Obligitory Olympia beauty shots.

Olympia is an anomaly. Its a small town, a tenth of the size of Wellington. About the same size as Blenheim. How is it that everyone here is young, beautiful and in a band? Not only are they Creative and artistic but they actually USE their talents.

There are so many awesome community projects being run here that have been going for years, all through volunteer work.

This is a place called Community Print. They have a letter press and screen printing facilities. You can become a member or do one off projects for outrageously cheap. They teach you how to do and use everything and have all the materials you need.
Its tucked away in the back room of a vintage/record store called Dumpster Values. Which is also amazing and cheap.


This is another community workshop which is open for the few moths leading up to Olympia's big arts festival. Its a massive space open to any one who wants to make costumes, banners and floats to participle in the 'Procession of the Species' parade. Where everyone dresses as animals. They also have a tonne of materials for people to use.





It's cold and it Hails a lot. Sometimes it snows.
Its also ridiculously cheap to live here. I'm paying $120 (NZD) in rent.... PER MONTH. And its not a shit hole.
A day pass for the bus is $1.50.
I like Olympia quite a bit.

San Fran to Olympia, the 12 hour drive.

Driving for 12 hours and through 3 states and the only near decent photos I got were these...






We drove through snow storms! Way prettier drive. But temperature drop made me realise I really, really shouldn't have packed for the spring/summer I'm used to. Eek.

We stopped of in some small town for sandwiches and the girl behind the counter flipped out that she was serving people in a band. I remember when I would have been like that, living in Blenheim. Aw.

Pretty much the only events of the trip. So rock n' roll. By this stage It was becoming apparent that I speak a completely different language to Americans and no-one can understand what I'm saying. Even my own name, which isn't even uncommon in America. Also everything you see in American media is true. School buses are yellow, everything is big, American flags are everywhere, everyone eats pizza and scientology owns Hollywood.

SAN FRANCISCO! - Day Two

Well the big news of the day was that I saw my first squirrel, So we'll just cut to that just for a second.

It was a wonderful introduction, he was gathering nuts and squirreling them away, and at one point steped on a prickle and had a wee spaz. Perfectly squirrely.

We had gone to Golden Gate Park...( i think it was Golden Gate.. it was big anyway) to attend some crazy hippie picnic party, they called it an 'un-birthday' and from what I could gather it was a bunch of IT professionals that got together a decade ago to talk about music and smoke pot, and done it ever since.

So we ate there food, talked some shit and went on a walk, where we found out squirrel friend. There were also some turtles chilling in the sun next to a big pond. Awesome.

Then we went from there to the beach where there was an animal birthday party. There were cupcakes and chocolates and lots of frolicking in the the waves. Ben, Collen and Onyx also played some lovely music.



Then we headed out to Berkley where Polka Dots and Ben were to play a show in the backyard of someones Mum's house.

Annah.
Ben Kamen
Miguel and Rosie
Polka Dot Dot
Abandoned Ship




Then we ate sushi. Then we watched King of Kong. Then we went to bed.

SAN FRANCISCO! - Day One ... America redeems it's self.

Tucked away in the badlands of East Oakland is a lovely little warehouse called the kitten.... something. Kittenhouse? kittensomething. It's the radness anyway:




This is where I stayed for the most part of my SanFran adventure, and meet up with the Polka Dot Dot girls. They'd played a show there before I arrived, with their tour buddy Ben Kamen.
We had a long awaited late night catch up with beer, pizza, oreos and waffles, then bed.

Next morning we ventured over the bridge to SanFran city, had a quick but overwhelming look at Amoeba Records and then went down to the wharf to have a look at the Musee Mecanique. Pretty much the most awesome place on earth. A museum of over 300 antique arcade games... WORKING arcade games. Fortune tellers, peep shows, photo booths, puppet shows, Prize games, full orchestra music boxes, strength tests.







Then we entered the ghettos to set up at a place called the 'Lesbian Mansion', A huge and beautiful house (previously owned by the Spanish royal family) in the middle of a bad, bad neighbor hood.

There were puppies!



And then Music!

Ben Kamen
Polka Dot Dot
Agent Ribbons




Then bed!

Introducing.... AMERICA!

First thing - In-flight entertainment is the shit. Who cares if your trapped in you little compartment for 12 hours if you've got Summer Heights High, Eagle v's Shark, Juno and Louie Theroux to keep you company. Also good: in-flight meals and snacks.

Not good: LAX, Hollywood... pretty much the whole introduction to my American adventure. After staying in possibly the dodgiest backpackers in California (right on Hollywood blvd/my version of hell) I got out of that town as quick as I could.

I was lucky to find a ride-share (hitch-hiking... via the internet! - http://portland.craigslist.org/rid/) with some lovely folk musicians from LA. We traveled the fastest and ugliest route to San Francisco:




9 hours of flat, straight nothingness, 1 hour of complete traffic jam lameness. But at least the boys were Great impressionists.