the whole hostel and went on a pub-crawl. We really enjoyed our selfs! But the next day was kind of hard. We weren't used to drink a few beers anymore. At the trip we didn't drink that much (almost nothing) so we defenitly felt it. But we wanted to check the city out of course. So after what water and a shower we went down and were ready to go. We did all the touristic stuff. Like pier 39. What we enjoyed. You can watch seals laying down at the harbor. One of the seals was testing out a guy who worked there and tried to chase the seal away. What was a great show. We watched it for a while and laughed hard. It looked like a bad comedy show.
We both like San Francisco a lot. It feels like home. It is not that big as the other cities. The only difference are the hills.. we don't have them at home. San Francisco by night was lovely. We were standing next to the water and the whole city gives light but also the bridges. We didn't checked out the Golden Gate Bridge but we drove over it to enter San Francisco. But we did checked out the Oakland Bridge. I liked that one, maybe a bit better...
San Fran, we will be back!
The next day we drove over the Oakland Bridge.. no way.. I drove over the bridge. What was cool! it is a pretty long one and it rained really hard. We were on our way to Berkeley. Through a friend of Timo (Tim's dad) his son, Collin, texted us. He is studying at Berkeley and if we wanted to check it out. OF course we want too!
He lives in a student house with 124 students. Every night a few people cook for everybody. It was nice to see how that goes. 124 people living together like that. The house was great. No wall was the same or boring. There was paint and art everywhere. We arrived there at Friday night so we were checking out to go to a house party. We arrived at one and Tim and I never saw something like that. There was a line for the house party to go in... people were waiting in line. The house was totally full of people and everywhere on the street people walked or hanged out. It was exactly like the movies... We didn't got in because they didn't let anybody in anymore. There were too many people in the house...
We tried to get in a fraternity but they didn't let us in. The people we were with told us that the fraternities always judge on how you look and they ask if you know one of the brothers. and again... like the movies!
In the end we went to a house party from a friend of a friend, what was relaxt and like the parties we have back home. But we enjoyed that!
The next day Collin took us to check out the campus. It is a really nice campus. Right away i got the feeling that i wanted to go back to school. All the buildings were nice and inspiring. The whole atmosphere was about learning. I kind of miss that on the campus in Amsterdam. In our last years we were on the campus in Amsterdam. And maybe it is just new but i absolutely missed the inspiring buildings. I can see that Berkeley is a university where you want to go!
That night there was a party at the house. It was nice and we did some american games like beer pong. But we didn't went wild or anything. Also because we were leaving the next day and wanted to feel okay to ride down the coast. And off we went slowly back to Santa Clarita. It was raining really hard so we couldn't see a lot.. what was a bit said. Also we didn't wanted to camp out in the rain (of course) so we drove further than we thought. Again the water was wild and we even got warning texts that we needed to watch out for flush floods. In the end it was getting dry luckily but still we went to a motel. On our way we saw some sealions what was awesome. There were a lot of them and those animals are pretty funny.
The next day it turned out it was just only 3 hours to Santa Clarita. So we knew we would be back that night but we took it slow. Stopped in Santa Cruz where Tim did some volunteerwork a few years ago. He recognized the place, so he could show me around. We stopped at a few places next to the beach and went to Santa Barbara. We took it easy and in the end of the day we came home. To the place where it all started. And of course we know the trip is not over yet... But the road trip is. So it felt a bit weird. We celebrated that night with some good sushi !
The next day the car cleaning was happening.. We wanted to give the car back as soon as possible. But it took us 2 days to clean it up and make sure everything was perfect. We collected some stuff along the road. Didn't know we could fit that much in the car... But it was also fun to do. We are really happy we could borrow that car. Sometimes i still don't believe that somebody is that crazy to give us his car.. Chet, you are the best and we can not thank you enough. You made this trip possible for us and we learned a lot from it.
But still not going to end and thank everybody because there is still 6 weeks to go!! At the moment we are still in the 'coming-back mood' because things still need to get a place. But next week the next trip is already planned and we are going to VEGAS!!
And yes, what everybody says about Portland is true. It is a cool city. the energie is really good and feels free. We just discovered the city and the tips we got from the locals. There were some nice neighborhoods with a lot of small shops and bars. So we checked those out. Portland is also known for his donuts. The VooDoo Donut. We even waited in line to get one... we had the famous one with bacon and a really sweet one. Tim and I are not the ones who like sweetness that much.. so it was a bit to much for us. But we can say we did it. Like real "super tourists". It was Saturday night and we already had a few beers. So we decided to go to a comedyshow. It was a really good show and we laughed a lot. We ended up watching two shows. It is always fun to do something in a city that locals do.
The only thing what we didn't liked that much was the fact that there were a lot of homeless. It seems to be kind of a culture there. People choose for the life style and homeless from other places are going there to feel accepted. The people in Portland are very liberal, maybe a bit too much. There were whole camps of homeless people with tents and stuff. And first of all, i don't have a problem with homeless, guys. But also i never saw that many. It was a bit sad to see and we have no clue if Portland does something to it.. It was an experience....
The second day we joined Frank and Marleen with their host. He showed us around, we saw a lot of crazy stuff. We even ate a pear-bleucheese ice cream. It was really good!
