Third bike tour & Emily Wells in Concert

I took today my bike and tried to explore the Limekiln Canyon again. This time I found the entrance easily, but my cute small bike isn’t made for such grade. And it was hot, too. After I passed Chatsworth St I took the right side of the canyon, but just beyond Freeway 118 there was a dead end. There was only a path scarp up to Rinaldi St. I took a deep breath and a drink of water and climbed the hillside up. Up there was a big ugly church. I took some pictures. But it was so hot, that I decided to go back home. I rode up to Corbin Ave and from there it was only downhill. But the trees was so small, that there branches hit me n my head. I must duck to could use the sidewalk. Near Lassen I nearly fell down, because of the bad condition of the sidewalk.

After chilling in the pool and a sunbath my cousin Omid came to pick me up. I could convince him to come to a concert by Emily Wells in Glendale. Actually, it was the forth Broken Wave Music Social Scene. i hadn’t idea what this was and even wasn’t sure, if it will be a concert or a party…

Broken Wave Music is a recording studio. It seems they organize every month a gathering for socializing and networking for musicians and creatives. The entrance was free and the drinks, too. We was friendly welcomed and asked to fill out a list, where they collected names, email and occupation (I wrote Tourist). I asked him, if Emily will do a show. He said yes and that a lot of people asked this. It seems a lot of fans of her was there. The party was right in their normal business rooms. So there was a big studio where the presented a documentary about another label. Outside in the lot The Pirate Charles had there funny show. In another studio where turntables and the DJanes played some smooth songs. They had drinks and beer and even a Black Jack table, but nobody liked to play.

On the one hand I felt a bit in a wrong place between this networking-doin’ professionals (But I had nice talk with Omid). On the other hand I couldn’t await until the concert get started. The concert itself was in a big studio. I felt in love to her music, since Bea tweeted a link to a video of Emily Wells, once (see below). I was so addicted by her music, that I bought her album as MP3 online after a few days (I can’t find it somewhere else and wasn’t able to took her MySpace-Profile with me).

The room was filled with people, some must wait outside. She started the concert with Symphony 1 In the Barrel of a Gun and the people got warm. She played with her band, a drummer and a bassist. It was a really cool concert. I love her voice and how the play and loop the sound. Oh, yeah. She plays a violin and sings. But she has synthesizers, ukulele, xylophone, toy instruments and a loop machine, too. She combines her sounds and fragments with the loop machine into a great songs. I don’t like to write about her music. Please just watch the youtube video below.

After the concert I talked with her and bought from each CD (there was three) one. She is very nice. Of course, I invited her to Germany for concerts. Maybe she will come one day. For me this concert and chance was unbelievable. I checked her website every few days, to see if there is a show. She had one just one day before I arrived. And tomorrow another in San Diego. But I know this was to far away. And now I just was there and saw her live… Yippie.

Second bike tour

You won’t believe it. I just found a biking area. Yesterday afternoon I took up my bicycle again and ride north. There is the Limekiln Canyon and on the map it looked interesting. But it was a bit hard to find it. Did you ever try to turn left with a bike on a street with 6 lanes full of SUVs and Pick-ups and no traffic light? I decide to rode to the next intersection with a bit more regulation (Are traffic lights socialism, because the government is regulating?). I knew the entrance to Canyon was in Tunney Ave, but I missed it and rode the Tampa Ave up to Chatsworth St where I thought I find the way to the canyon. Two teens tried to warn me (I guess), but I couldn’t understand what they said (because of the noise). It was a small path and nice (see pic above), but it became smaller and smaller. Just a feet left was the canyon, only two or three meters deep, but anyway a little uncomfortable… Just before the Freeway 118 (it was above me) I decide to change the side of the canyon. The hillside wasn’t such sharp and the LA river in the canyon was nearly total dry. I picked up the bike and climbed the hillside down and crossed the stream by jumping over the big stones in it. Without wet feet I reached the other side. And here was the comfortable, but car free Limekiln Canyon Rd. I rode this back, crossed Chatsworth St again and was back in Tunney Ave. It was a bit late and Roya wanted to pick me up for Dinner. So I decided to explore Limekiln Canyon next time.

