Wine Country

So the Steelers bet won. Everyone won 1K except me. I was enraged last night, but I feel much better this morning, although I still hope you all get hit by buses.

OK so Sonoma and Napa. They were really nice. The resemblance to the Barossa was striking. I was going to put pics up this post, but they'll have to wait.

I had a hell of a time getting into Sonoma, but eventually I shelled out $50 and made it there at about 1:30. I headed to Sonoma Square and started working my way through the tasting rooms there. I would have tasted a lot of wines, maybe around 25. After cabbing to Napa, I ate at an awesome place called Ristorante Allegria and went to a local pub that brews their own beer, called Downtown Joe's.

The next day, I boarded the Napa Winery Shuttle. I was pleased when they announced that we would be touring Carneros, since that's the Pinot Noir region. However as it turned out, the wineries we went to weren't that great. I had a better time looking round Sonoma Square the previous day, so I cancelled my shuttle booking for the next day and spent the third day walking around downtown Napa. I went to a stack of tasting rooms and ended up buying some 6 or 7 bottles. I've resigned myself to simply paying duty when I import them, though I've heard plenty of stories about Customs officers simply waving people through.

I can't remember everything I bought exactly, but here's a brief rundown:

Mayo Family "Julie's Block" Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
Mayo Family "Ricci Vineyard" Russian River Zinfandel
Charles Creek "Las Sorpresa" Chardonnay
Some Cabernet Franc, can't remember the winery
Buongiorno Bros. "Old Pa's Claret"
Some Argentinian Malbec
A D-Cubed Zinfandel, don't remember the label
Robert Craig 2003 Mt Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon
Anthill Farms Pinot Noir (only 120 cases of this guy made!)

People are waiting to use this computer so I have to get going. Flight back to Australia is late Sunday night local time. See everyone then.

fdghfhgfgjfg

God, I'm so angry. After the difficulties I had depositing with Mansion on the 4th, I sent them an email asking for them to call me on my mobile when the issue was resolved, with the idea that I would place the Steelers bet over the phone. The request to call was ignored and I've arrived back in San Francisco today to discover that the bet is "fully subscribed", i.e. they're not accepting any more bets. I didn't even know there was going to be a limit, or I would have moved a lot quicker. That's basically half a grand up in flames, because their fucking cashier doesn't work properly.

Also, I just looked at how much I've spent in my time here and it's not pretty. I was expecting bad, but not that bad.

Oh well.

Oh yeah - wine country was really fun. I have a box of wine sitting up in my room. Proper post on that coming when I'm not in such a bad mood.

Transport Issues

I had hoped to be enroute to Sonoma by now, but it's proved a real pain in the ass getting there. Normally it would be no problem, but it's a public holiday (Labor Day) in the US today and a lot of things aren't running. I've had to sign up for a ridiculously expensive ($45) shuttle to Sonoma. On a normal day I could have done it for like 15 bucks and been able to check out Petaluma as well. Oh well.

I also can't place this goddamn Mansion bet because any attempt to use Neteller is met with "Technical problem. Please try again!".

Actually, it's even worse than that. I just checked my Neteller account and all three attempted transfers of $900 succeeded on Neteller's end. None of the money is showing up in my Mansion account. Awesome. The place must be run by monkeys.

Miami

Went to Armin van Buuren last night with an English guy named Tony. We were going to take the bus there, but the girl at the hostel desk advised against taking a bus to downtown at that hour. This advice seemed well founded from what we saw driving around downtown. Here at last was the dark side of the United States that I'd expected to see in LA or NYC. Tony said very accurately that the scene reminded him of Resident Evil; a desolate, decayed urban landscape, with zombies (aka drug addicts) lurching aimlessly about the place. Frightening. We drove past too fast for me to get any pics.

