California <3

California.

On Thursday I had my 20 hour train voyage (we were delayed for 2 hours). It was excellent, actually... I was mad when I had to get off the train. I had my own tiny room, so I just read and looked out the window and listened to music, and nobody bothered me. The scenery was beyond insane (the most spectacular waterfalls I've ever seen, rain forests, cliffs, mountain vistas, tunnels through mountains) and I had some really good "what does it all mean?" moments. These moments were encouraged by the aforementioned 4 giant beers that I had in my carry-on bag, which go very well with tear-inducing scenery.

Here's my "cabin." Hal-9000 included in each private room!

Sleeping on a train is nearly impossible... it's like being strapped to a missile, actually. Instead, I started taking self-portraits:

This is a photo of me on the retractable top bunk of my cabin. Seconds later, I tried to take a photo while hanging upside down, with nearly fatal results. An attempted photo while standing on my head had similarly tragic results.

Ben's friend Mike lives in Oakland, so we've been staying there since Thursday and visiting the city during the day. San Francisco is basically another planet. Here's a tiki bar that we went to one night in Oakland. It had a gyrating hula girl statue and a giant volcano that spewed dry ice:

Here's Robert Hass's office door in Berkeley. Yeah, I actually took a photo of this. Robert Hass, please never google yourself and find this page.

Last night we ate at this French restaurant named Gregoire... it's mainly a take-out place, but there are a few tables. I loved it because it's lovely, fancy French food, served by... well, just a couple of dudes. We ate in paper take-away boxes with plastic silverware out on the sidewalk. We brought this Sicilian wine that Lucio had given us when he visited, and it was outstanding:



Last but not least, this is dedicated to every Rentertainment employee. It's Gaylord's! Bluuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhh.

I'm off to camp in wine country!