North America Discover Tour 2006

I'm descending from 30,000ft on a cramped US Airways flight approaching Charlotte, North Carolina while gazing at the puffy clouds outside and the glaring sun high in the sky.
Along the next 10 days, I'll be reporting live (or as live as it gets) about my latest spontaneous trip.



Now, you might be thinking: Why would I want to go to Charlotte, North Carolina? I don't. It's a stop over between Toronto and San Francisco.
Continuing my North America Discovery Tour, which I began in the summer of 2004 when I visited Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, New York and Washington D.C., I'm visiting some of the remaining US cities on my list.
This year, I'm hitting the ground running: With the smell of the 2006 New Years Eve fireworks still lingering in the air, I'm striking off two major world cities I've had on my MUST BE TO list for as long as I can remember. The two cities are San Francisco and Los Angeles. I decided to hit many birds with one stone by also satisfying another long standing dream of mine: Watching Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer deliver his annual keynote speech at MacWorld. For Apple lovers such as myself, this is the Holy Grail of events and this time I'll be there instead of following it on streaming video.



The next ten days will essentially encompass three major trips:

- San Francisco: I'll see the city, walk along the famous piers and take pictures next to the Golden Gate Bridge. I'll visit Alcatraz and walk down the steepest street in the world: The Guiness Book of Records holding "Lombard St."

- Road Trip USA: I've always dreamed about getting in a car and just driving aimlessly along the US Pacific Coast, running into towns and cities along the way. That's what I'm about to do on January 15th. I'm renting a car, getting on the road, rollin' down the windows and singing "Life is a Highway ... and I'm gonna ride it all night long!" all along the way. Some of the anticipated stops are Cupertino (for a quick look and photo-op @ Apple Headquarters), San José, Santa Cruz, 17 Mile drive, Pebble Beach and of course Santa Barbara at the request of Rosanna who dreams of going there and wanted to at least see it through my eyes. Anything else I'll leave pretty much to spontaneity.

- Los Angeles: Who hasn't had the urge to take a picture next to the Hollywood sign or walk down the Walk of Fame? I'll do that and more when I arrive in L.A. Of course, being an architecture buff, I have to see with my own eyes Frank Gehry's titanium and aluminum masterpiece: Los Angeles Disney Concert Hall. Disneyland itself is of course located just outside L.A. so that will be part of the duo theme park visits I'll make while down there. Universal Studios is the other park I'm eager to experience. Finally, how can I forget the incredible beaches of Malibu, the shopping on Rodeo Drive and the rollerblading babes of Santa Monica? I'll try to locate some tv and film sets and definitely get a picture next to a Baywatch lifeguard tower. Somehow I don't expect to encounter lifeguards that look anything like Pamela Anderson.

This trip was originally designed to include a two day stop in Vancouver, BC, but after considering the poor weather and realizing how filled my 10 days would already be in San Francisco and L.A. , I decided to skip my final Canadian frontier until another day.

I'm putting the finishing touches at this first blog entry sitting at a Starbucks in Charlotte Douglas Airport. I better get going to find my connecting flight to San Francisco.

I'll attempt to keep these blogs short so that everybody's able to read them on their spare time instead of dedicating hours to reading a novel like recounting of my travels. There might be some techie terms since I AM here attending an Apple convention after all. Many pictures will be forthcoming.

Stay tuned!