I recently had to attend a class in Copenhagen, Denmark, to get to learn the CMS system we use at the office a little more in detail. I had planned on taking a flight down there on a Wednesday, attending the class Thursday and Friday, then flying back home Friday evening. However, Iceland didn't quite want it to go down like that.

During my recent trip to USA I rented a car for the first time in my life. I was going to drive many, many kilometers and I certainly wasn't planning on walking the distance, and public transportation wouldn't take me to all the places I wanted to go, so I chose the freedom of having a car instead of being environmentally aware.
I arrived at the Avis car rental facility at LAX about an hour after having landed, excited about what kind of car I would get. I originally reserved a "Chevrolet Impala or similar". I'd heard stories of people getting the "or similar" and getting a cheap Asian car (still nice cars, but I wanted an American car for my big American road trip). I was pleasantly surprised to see that they gave me a Buick LaCrosse CXL. What follows are my experiences with this car during my trip.

During the next weeks I'll be reminiscing some of my experiences during my big USA vacation. I'll start off by talking about t-shirts. This might not sound very exciting, but some of the T-shirts I wore created some funny situations.

In Las Vegas, when I took the elevator up to the restaurant in Stratosphere Tower a maintenance guy took the elevator with me (in addition to the female elevator operator). I was wearing my "Save the cheerleader..." t-shirt (advertising the TV-show "Heroes"), but the maintenance guy didn't see the Heroes logo and was wondering if I was a cheerleader. I said "No" and pointed to the Heroes logo and explained that it was a TV show. The elevator operator then continued asking him if it would be so weird and wrong if I really was a cheerleader, and he grudgingly had to acknowledge that it wouldn't mean a thing. He finished his elevator ride by giving my a knuckle-to-knuckle greet and saying that I was okay.

In the queue to get into Seaworld in San Diego I could hear people talking about how much they missed a particular show, and they kept looking at me. It was at that moment I remembered I'd put on my "Friends" t-shirt that day.

When I was in Venice Beach I thought it fitting to wear my t-shirt that says "Harmony", and it worked really well. Some people selling Henna tattoos stopped me and tried to push a tattoo on me saying that I couldn't walk around with a Harmony-shirt without having a Henna tattoo. After letting them know that it's perfectly possible to wear a Harmony-shirt without having to have a Henna tattoo, and also that I was quite happy with the tattoo I already have they let me go, but thanked me for chatting with them. Apparently not many people do that.

I've saved the best for last: My R2-D2 t-shirt I bought at the Star Wars convention in London last year. As you can see by the picture it doesn't look like R2-D2 at all at first glance. Our tour guide at the Winchester Mystery House experienced the same illusion, so she asked me, in full public, what my t-shirt actually said. She said it looked like it said AC-DC, but something was off. I told her to read it again, but some other folks turned around and saw what it really said and told her.
Later that evening when walking through downtown San Jose some girls walked past us. As they had passed us we could her them giggling and saying "R2-D2, teehihi".

So if you're ever in California or it's surroundings, be sure to wear the correct t-shirts.

When I look back on my big USA vacation I can't help but think about all the help I've gotten along the way, so I'm using this blog entry to give thanks where thanks is needed.
Lorna, thank you for being so supportive throughout the planning and the actual trip. You sent me maps, books and more links than I knew what to do with. You helped me with lodging and planning. Without you I would never be as organized as I was on this trip.
The StreamingSoundtracks.com community (especially Socr8s), thank you for organizing the John Williams concert. That was the whole reason I went to the US in the first place. It was so nice meeting up with some of the New York gang again, as well as meeting other good old chat friends.
Bryan and Georgia (and Piccolo), thank you for letting me stay with you for so many days, for taking me to all those places and for actually taking time off work to spend some time with me.
Kim and Henry, thank you for your hospitality and special treatment. The tea was great and I'm still enjoying it back home.
Perry and Gloria, thanks for letting me stay the night, watch the Emmys with you and for the BBQ (and the press certificate gift). Also thanks for showing me around the Comcast building the next day.
Hugh, the concierge at Harvest Inn in St. Helena, thank you for organizing my whole day in Napa Valley with visits to wineries, wine tastings and restaurants.
The stranger in line next to me at Heathrow, thanks for giving me that 10 Pound note when the card system at the counter failed and I had no means of paying for my sandwich and soda.
And finally thanks to my friends and family for being supportive of this vacation and basically cheering me on.

THANK YOU EVERYBODY!

Just popped by to tell you all that I have arrived back home in my apartment again. My servers are back online, and so am I. Now I'll finish off this very long trip back home with a shower, and then head straight to bed.
Keep visiting for updates about my trip :)

I'm in Las Vegas now. The weather is nice and hot... a lot hotter than what I'm used to. Today it's about 40C, and apparently that's cooler than what it can get. I'm glad I came here when I did.
I had a wonderful drive from San Diego to Las Vegas (via Kingman and Tuba City, both in Arizona). I got to fly a helicopter through Grand Canyon, have a boat trip on the Colorado River in the bottom of the canyon, and saw some great Western-movie landscapes in Monument Valley.
I visited the Hoover Dam today, which was impressively large, and are going to have some dinner soon. I'm so busy I haven't even gambled yet, but I might try some tonight.
Yesterday I saw the show "Ka" by Cirque de Soleil which was very good. I'm amazed at what those artists can do with their bodies. Tomorrow I'll see "Phantom of the Opera", which supposedly is the best performance of "Phantom" ever.
Tuesday I leave Las Vegas behind me to go to Death Valley, Yosemite National Park, and to end up in San Francisco, where I hope to make another update.
Until then...

Sorry for the lack of updates, but there's just too much to do. Whenever I get back to the hotel and actually have time to update I'm usually too tired to actually get anything done. I'm not any less tired tonight than I've been the previous days, but I had a little more time on my hands, so I'll give you a short update.
During the first week I've been to Disneyland, Hollywood, Griffith Observatory, two concerts at the Hollywood Bowl, San Diego, USS Midway, San Diego Zoo and Seaworld, in addition to a couple of other minor places. I've walked 10.000 miles, been touched by an owl in flight and been splashed on by Shamu the killer whale.
That's the level of detail I'll go into tonight. Tomorrow I'm leaving for Kingman, AZ, and on Thursday I'm going to the Grand Canyon. I should be arriving in Las Vegas some time Friday afternoon/night.
That's my report for now. As you can see I haven't added any links to describe the various places and names I've seen. Again, my physical and mental strength is far from the top, so I'll leave it to you to do a bit of googling yourself.

I'm finally here. After weeks of preparation. Days of trying to adjust to the new time zone. Hours of not sleeping on the plane. The plane ride was the longest I've ever had. And the final 3 hours (of the 11 hour flight) was extremely boring. At least I got to see some mountains, fields and towns during our decent to LAX.
I'm still jetlagged. I've already been up for over an hour, and it's only 6:30am. I hope I'll adjust some more tonight.
Now I'm just about to head downstairs to have some breakfast before I have to pack my backpack and head to Disneyland.
More reports to follow ;)

Now that my big California vacation is closing in I've finally been able to finish its prequel; The vacation movie from when I visited New York City in February 2007. There's been a lot of late nights these past days to get it finished, but now it is and I'm very happy with the result.
You can see the result for yourself by downloading the DVD. I've made it available as a torrent, to spread the load, and for more easy sharing between everybody.
The torrent can be found here, and I suggest a torrent client like uTorrent (Windows) or Transmission (OSX) to download the DVD.

Note to close friends and family: You don't need to download since I'll probably come show it to you personally ;)