Los Gatos, Saratoga, Campbell, and Etc...

I'm sitting at the airport. I've been away from Seattle long enough it doesn't feel like I ever had a home there. If you stay away from home long enough, you won't feel like you have a home after enough time. Also not actually having a place with all of your stuff helps this unattached feeling. I left my things with my father. If I had a home it would be at my father's. I haven't even left the country but I feel like Seattle is a world away.

Over the last few days I've had some good adventures and some good family time. Even while taking Persian (Farsi) I wasn't the best student in class. I found this the first time I've spent any time with my family on my father's side that is sizable enough to count in weeks since I've finished taking Persian. I recalled a lot, which I'm proud of. What I didn't recall much of was my verbs. If I had recalled more verbs I might have been able to have a simple conversion outside of, “How are you?” “I'm good” “Hello” “Goodbye” etc... Verbs were always my biggest enemy while in class, oh and clothing.

Did I mention I'm at the airport in San Francisco, and almost have California behind me. I want to return to California after my trip to spend more time with my mom and other family members again. I miss them all already. What I don't miss are the drivers. People tend to not use turn-signals enough and I've seen a lot of aggressive driving. Also, a lot of the curbs are way too high for most doors to either open all of the way curbside or at all, so watch out. The sheer craziness of everyone basically running red lights is a problem as well. If you see three or more cars take a turn after the light turns red don't be surprised. My best guess is since they turned off the red light cameras people are taking full advantage. Lets cover the last few days, since I've been putting off blogging.

For a few days I didn't do much but catch up on sleep that I missed while trying to maximize time with my mother, brother, and sister. I also helped with some my cousin's homework and such, but not much. The biggest part of the day was getting lunch with my Aunt and my oldest cousin.

I also rode around with my Aunt when she picked up or dropped off people for sports and such. I'm forgetting the order of things as I tend to organize thoughts in my head in categories rather than in the order. So I remember food events in more of a lump than drove here, did this, eat there, etc...we were trying to have a home meal at one point but some how (cough, kids wanted to go out, and the dominoes fell from there) we ended up at Chipotle Mexican Grill, which made my belly feel grand.

During the lunches, pick ups, and drop offs I found myself walking around Los Gatos. It was a long walk; as I let myself get a little lost by walking off into a residential area. I walked the main strip twice and found some nice stores and even purchased some new sunglasses to replace the ones I left in my mother's vehicle. I found an exciting looking bush with poisonous berries, not poisonous for birds though. The picture does do it some justice, but seeing the vibrant colors in person was a site.

 
 


Los Gatos seems to have some character as well. I found some anti-Obama signs, which as far as these for and against graffiti things go looked professionally done. Here is a good question to ask someone that my cousin got me with...

With out delay or stopping to think, tell me Obama's lastname.........................If you said Barack you'd be wrong like me.

This isn't the worst name for a store that I've seen on the Internet, but it did make me stop and gauck at either the boldness of the owner or the massive over looking of her/his store name: Black Watch. Again, not the worst but still thought they could have used a more direct name for their business or if they had put a picture of a watch between the words or had made the “A's” circular part into watches/clocks it might not have stood out to me, maybe.

Los Gatos has a really nice car dealership as well. I found seeing impressive cars that aren't in motion or going balls-to-the-wall fast (a scientificly technical term :) not that impressive. I started to think why don't cheaper sports cars look amazing as well, or even your everyday car? I figure some of it might be the cost but it couldn't be that much if every car looked bang on like a Lambo or such. I figure it is more to do with marketing and creating the :needed” difference between luxury and/or expensive vehicles with those of the bottom end of the line ones.

I went to Cafe De Flore on my long walk, which is a connected to a bike shop. To be clear they each have a their own doors but once inside you can walk back and forth between the two. It reminded me of being in Green Lake in Seattle. Had a hippie vibe with the styling of a rustic northwesterner. I only had the smoothie (Berry Blast) and it was very good. It wasn't overly sweet and used real fruit. It ran me about a five spot but it was better than a Jamba Juice in my humble opinion.

