My America
At first, the idea to go to America, having only a ticket and a rather modest amount in the local currency in your pocket, seemed very attractive. It was planned to rent a car and ten days to rush on it on solar California, ignorance spent on the road of power in roadside hotels. Stereotypes (thanks to the Hollywood cinema!) – a kopeck car rental and twenty-collar motel apartments – nicely excited by spring avitaminosis imagination. Only stepping on the beloved American land at San Francisco International Airport, I felt the air-rainbow warring euphoria evaporates rapidly under the influence of concrete glass reality. I was met by: night, wind, empty waiting halls and a huge shield with the inscription "Rent-A-Car" as the sign of the coming moment of truth. However, everything is in order.
Brief historical and geographical reference
Name "California" invented the Spanish writer Gare Rodriguez de Monttravo. In his novel "Las Sergas de Esplandian" ("Acts Esplandian"), released in 1510, so called a fantastic island, located at the Western shores of the New World. Lines in which De Monttail described California as the promised land turned out to be prophetic. Something California belonged to Mexico. The United States has repeatedly offered Mexicans to sell this paradise, but, tired of uncertainty, in 1847 he took his task, grabbing a fair piece of northern Mexican territories across the entire width of the continent. In an amazing coincidence of circumstances, soon after American annexation in the new state, gold was found and for incomplete two years, California population increased by 565 percent! Despite the fact that all gold veins have long been elongated from the body of the California land, the number of people willing to settle in the southwestern corner of the United States does not decrease.
People can be understood. The annual level of gross national income per capita is here 22 thousand dollars (the seventh figure in the world), and real estate prices are growing day by day (if in 1971 the average price of the house on the coast in Los Angeles accounted for 42 thousand dollars, then today she exceeds two and a half million!). In addition, the climate of the Pacific coast is close to the perfect: temperature ranges from 12 15 degrees in winter to 28 30 degrees in summer. There is no need for facilities or air conditioners. At the same time California the edge of natural extremes and wonderful beauties. Sandy Bakel Death Valley Roads with evergreen dawn sequoan forests, from which hand to the snow slopes in the vicinity of Emerald Lake Tahoe. You can know the infinite diversity of the whole world, never in life without leaving the limits "Golden State".
Day Night?) First (Aya)
Fourteen fell over. The body does not understand what happens to him: in Moscow is now a day, in San Francisco Darkness-Dirty. I drove on the bus-shuttle to garages with rolling office racks. In the Moscow office, one famous company argued that ten days of rent "Ford Escort" will cost 280 300 dollars. Whether they lay down, or something confused. At first, "Escort" No one has, secondly, the minimum cost of a car "Toyota Corolla" or "Chevrolet Cavali" is 53 dollars a day. And thirdly, almost all employees are Chinese, which is very strange, given the remoteness of the. Just in case asked about microlo "Ford Ka". The question did not understand. Replied that cars brand "Kia" available do not have. The offer had to ignore: 53 dollars are almost all my daily. Sat on the bench at the bus stop, felt like a homeless. On the clock half-solid. He made a decision: to buy the rest of the night at the airport, and there the morning of the evening wisen.
In extreme situations, the human brain works at the maximum of opportunity. This is true. Was already ready to spit on everything and take "Corolla", When suddenly remembered that somewhere in the San Diego district, at the Mexican border itself, my old university friend Pasha is acquired. Glory to the Almighty, his phone number was preserved in the annals of my notebook and after almost a ten-year break I hear in the tube almost unchanged Pashin voice. After listening to my story, Pasha said that the reading for honor to grant at my disposal one of his cars is only necessary for him to appear. My joy was not limit!
From San Francisco to San Diego five hundred miles (about 800 kilometers). Flew per hour twenty. In San Diego Rain. Actually, even a cloudy day is rare, and about the shoes that have been irrigated with palm america’s finst city’s palm alleys for several days (the most beautiful city of US official, by the way, epithet with. D.), they say no otherwise as a natural disaster. However, I don’t care. I fell a depleted unclean being in the arms of a friend. The souls seemed to be a paradise, with nothing with comparable pleasure. Pasha looks wonderful: working in the telephone company Pacific Bell, recently bought a quarter of the house and slightly used six-cylinder "Infinity" Naturally, in a long-term loan, as accepted by respectable Americans. Lives with mom, who still remembers Soviet life with horror. At my request, I wrote a list of places, mandatory for visiting San Francisco: Golden Gate, Alkatras, Coyt Tower, Ul. Lombard, Chinese Quarter, Castro district and something else on trifles. In the evening Epicured in the jacuzzi in the courtyard. Life is Beautiful!