Just a few sentence to the dinner. It was at Los Toros, a huge Mexican restaurant. The restaurant was full, so we must wait until a table became free. The gave us a number which was more a device with a flashing green light. When it was our turn, the device starts blinking and vibrating… We followed the waitress, but lost her in the big building for a moment. I guess (without exaggerating) we passed four or five salons until we found our table. The food was really nice. As starters we had plain nachos with a really tasty bean dip. I ate more from then as my real meal. When the brought the plates with the food, they put a small stand before the table and put the huge tablet on it. Then they started to serve the food. The burrito was fantastic. The menu said, the recipe was created by a Chatsworth native while waiting at the border. Now imagine how much time they waste at this ridiculous fences… Oh, and of course they asked me for ID because I ordered a Margarita .

Bike tour in the city of cars

Yesterday I did a small bike tour. I rode through Jumilla Ave to Plummer St until De Soto Ave. Plummer St is interrupted there by the LA River (you might remember it from Terminator 2) and the railroad, so I headed De Soto Ave south to Nordhoff St and rode on this one west again until Chatsworth reservoir. On Google Maps this looks like a huge sea, but it’s just a huge dry area. Wikipedia says: “A distinctive feature in the Chatsworth Area is the mostly empty Chatsworth Reservoir. The property belongs to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power”. There was a fence around the area, so I even couldn’t enter it. From there I rode the Topanga Canyon Blvd north until the other part of the Plummer St. I rode there through some “smaller” streets until I found Lassen St, which I rembered from our breakfast at Delis. I ride the Lassen St back to east until Corbin Ave and from there it was just stone’s throw back to Superior St. You can check my route out at Google Maps.

Of course, LA isn’t the best place to ride a bike. On Plummer St. there is at least a bike lane, but only until Winnetka Ave. There is a sign asking the car drivers “Share the road”. I wasn’t in the mood to try out if they listen to the sign. From this point I rode my tiny, cute bicycle on the sidewalk, which is in a bad condition. The branches of the trees hang down, so I must duck from time to time to continue my way. Sometimes panels of the sidewalk soar, so I must ride around it to prevent the tires from damage. On some intersections the sidewalk wasn’t lowered and they are much higher here then in Europe (maybe up to 18cm high). But if I wasn’t on one of the main streets, there wasn’t much traffic and I had the street for me (on most of the smaller streets there isn’t a sidewalk).

It was the first time since ages I had a sunburn again. I put sunscreen on, but at the Chatsworth reservoir it was so hot I washed my face with water. Tada, no sunscreen on my face anymore. By chance I wasn’t heading west from this point anymore. Hot and water reminds me two other anecdotes: I was riding the bike only for 15 minutes and the water I took with me was really warm (maybe 20 degrees Celsius). And when I stopped at the reservoir and stand up from the saddle for two minutes to take pictures the saddle was very hot when I sat down again. The sun here is really … effective.

In California the cars are allowed turn right even when the traffic light is red. Of course, they must take care not to hit another car or person. But riding a bike here you must take much more care then at home. They didn’t expect pedestrians or cyclists. On one sidewalk there were three guys on my way. My bike doesn’t have a bell and I just said sorry and one of them saw me answered “Execuse me, bud”. I love this friendly language. I know it’s superficial, but it has it affects anyway. I prefer it instead a grumble.

After nearly one and a half hour I was back at home. And what is the best thing after a sweaty bike tour? Right, jumping in to the swimming pool.

Tight seats and Charlotte sprint to LA

It’s 8AM and I am sitting in the home office of my cousin, which will be my room for the next few weeks. The house is in the north of LA County, Chatsworth.The sun is shining, its warm, but comfortable. Time to recap the flight.

Flight US705 No. #1

The first surprise was the really tight seats in the Airbus A330-300. US Airways tried to squeeze as much passengers as possible to the plane. For an 9 hours flight it was quite uncomfortable… The second surprise was the hot cabin. The captain announced they had problems with the gate air condition (“It doesn’t run efficient as it should”) and the plane was like S1 in rush hour. And he said, that Frankfurt Airport must shut down one runway, so there was a 45min delay. Ok, but I only have 1:25h in Charlotte to pass immigration, pick up my baggages, pass customs, re-check in luggage and pick up the flight to LA. He promised, that they don’t need so much time as planned for the flight. The first good news since I took my seat. To tell you this: The plane was right in schedule in Charlotte.