I stayed with my grandpa for a while one of the days, and then I spent the night with him a few days later. An amazing guy. If you have nice grandparents like me, you should talk to them more. Your grandparents most likely have a story that is more interesting than you think or that they let on. I find that spending a lot of time with your grandparents while your still young seems to kill interest in their lives before you. My hypothesis on this is that by spending a lot of time with them our brains come to an unjustified conclusion that we've learned all we need to know about the person, and add with that we're getting older with a ton of new unknown things in life such as personal relationships, jobs, school, music, etc...name your poison. It may be it is just the later distractions, just remember that you don't truly know someone even if you've spent fifty years with them. We all have private histories. Yes, I had some good Persian/English conversations with my grandfather. I also had some similarly informative conversations with both of my uncles...so what am I missing about my father, eh? The final night I was in California we had a family dinner at my youngest uncle's house. We took some normal photographs as well but I find the goofy one of just the grandchildren the best.

<< At my uncles they also have some the cutest bathroom decorations for the kids!




Just to get out a bit and to get an errand accomplished for my uniquely awesome partner in love, my third oldest cousin and I went to get some lunch and coffee. I say coffee because it is always easier to describe getting coffee than tea to those used to living in the U.S.A. I actually purchased a Chai Tea, and don't get me started on how many languages that would really be saying Tea Tea. I received my Tea Tea from Peet's Coffee located in King's Court of Los Gatos. I believe the Chai wasn't bad but I put in cinnamon like I usually do for the health benefits and taste, but their cinnamon left me with a bitter taste and a earthly feeling in my mouth. It may be just this location, or just this batch of cinnamon but I can't in good conscience tell anyone to try the cinnamon at Peet's. I went into a beauty supply store, which wasn't a first, just that it was my first time not going with my mother. It wasn't too bad, other than feeling terribly out of place. I completed my quest to retrieve some hair dye for my companion. I left in hand with 3 oz of raging purple, 3 oz of indigo blue hair dye, and six vinyl gloves so that I don't have to see multicolored hands for a week each time the dye is used. A note here about why I bought the dye in the states, I was told the cheapest that it could be found was something like $70-$90, which could be from a lack of not knowing where to go but most likely is just because if you travel to countries that don't use a lot of dye the prices will be higher...and to my point if you like to have your hair colored and you're traveling best to bring some with you.

Before my father and I had to travel to San Francisco for are departing flights, we went to a park of sorts named Montalvn? Arts Center (see picture for my confusion), and like the name implies there is more there than just a nice lawn and trees. The orange trees' fruit was small and mostly dense , and obviously great for playing catch! There was a small garden with sculptures and plants accompanied by their scientific names. The whole place was rather lovely. My father decided to claim a tree his own, which meant climbing it. I saw him climb at least two trees. If he climbed more I didn't see. My third oldest cousin also climbed a tree. This wasn't the first time on the trip that my pops had climbed a tree. I caught the first time on digitized film and the last episode at the garden. The climbing incidents were entertaining. Speaking of trees I found one tree that looked like it had fat rolls or double chins. Another tree had an impressive amount of bird houses circling the trunk. I caught a glimpse of the art gallery they had open as well, while driving away from “Montalvn”. Overall an interesting place but as my tenth grade science teacher teaching math would put it “the air was lacking in kinetic energy”, which was too little for my energy tastes.

        

                      

                      

The ride to the airport was shorter than I thought it would be. I remember the drive to San Francisco being longer when I was younger, although that could easily be because we stopped more or some combination of the stops with the simple fact I'd find boredom easier while in a car as a child. This drive to San Francisco was shorter because traffic was good; I had an expectation that it would take more time; and lastly, my father let me talk the whole time. I do enjoy talking about things that interest me. My friends probably know all too well about my ranting abilities.

The airport was massive, but that I do remember from my other trips there. I had to kill about 6-7 hours. I started typing this blog journal, I read, I walked, I walked, I stretched, I talked on the phone, I texted, I ate food, I watch some television , I instant messaged, I walked and stretched, I bought a few snacks, talked on the phone again, etc...wasted time. I found myself getting nervous for the first time. The nervousness wasn't at any point until the boarding started. I paced and focused my thought; I found it felt something akin to what I felt when I was just about to jump out of a plane for my first time skydiving. The jitters faded once I got in line to board.