We discussed if we wanted to stay a day longer because we enjoyed ourselves. But then we decided to go to the lovely coast. We drove up to the coast and spend a night at the first stop we saw. Because it was a bit rainy, the sea was wild and the wind hard. But no matter what kind of weather, the beach is always nice. So we did some beach hike. We felt like new after that.
The next day we went down the coast. We took the famous highway 1. And every time we saw something cool or read something nice we stopped. It was really relaxt. we didn't had a clue were we would sleep that night. Just go with the flow. We saw some beautiful coast and did some nice hikes. What was kind of weird but if you hike to the coast than you are going through a rainforest or something. It made us think about the jungle in Suriname. It was beautiful. And if you walked further you ended up at the beach or between rocks. It was a big difference in landscape. We had some nice campspots on the way down. We camp on a cliff next to the beach. and saw some really nice sunsets. We really enjoyed ourselves.
Before we went to San Francisco we went to Redwood National Park. There we did some backcountry camping. We walked a trail next to the tallest trees they had and camped out in the "wild" (Still a little campground just not accessible by car). The forest is beautiful. I think they have the tallest trees there. We felt really small and overwhelmed by nature, again...
In San Francisco we were staying at a hostel and met awesome travelers. Thats something different than only the Americans traveling around in their RV's. It was a lot of fun. We helped cooking for the whole hostel and went on a pub-crawl. We really enjoyed our selfs! But the next day was kind of hard. We weren't used to drink a few beers anymore. At the trip we didn't drink that much (almost nothing) so we defenitly felt it. But we wanted to check the city out of course. So after what water and a shower we went down and were ready to go. We did all the touristic stuff. Like pier 39. What we enjoyed. You can watch seals laying down at the harbor. One of the seals was testing out a guy who worked there and tried to chase the seal away. What was a great show. We watched it for a while and laughed hard. It looked like a bad comedy show.
We both like San Francisco a lot. It feels like home. It is not that big as the other cities. The only difference are the hills.. we don't have them at home. San Francisco by night was lovely. We were standing next to the water and the whole city gives light but also the bridges. We didn't checked out the Golden Gate Bridge but we drove over it to enter San Francisco. But we did checked out the Oakland Bridge. I liked that one, maybe a bit better...
San Fran, we will be back!
The next day we drove over the Oakland Bridge.. no way.. I drove over the bridge. What was cool! it is a pretty long one and it rained really hard. We were on our way to Berkeley. Through a friend of Timo (Tim's dad) his son, Collin, texted us. He is studying at Berkeley and if we wanted to check it out. OF course we want too!
He lives in a student house with 124 students. Every night a few people cook for everybody. It was nice to see how that goes. 124 people living together like that. The house was great. No wall was the same or boring. There was paint and art everywhere. We arrived there at Friday night so we were checking out to go to a house party. We arrived at one and Tim and I never saw something like that. There was a line for the house party to go in... people were waiting in line. The house was totally full of people and everywhere on the street people walked or hanged out. It was exactly like the movies... We didn't got in because they didn't let anybody in anymore. There were too many people in the house...
We tried to get in a fraternity but they didn't let us in. The people we were with told us that the fraternities always judge on how you look and they ask if you know one of the brothers. and again... like the movies!
In the end we went to a house party from a friend of a friend, what was relaxt and like the parties we have back home. But we enjoyed that!
The next day Collin took us to check out the campus. It is a really nice campus. Right away i got the feeling that i wanted to go back to school. All the buildings were nice and inspiring. The whole atmosphere was about learning. I kind of miss that on the campus in Amsterdam. In our last years we were on the campus in Amsterdam. And maybe it is just new but i absolutely missed the inspiring buildings. I can see that Berkeley is a university where you want to go!
That night there was a party at the house. It was nice and we did some american games like beer pong. But we didn't went wild or anything. Also because we were leaving the next day and wanted to feel okay to ride down the coast. And off we went slowly back to Santa Clarita. It was raining really hard so we couldn't see a lot.. what was a bit said. Also we didn't wanted to camp out in the rain (of course) so we drove further than we thought. Again the water was wild and we even got warning texts that we needed to watch out for flush floods. In the end it was getting dry luckily but still we went to a motel. On our way we saw some sealions what was awesome. There were a lot of them and those animals are pretty funny.
The next day it turned out it was just only 3 hours to Santa Clarita. So we knew we would be back that night but we took it slow. Stopped in Santa Cruz where Tim did some volunteerwork a few years ago. He recognized the place, so he could show me around. We stopped at a few places next to the beach and went to Santa Barbara. We took it easy and in the end of the day we came home. To the place where it all started. And of course we know the trip is not over yet... But the road trip is. So it felt a bit weird. We celebrated that night with some good sushi !
The next day the car cleaning was happening.. We wanted to give the car back as soon as possible. But it took us 2 days to clean it up and make sure everything was perfect. We collected some stuff along the road. Didn't know we could fit that much in the car... But it was also fun to do. We are really happy we could borrow that car. Sometimes i still don't believe that somebody is that crazy to give us his car.. Chet, you are the best and we can not thank you enough. You made this trip possible for us and we learned a lot from it.
But still not going to end and thank everybody because there is still 6 weeks to go!! At the moment we are still in the 'coming-back mood' because things still need to get a place. But next week the next trip is already planned and we are going to VEGAS!!
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