Got up at five in the morning at six in the evening in Moscow. It’s time to gather on the road. Purpose of San Francisco, which I count go for hours for seven. Considering the lack of traffic lights on Highwee, the average speed of 110 120 kilometers (70 miles) in an hour seems quite real. Sports "Ford Prob" A wild beast rushes along the concrete. Yes, there are almost all the roads of concrete and, in my opinion, worse than European asphalt. In France, for example, it is possible to rush to the speed of 160 kilometers per hour, without noticing it, and here small roughness remind of the fraternity of being already at the mark of 130-140.
Left flew skyscrapers Los Angeles. Food on the lane with the inscription Carpools Only. Later it turns out that he has broken. Carpool "Carpool" Typically, the American concept, which could appear only in a fully motorized country. So called a vehicle in which in addition to the driver sits at least one passenger. Highlighting special stripes under the carpula, the state encourages the joint use of one car (less loading roads, less harmful exhausts into the atmosphere, fuel economy).
By three days on the horizon, the highlights of the San Francisco business center appeared. The cognitive attitude is so strong that the fatigue from the many hours of seating by the wheel is almost not felt. Paying two dollars, enter the huge bridge connecting the downtown with Auckland. By the way, he is two more times longer than the famous bridge through the strait Golden Gate. The last one is visible away, but because of cloudy weather looks quite inexperienced. With parking in business centers of American cities, everything is simple: there is no free seats at all. Hour parking costs 35 dollars, day 1215. After 18.00 All Parkings are free. By the way, in the US, a 24-hour temporary standard is not accepted, and 18.00 on electronic scoreboard is always highlighted as 6.00, and not otherwise. It should be noted that it is much easier to get used to it than to three "F" American Measurement System: Futu, Pound and Fahrenheit. Well, and gallon, of course.
Until the evening wandered around Chinatown in the Chinese quarter most in all US. The impression is that I got into China. Signs, wall paintings, tiled skates, marble dragons and lions, even naked beauties on coffee covers all solid Chinese. Passersby also some chinese. I could not yet understand what it seems strange in the bustle of Chinatown, finally understood. Full absence of young people aged 14 to 30 years! Absolute absence! Where did they go and why the mystery. Those who I then asked about this weirdness, just shrugged and said that they never paid attention to the age and sexual composition of the inhabitants of the Chinese Quarter. In the evening I thought about the night. Where are you, cheap hotels? Night in a simple hotel in urban limits worth a minimum of 120 dollars. Minutes forty looking for his "Cork". Sports cars are perfectly driving, but in them, alas, it is inconvenient to sleep!
Nights B "Window city" Cold. That and the matter had to warm the salon. The picture as from the cheap thriller: the messenger square of the Earth, covered with a chain mesh, the sky is crossed out of the strips of the overpass, and between them black boxes of skyscrapers with rare yellow windows of windows. AND "Ford" with a our tourist in the midst of all this beauty. I woke up at four in the morning unprecedented cheerful and fresh. There is nothing to do, went for a walk.
San Francisco stands on the hills. The city is similar to the frozen storm sea, rolling with asphalt waves between squat quarters. The filmmakers are very loved by the local streets: car racing on them turn into an exciting three-dimensional spectacle. Machines are naturally flying. Walk along "Waves" Very tiring, it is better to use the services of a tram of one of the city characters. "The most winding street in the world" Lombard goes to the mountain with zigzags, so cool the slope in this place. Traditional parking manner on the hills strictly across the street with the wheel twisted to the limit.