The flight was good...well, I'm still on it but good so far. I traveled Eva Air. The staff was okay. The food wasn't too shabby for economy. I have no idea if after the first meal they came around again for liquids or snacks. The only real snag was before we were to take off there was a little delay and then it turned into a large delay. It took an extra hour and a half to take off. I don't blame most of the delayed time on the airlines because it was a passenger that felt that she/he was having heart issues so we had to left them off and their luggage. I slept most of the flight, except for the first few hours and the last few, which the later is why I was able to finish this entry. We did get a breakfast meal as well. I'm excited to arrive. I'll have to post more once I've been there for a few days. 

And random, but to make sure you say Pho right because I hear a lot of people say it wrong: http://www.lovingpho.com/pho-opinion-editorial/how-to-pronounce-pho/

Tip For The Day: if you must travel, travel with room in your bag. If your bag is full before you get to your destination you've already limited yourself in what you're able to do while traveling, and I don't mean just what new things you are able to put in your luggage. I mean your mindset is too narrowed. Your focus is on what you're leaving behind and not enough on where you're going. There are exceptions to this like virtually all things in life, just make sure you're in an exception scenario before you fill that bag to the brim. And besides the mind set, getting around is much more cumbersome with either heavy luggage or a lot of items to tote around or both.

From Long Beach To Los Gatos (San Jose)

I've moved on to another location. I also have to reflect on what I've left behind...

Before I left Long Beach I went out a few more times and had some fun with the family.



Just hanging out with my brother (also the rest of the family but who needs a photo of them :) We watched movies and played games as a group. My aunt also came over. It was a good night.

My mom posing for the camera and looking fabulous in red! She had an important phone call to make. If you look closely you can see my brother snuck back to his computer to play Mass Effect 2. When there was down time you'd find him playing Mass Effect 1 and then 2 once he moved on...we weren't entertaining enough for him.

One of the nights Qown (brother) and I went on a nice walk along the beach. The photos didn't turn out but we came back a few days later on a bike ride with my mother. We ended up riding for about 10 miles. It was really nice going through the ocean side of Long Beach. Along the bike ride, I almost tripped into traffic while stopping to talk to a friendly guy looking for a bike pump. He had more tat than face, but was very pleasant besides contrary to what stereotypes would have you believe.





Told my mother to stop for a photo and she decided that meant to reach out her arm!? Either way, she was having a good time and so was I.

Along the way we stopped and got some food, but we also spent a lot of energy looking for a Baja Fresh. I didn't bring my phone with me for one reason or another but we gave up the search. I had even stopped and ask someone for help locating the restaurant but they hadn't even heard of the place sadly. I knew we were close but had to give up the hunt. We settled on El Pollo Loco, which is a sad substitute but they had decent food over all. I'd eaten there once before this time earlier in the trip while I was looking for a new hoodie. After being stuffed, we rode home and settled in for the night. Not much fan fair, but my sister was disappointed we didn't bring her anything. I found out the next day we were very close. Where we had stopped for directions was the place that if we had turned off and went a few block we would have found the golden temple Baja Fresh.

   

The last thing we did as a family was play tennis at my brother's high school and went on a walk. I had never played tennis before but picked it up fairly quickly. Not an all-star or anything but I started getting the backhand down by the time we finished. If you can't tell by the photos I was also wearing jeans and boots, which left me very warm.


We wandered over to a StarBucks because my sister was very tired and needed a pick me up. She hadn't slept at all by this point because she was up doing homework like a boss. I also enjoyed a Chai Tea, my brother loves his iced mochas, and my mother with the hazelnut almond latte with extra sugar.
























The short walk we took was by a near by park. wasn't too exciting but was nice to see some green and feel a little less of the hustle that is the city. I'm sure neither my mother nor my sister will be happy with the below photos, but I enjoy the first one because of the slight motion blurring and the second one just makes me laugh! My sister said my mom looked like a movie star in it, which made my brother and I laugh at the time. Reminds me of those photos that get taken when the actress are trying to avoid photos.