Anyway, Armin was pretty good. He lost me in the second half hour by taking it a bit techy, but came back strongly in the last couple hours with some hard edged trance, at times moving perilously close to hard dance (e.g. a very tough remix of Voodoo & Serano - Blood Is Pumping, and a new hard trance remix of Legend B - Lost In Love). Space was a nice club. They had massive air jets mounted in the ceiling, and a couple of times after an epic breakdown, they would crank them up just as the track dropped back in, so one second you're on a hot, sweaty dancefloor, then the next you're in the middle of cold gale force winds. Pretty cool. Here's the club in full swing:



And here's the man himself, Armin van Buuren:



Now some pics from Miami. First the place I'm staying at:



Miami Beach:






Lastly, a disturbing one. When we got back from Armin late last night, we spotted this rat in the grounds of the hostel. This fucker is BIG, so big we initially from a distance thought it was a possum or something. Look at him in relation to the skirting board:



Ah well. I'm leaving tomorrow anyway.

Itinerary

I've firmed up my itinerary for the rest of my trip:

Fri 1/9	Stay Hostelling International. Tonight, I'm going to see Armin Van Buuren at Club Space in downtown Miami.
Sat 2/9	Stay Hostelling International. No plans for Saturday as yet.
Sun 3/9	Fly to San Francisco with Alaskan Airlines 1285, operated by American Airlines 1539 (14:50 -> 17:33). Stay Union Square Plaza hotel.
Mon 4/9	Shuttle back to SFO and from there shuttle to Sonoma. Not sure exactly what I'll do in Sonoma, but there are wine tasting rooms in Sonoma Plaza, or I may join a winery tour. In the evening, get a taxi to Napa and stay at Travelodge Napa.
Tue 5/9	Tour Napa Valley with the Napa Valley Wine Shuttle. Stay Travelodge again.
Wed 6/9	Napa Valley Wine Shuttle again. In the evening, get a shuttle back to SFO. Not sure where in San Francisco I'm staying yet. Will wait and see what the Union Square Plaza hotel is like. The hostel I'm staying at over the weekend was booked out this night.
Thu 7/9	Will spend tonight at a sports bar watching the Pittsburgh Steelers versus Miami Dolphins NFL game. This is because of this outrageous sports bet. Anyone with the ability to place a large sports bet who doesn't already know about this offer needs to hit that link immediately and thank me later. Staying at Pacific Tradewinds Hostel tonight.
Fri 8/9	Staying at Pacific Tradewinds again. No plans.
Sat 9/9	Ditto.
Sun 10/9	Fly from SFO to SYD at 22:52.
Mon 11/9	5 year anniversary of September 11. I'll be in the air in an outbound flight from the US. Good luck me!

Also, a friend of Liz's, Denise, tells me she thought her Miami flight was cancelled, so she stayed in NY. I'm fairly sure it wasn't cancelled, since I flew on it, so it sucks that she was told that. Sure she's having fun in NYC.

States I've Been To

Since I won't be travelling to any new states during my trip, here's a complete list of states I visited. I'm not counting Illinois, which I just had a short stopover in enroute to NYC.

Nevada
California
New York
New Jersey
Delaware
Maryland
Virginia
Pennsylvania
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
Connecticut
Florida

The storm is completely gone here - it was a total non event. It's still overcast but - as always in Florida - warm. I'm about to head to the beach with some hostel people.

Change Of Plans

Hello from Miami, Florida. Overnight I changed my flight to get in ahead of Tropical Storm Ernesto hitting Miami. I was really hoping for a low-grade hurricane, just for the experience, but it turned out to be a total non event. The storm seems to have dissipated as it hit land, and conditions here at the moment (about midnight) are quite calm, with a lot of clear sky showing. I also changed flights to get on the same flight as a TrekAmerica friend, Liz, the one from Adelaide. I saw her the night before at like 11pm and she was still going to Miami, but she didn't appear on the flight over and when I arrived at the hostel, her stay was cancelled. Wtf? I guess she got worried about Ernesto. I just emailed her now so hopefully I'll get clued in soon on what the hell she's doing. It doesn't bother me since I would have come to Miami solo anyway.

I'm in an 8-bed double hostel room, with en suite. The people in my room are all pretty cool, we have a stack of different nationalities. I'm going to head back there now and have a couple more beers in preparation for bed.