Eight in the morning. With the weather is still not lucky. The sun almost does not break, and because of this, the famous orange bridge "Golden Gate" looks to the offensive everyday life. This construction is almost two miles long (more than three kilometers) was built in 1937 and at that time was the longest suspension bridge in the world. Every week, the brigade of the Malyarov reproduces the appearance of the masterpiece, spending on a thousand gallons (3785 liters!) Paints. Excellent panoramic view of the city opens from the top of the tower coit of white pipe-shaped structure "A la pisan tower", Built for money some Lilly Coyt in 1933. To the question of who she, in fact, was, this Lilly Coyut, a caretaker (who would doubt!) shrugs: "Just was and all". All that was found to find out that Lilly Hichkok Coyt was very wealthy and eccentric Madame, who loved her city and . all associated with fire. Thanks to her that he did not go in the footsteps of Herostrata, but gave a wonderful turret to San Francisco.
From above megalopolis is visible as on the palm. You see why the classic called America "single-storey": A bundle of skyscrapers seems to be an inappropriate foreign fragment against the background of squat low-rise quarters, go far beyond the horizon. Looking ahead, I will say that in Los Angeles, and in San Diego city panoramas are approximately similar. Only there a down-tauna look a little more frontier and more matured than in San Francisco.
The next point of the excursion program was the mysterious area of Castro, for some reason marked in the list of attractions. Thank you, Pasha, Overdud. It is known that San Francisco is considered the global capital of sexual minorities. So, Castro the heart of this capital. Seven-color flags have fun in the wind, same-sex couples are careless, and the peteed places are hospitably open the doors, inviting tired travelers to a cup of something. From a detailed examination abstained. The second half of the day hesitantly spent on the separation of parcels from my Moscow friends to their American friends. In the eyes of the latter read the alertness. In fact, I look like a maximum of dollars for fifteen, if not less. Dinner in a Chinese restaurant overlooking one of the most famous skyscrapers of the trans-American pyramid. It’s time to go home, in "Ford".
Five in the morning. Back spotted, legs numb. Single joy Anticipation of parting with the city of Golden Gate. Alkatraces left before leaving for dessert. They say, in the peak of the tourist season, an excursion to the island-prison must be ordered in a few days. In winter and spring you can buy a ticket to the ship in half an hour before it is sent. Alkatrass federal prison in 1934. Before this, Fort was located on the island, and since 1907, the barracks of army dibath. The ulota existed almost thirty years. In 1963 "Rock" (so called alkatras in the people) empty. At one time, the Indians who repeatedly built on her shores of Wigwama were claimed, but then they were tired of being tired of the state, and they left the island alone. They were nimbled by red paint slogan "Indians welcome!" on a shield with the inscription "United States Correctional Institution". (And I thought a sinful thing that local pahana was mocked in the feeling of the birthplace of indigenous Americans).
In a nutshell: Alkatras is boring. All that could be cleaned, cleaned. All that could be rented, reproduced. Repair destroyed linking links between now living and retrieval inhabitants of close cameras. Two-storey chamsisites will be simple curiosity, but do not worry. The most interesting, in my opinion, the album’s album exhibits albums with black and white images of scenes of dim zekovsky life and emitted rust pins, remnants of Easter railing, or hedge, of which bad energy is literally.
Several curious facts about alkatrace:
1. The exact location of the Al Capone cameras is unknown the godfather launched by syphilis and spent most of his four-year imprisonment in the insulator.
2. A total of fourteen attempts to escape from the cliff. The most famous escape of Frank Morris and the Englenn brothers in June 1962. They jumped into the ocean and . Forever disappeared. Officially, all three are considered drowned.
3. In the alkatrace, no one was executed. But for twenty-nine years, five suicides and eight killings were recorded.
4. Sand sharks floating in the bay never attack people. All talks about "Akulah-Lyudoyadah", Jacob "guarded" prisoners, no more than terrible fairy tales.
5. On the superphanage of the prison walls of the alkatrace testifies to the fact that in the houses of Woln-Selers who worked on the island, it was not customary to close the door doors.
so that is all. Now you can have a snack and harrow on the pedals in the direction of Los Angeles. I said goodbye to the Chinese caretaker, like an old friend, and the bullet flew out of the city. Forces suddenly left me hours at eight in the evening when I was exactly between Frisco and Al-Hey. Two hundred miles in any direction. It was at this point that the coast was found the cheapest motel in California. 40 dollars per night almost dumping price! Room like in a good Moscow hotel: a huge bed, a large TV, a shower cabin, easily turning into a steam room. Evenings slogans: "Glory to the inventor of the soul!" and "How comfortable to sleep lying!"