   


One last one with my brother in the park. Strange at times to think of my lil' brother being taller than me, but I don't fret about it. Love him all the same...just remember who the boss is! ...yeah, not really that sort of brother anyways :)

We went to Baja Fresh after all of this and it made me happy. My brother also got food as well. My sister really loves Pho and was very upset that we didn't go for any of that. I had made a deal with her about getting Pho if she had done a certain amount of homework. The exact details are disputed but I didn't think I still had an obligation to that deal since I thought the terms hadn't been met. In any event, we went for more Pho at the place Atasha and I had first eaten Pho on a rainy day in Long Beach not long ago. Qown and I just had Bubble Tea, while my sister and mother ate. Their food smelt delicious and neither my brother or I had had our food yet. The night was very entertaining though because the place had their Karaoke setup. A table of two ladies had a braver soul than me. One of the women asked if she could sing. They only had one CD of songs in English but she belted out a few slow romances hits. My mom decided it was her turn and I decided my camera needed to be turned on and recording...no idea how that happen ;) She sung the Titanic movie (1997) theme song, My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion. My mother has a very good voice and it was really nice to hear her sing. She got embarrassed when she realized I was recording so the remainder of the song was nice vocals, laughter, coughing, and fished by good vocals. My siblings and I enjoyed if even if my mother didn't as much.

My sister before her, my brother, and I play video games until the below happened. I went to bed around 5 or 6 AM but my brother stayed up all night for one reason or another. He finally crashed around noon or so. I played some more games with my sister, after I finished packing things up. I woke him up before I had to go and we all rallied to play even more games! I played my quota of video games for the next 5 years!









I'll miss everyone in Long Beach (and L.A.) until next time I see everyone...love you each!

My Aunt, Uncle, and 4 cousins picked me up and whisked me away for a journey to Los Gatos, California. The trip wasn't bad. I watched The Adjustment Bureau (2011) in the van's DVD player, which was a delicious if not predictable ending. Saw first hand L.A.'s famously terrible traffic, which until then I had avoided being fully in. Seattle also has bad traffic and in comparing them it is about the same as comparing losing your left hand or your right...and being ambidextrous. They both are terrible and need fixing but probably won't happen any time in the next decade or so.

Had time to take the adjacent photo of my cousin just before we left Long Beach on a bathroom stop.

If you're used to driving yourself or even one or two other individuals around on a road trip you don't think much about stops but when you have a van loaded to a capacity of 7 you'll find yourself stopping about as much as you would in bumper to bumper traffic. It was actually nice for me because I never got very stiff or the feeling of being in a car too long. I also had the pleasure of running into a rest stop I hadn't seen since I moved my mom from Washington to Nevada. It was strange being in a place you hadn't thought about in a long time. Like revisiting a childhood memory but not knowing it until you're there.


I'm on day 2 now in Los Gatos and enjoying it thus far. I took a bike ride yesterday and you'd think in comparison I wouldn't be sore from it since it was only about 2 miles and my last one was 10 miles, which didn't leave me sore other than from the places your bum bum gets pinned too--rider sore.

On the bike ride it was myself and a younger cousin. We rode to a near by park, Oak Meadow. It was really nice. They had a small train for children (room for adults too) and a carousel ride. We settled by the playground. He played on the swings and I read by the playground. Something calming to me about screaming, running, laughing children. I also felt like I fit right in because it seemed like most of the parents let their child/en lose and went to reading, playing on their cellphone, or otherwise congregating to socialize.

Still have over a week here and I'm trying to make plans to meet up with a friend that lives near by. I'm hoping to just relax a little before I head out at this point. I'm also getting excited for learning about more people I know that are traveling in the same direction as me. I hope to meet up with as many people I know as I am able to while out and about. I want to meet new people too, but it is nice to see a familiar face in a sea of strangers.

Tip For The Day: Stretch, in the morning; stretch, in the evening; stretch, in the shower....just stretch!