Epic Journey Log Entry #8 -----Long Beach/Orange County

Epic Journey Log Entry #8
Long Beach/Orange County

From Alex’s we drove by ‘Dexter’s house’, which was the exterior filming site of the main character in the TV show Dexter, which is a Showtime show.

Then we proceeded to an event that almost surpasses Alex’s Bar in coolness.

We headed to Orange County where we had a 15-person meal at Liz’s (the Couchsurfing Ambassador of Orange County) apartment. Almost everyone did couchsurfing and there were locals plus 2 girls from the UK, 1 guy from Turkey, 1 guy from Spain, and 2 girls from Germany. The guy from Madrid, Spain was Eduardo and he made us *real* Spanish food.

It’s been 4 years since I lived in Spain and for 4 years I have been craving tortilla Espanola (because it is real hard to find Spanish food in the states, besides paella).

As luck would have it, he made a delicious tortilla Espanola, plus the tuna meal that I remember my host mom (Ana Cabo) making, a delicious roasted chicken, and rice.

YUM! YUM! YUM! YUM! YUM! YUM!

I sat next to Eduardo and it was cool to listen to his experiences in the states and just to talk to another Spaniard again.

Although I had the best time talking to the girls from the UK – one (Fiona) was from Manchester and I forget where the other girl was from. They’ve been in the states for a year because they came here for internships in NYC and have been living in New Jersey. We just had a great discussion, which one of the German girls joined us for as well. We discussed bits & pieces of the following:

***How Europe is becoming slightly more conservative, due to the current British and German leadership who are from the conservative parties.

***How Europeans were so happy that Obama got elected because they have friends (the UK girls) serving in Afghanistan and it really is up to the American leadership how that war is handle and it was frustrating to not be able to have a say in that election. This gave me some insight and understanding into part of why foreigners really did show a lot of interest in the 2008 election. I mean, how awful would it be if you had loved ones in a war and you really didn’t have a say in how it was handled because you didn’t have a vote? Sure, they can vote for their PMs (Members of Parliament) but due to the ‘special relationship’ the UK is going to always back the US.

***The UK girls don’t think that Obama is really interested in having strong relations with the UK but they seemed fine with that – in fact, they really think that Obama is going to positively change the world.

***The German girl thought that people were too hard on Obama and expect too much of him, since he is only one man. I talked about how he is just one man but in my opinion the Democrats in Congress did not have the cojones to seize their moment and really implement change, and now they are definitely not in a position for sweeping reform as they originally were.

***We talked about scientology because Germany has it banned because it’s a cult, and me and the one UK girl talked about the excellent South Park episode that explained it and we tried explaining the concept to Fiona, the other UK girl. We also briefly discussed Mormonism and then the inherent reality that *all* religions are mythology – it just depends on the personal beliefs of a person. That came about because the story behind Mormonism (also featured on South Park!) is pretty ridiculous…but the same can be interpreted about every other religion. It was good food for thought.

***I asked the UK girls what they preferred being called- ‘English’ or ‘British’ because I hear both descriptions get used. The one said English (although technically Jamaican-English since her dad is from there) but Fiona said British because her dad is Irish and that combines both nationalities.

The night lasted until about 1am until finally we headed back. I only listed brief conversation topics above, but the night was most excellent and full of good conversation!!

In the morning Suzie made me a DELICIOUS tomato omelet (I mean, how nice is that?!) and it was also the first omelet I ever had (which is silly, I know, but now I love them!). By the time she drove me to the airport I realized that it was a little bittersweet to be leaving because Suzie and Chris were such excellent hosts and I got along with them both really well. Luckily, Suzie gave me an open invitation to stay anytime again!