Nine hours is a long time. Of course, I was well prepared. I put tons of music and radio plays on the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet. On request by the crew I switched of the device due take-off. But you remember the 45 minute delay? So we was allowed to use our devices again. But my N810 won’t boot again. Or to be precisely: It boot until 100% and then reboot infinitely. So I couldn’t tweet about the mess or chat or do the other unimportant stuff. While I was frustrated the crew served cold water and opened all doors to let flow a bit of fresh air inside. But after we leaved the gate and the AC was running by the planes engine everything was fine.

There was a life before N810 and so there should be other stuff to pass time. Nhung borrowed me a nice book Life of Pi by Yann Martel and there was of course the entertainment system on each seat. But here is the next obstacle. The use double mono TRS-Jack instead one stereo TRS-Jack for the headphones. Why using standards if you can sell people cheap headphones for five bucks? I used my mobile headphones and the one of the N810 to enjoy X-Men Origins: Wolverine in stereo (as far as you can enjoy such cheesy movie).

Next to me sat a mechanical engineer, who is working for German company in US. He was going to North Carolina to train workers with their machines. His boss was in the same plane, but in business class.

Charlotte Douglas Airport (CLT)

As I mentioned before we arrived in Charlotte on time. I was a bit late in the row. But with chance and help of few people I could push a bit forward in line. The immigration officer was really nice and friendly. She welcomed me with “Hello, how are you?”. I know, this means nothing, its just courtesy, but it suggest a total different atmosphere then the barking of other border authorities I remember. She just ask me few standard question (Where, Why, How long…). The only special question was, when I was in Iran last time. Fingerprints, photos, that’s all. No luggage checking, mass storage introspection or technical device seizing. To all my paranoid nerd-friends: Crypto disc up ya ass…

I passed immigration at 4:05PM. Check-in for my connection was until 4:10PM. I grabbed my Backpack from the baggage claim, but where was the suitcase borrowed by my mother. Do you now how many people travel with similar looking black suitcases? OK, sure. I will miss the flight, but why going crazy now? If I miss the connection I will have enough time for panic. And normally they put you in the next plane for free. So, I didn’t worry about departure times much and tried to recognize the suitcase. My great mum add colored cords to the suitcase and explained me that. After ages I saw the cords, grabbed the suitcase and go fast to the customs. Behind me was a girl, who asked me if I want the plane to LA, too. We gave the customs form to the officer in a manner of relay race and run to the re-checkin. The guy was really nice and told us to run to Gate B14. The connection was delayed, but just for few minutes. We run as fast as we could to B14 and caught the plane just in time.

Flight US705 No. #2

The Airbus 320 to Los Angeles International was much more comfortable then sardine can before. From Charlotte the planes leaved in small intervals, it was like the Berlin airlift. The flight wasn’t special I looked at the huge landscape during the flight and tried to sleep. Just for fun I turned on my GPS receiver (eTrex). The plane was moving with 870km/h with 11km altitude. They didn’t served any vegetarian sandwich, so I kept my bucks. The only interesting thing was the stewardess, who squashed the soda cans with hand.

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

In Los Angeles everything was easy, because it was a domestic flight. Everything would be fine, if the hadn’t forget to transport my suitcase to LA. Fingers crossed they will deliver it to Sepidehs house today, as promised. Sepideh and Kevin picked me up. While Kevin was waiting in the car, she helped me to complain about the missing luggage. At least I have my backpack with my clothes. The family must wait for their gifts. Sepideh suspected the airport employees took the suitcase because of the tons of German chocolate inside…

San Fernando Valley

It was really nice and cool to meet Sepideh again. And it was a pleasure to meet Kevin first time, of course. They took me to an nice vegetarian Asian restaurant, Garden Wok (6117 Reseda Blvd, Tarzana). The food was really delicious. They “pork”, “chicken” etc. but all made with Soy wheat and other stuff. My recommendation: vegan cream cheese wong tongs and chicken sweet sour.

And finally (at 9.30PM or so) we arrived at their home. From the outside it’s yellow with nice garden and a stars spangled banner, but inside there are Persian carpets, a cute mix. There I met Ame Mahin (Aunt Mahin) again. She was really happy and it was nice to met her after so long time again. I am looking forward to meet the other guys today.

Thanks for your time. I will upload and add some photos later.