Here we come

Since I can't hack (and by hack I mean easily plug without getting beaten by an angy internet cafe "waiter" with a rusty-nailed baseball bat) my camera into any internet cafes in california, I figured I'd do some sort of awards type thing highlighting the best and worst stuff of the trip. This is in no way inspired by the fact that at least 10 people tried to sell me oscar knock-offs on the way to this particular cafe (I had to walk down hollywood and sunset boulevards... scary places).

Best tasting hotel shampoo:
1. Rosemary mint bath gel in San Francisco: complimentary and delicious.
Runners up: Harvard club "health bar" in New York: It didn't take me long to realise that health bar doesn't mean a delicous, carb-loaded choctastic treat, but it was still free soap and definitley would have disinfected my mouth.

Best police accessory:
1. Police boxes in Paris: policemen are forced to spend all night in what looks like a telephone box out in the cold on the street. There are no amenities in said boxes, and it seems like they are unable to leave on their shift, so they probably wouldn't be able to do much if they saw a crime. But it's nice to have a witness.
2. Police Goggo-mobiles in Central Park, NY: 3 wheeled mock-worthy carts with a crappy flashing light on the top and a little horn. Criminals burst out laughing.
3. Police segways in San Francisco: Traffic controllers riding about on giant scooters, forever looking like they're about to loose control and roll down the steep roads into the bay. Comes with glowing yellow vest.


Best renaming of 'Streets' ice cream brand:
1. Good Humor, US: Same logo, same ice creams, different brand name. What kind of brand name is 'Good Humor'? Well, I guess these are the guys responsible for the tasty yet embarrassing-to-order-in-high-school-cafetreria 'Gaytime'.
Runners up: 'Streets' is called 'Eskimo' in Austria and 'Miko' in France. At least 'Eskimo' sort of describes a cold thing. What kind of brand is 'Streets' anyway? Ice creams don't come from the streets.

Coolest dude in a McDonalds queue:
1. Guy in London queue: In my first few hours in London, I was waiting behind this guy and he wanted to get out of the line. So instead of saying "Excuse me", he just says "fuck off!". Welcome to Britain.
2. Guy in Times Square, NY queue: 15 year old black guy with much bling tries to pimp girls waiting in the queue with him. Fails and is justly mocked.

Ugliest child:
1. Children in Imperial Hotel, Paris: A French family was eating breakfast in the hotel. One of their children was 3 years old and balding, the other had a bulbous foreheads and eyebrows like devil horns. Spitting image of their parents.
Runners up: Every child I saw in London: Ugly little fuckers.


TV shows that you think are good just because the city you're in is so cool:
1. 'Pimp My Ride' marathon in Paris: coming down from my Kirsten Dunst/Jason Schwartzman high and drinking 1 Euro supermarket wine, a marathon of 'Pimp My Ride' was the coolest thing ever.
2. 'As Good as it Gets' in New York: "I'm in New York and watching American tv and there's a movie on at 8am!" sustained me for a still-in-bed session of horribly crap movie.
3. Crappy Austrian knock off of 'A-mazeing' in Vienna: we couldn't understand what they were saying, but watching kids try and out peddle each other on virtual exercise bikes made for good watching!

Coolest airport names:
1. LAX, Los Angeles: It sounds like an awesome sequel to 'Escape from LA' and it lax nothing (I've been thinking of that since the airport!...).
2. JFK, New York: You end up thinking "if somebody assasinated me here, you know it would be kind of cool and historically nostalgic". Also, you get to say to the taxi driver "take me to John F Kennedy!". You couldn't get into a cab in Germany and say "take me to Hitler!".
3. CDG, Paris: Well, it beats 'Vienna airport' and 'San Francisco airport'.

and finally,
Best cities on the trip:
1. New York/Paris: Obviously the two coolest places in the world.
2. Vienna: Small, bleak and cold. Three suprisingly impressive qualities.
3. San Francisco: Steep and filled equally with intellectuals and fake tanned californians. It's like Sydney but good.
4. Los Angeles: Not last on the list only because London was so fucked and because new cds cost AU$13.
5. London: Pretty parks, cool shops, great monopoly sights. But 2/3 of these pale in comparison to the US and Europe, with the added bonus that not every single person looks like they want to kill themselves. Plus it's kind of pricy. And by kind of, I mean I wanted to live in my AU$8 Big Mac box.

See everyone soon!