James likes this: a resemblance to a European celebrity sounds great. He asks me what women like the most about Patrick Nuo: Is it his eyes? His mouth? His body? Then he takes his shirt off, shows me the muscles he’s been cultivating, and asks if I can clearly see them; then, whether or not his hair is too long. The questions about him are never-ending, and at some point I just doze off.
The next morning James takes me to the Santa Monica airport. The small airport mainly serves rich business people hopping from one meeting to the next in their private jets. In front of the terminal, I am tempted to present myself as an air-hitchhiker; maybe there is a businessman or woman who is heading to South America for a meeting and wouldn’t mind having some company or a personal butler. Thinking it’s a brilliant idea, I change into my butler uniform in order to increase my chances.
About 500 aircrafts take off and land every day at this airport. I ask the clerk at the information counter whether any more flights are planned for the day. Seeing my uniform and sign, she replies in a reserved, severe way that I leave the premises immediately. In front of the building I ask the passengers how one can hitchhike on a private jet, but no one wants to help me.
Disappointed, I wander through the endless streets of Los Angeles. It’s not because of my butler attire that I raise suspicion with the locals; it’s the fact that I am walking and not driving. All Angelenos seem to have cars. If you do not believe this, just take a look at one of the over crowded freeways: the City of Angels is a city of cars. Although there is a local public transportation system, only a few residents seem to be aware that a fully functional subway exists.
Airplane hitchhiking at Santa Monica Airport.
Los Angeles is simply not made for pedestrians. The city is much too spread out to reach any destination by foot. If you want to visit friends or go to the movies, you have to travel long stretches. For instance, it takes almost an hour to get from Hollywood to Santa Monica by car (provided that there are no traffic jams). Above this reality, Hollywood actually tries to promote greener lifestyles; stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, and Justin Timberlake all buy hybrid cars. But you have to wonder if, secretly, they miss their Porsches and Hummers.
After walking for a few miles, a patrol car stops behind me. A cop steps out and says that some of the staff from the airport have filed a complaint against me. I assume that my journey-to-the-end-of-the-world-without-money story won’t be met with much interest here, so I tell him that I am a German tourist and was asking about flights to Mexico. He asks for my passport. I rummage through my bag, but I can’t find it. As I search deeper, I notice that the cop doesn’t take his eyes off my hands. I struggle even more with my bag and he takes two steps back, observing me carefully with his right hand on his gun. I try to lighten the situation with a few stereotypical jokes about the German tourists in Los Angeles, but he continues to look serious.
I find the document and swiftly hand it over. After examining my passport, the police officer scans me from top to bottom. There is an uncomfortable silence between us until he asks me whether I always wander around dressed like this. I look down and I realize that I am still dressed as a butler. Shaking his head, he gives me back my passport and goes away with the request to “clarify the thing with the flight as soon as possible.” Phew. I can breathe again.
I change my clothes behind a KFC restaurant and carry on. People I ask during my walk tell me that the Los Angeles International Airport is just around the corner. After walking for almost three hours and around 400 corners, I finally reach it. I enter the terminal and begin asking the ticket counters of United Airlines, Delta, Continental, and American Airlines for a free air ticket to Mexico. The employees of the airlines refuse, saying that such matters have to be clarified in writing with the central offices, which happen to be elsewhere in Chicago, New York, and Seattle.
Exhausted and frustrated, I follow the sea of houses back to James. I tell him about my day while James listens and nods sympathetically. However, in the next breath he asks when I will actually continue on with my journey. Hint taken: I have overstayed my welcome. In the late afternoon I find free Wi-Fi down the street and log onto the Internet to search for a ride to San Francisco. The city is not actually on my route to Antarctica, but I know a German couple living there who, before I started my trip, had offered to take me in if I happened to pass through. A small detour to visit them is exactly what I need.
Now I need to earn some money for the bus ride, so I head down to the Santa Monica beach. In desperation, only one idea pops into my mind: I will go around with a tube of sunscreen and offer to apply it onto people’s backs for just one dollar. I must admit that even I find this a little creepy, but I forge ahead regardless.
The majority of men find my concept to be intrusive and wrong. Who would want another man rubbing cream all over him? It isn’t that kind of beach. The women are even more repulsed—not only is this strange man offering to rub cream all over their backs, but he is also charging them a dollar for it. I have to change my tactic. Instead of a complete suntan lotion application session, I now offer people the opposite: for one dollar, not only will I not touch them, but I will also not bother them again.
This offer works much better. Within two hours I am able to make thirteen dollars, which brings me a step closer to San Francisco. I go back to the Wi-Fi corner at Santa Monica Boulevard and check my email, where I find that a woman has written back to me, offering to take me to San Francisco the next day for thirty-five dollars.
When I arrive back at James’s place, his roommate opens the door for me. I tell her about my situation, and how, before tomorrow morning, I need to make another twenty-two dollars in order to pay for my ride to San Francisco. She nods, grabs her purse, and puts the money in my hand. I can’t decide whether she is just being extremely generous, or if she just wants me out of the apartment. Nonetheless, I am off to San Francisco in the morning.
8
ADVANCED PILLOW
FIGHTING
The next morning, I travel north with Sarah, who responded to my query on the Internet. Interstate 405 is the busiest one in the United States and runs from San Diego to San Fernando. Sarah is very familiar with this route, and flies down the interstate despite the speed limits. She is in her midtwenties, has Vietnamese parents, and works as an accountant in Los Angeles. For weeks she has been attempting to retrieve a parcel from Vietnam that is stuck at the central post office in San Francisco for inexplicable reasons. Sarah is trying again today for the third time to pick up the package. Like she did on her previous two trips, she rents a car and looks for a fellow passenger to minimize the travel cost. In the last two trips she was turned away by the post office with the argument that the person in charge of undelivered mail was not available. However, she is convinced that this time it will be different.
Six hours later, she parks the car at the post office in San Francisco, directly in front of the No Parking sign, and requests that I wait for her. She hurries into the building as I sit in the passenger seat. Shortly after, she comes back. There is still no trace of her parcel. We part ways and she returns to Los Angeles disheartened.
When I reach Thomas and Kathrin, my German friends, there is a surprise waiting for me: my very own parcel from home that a good friend sent to this address. The parcel contains whole-grain bread, cereal bars, sweets, spreads, a package of sauerkraut, shower gel, and much more. I have never been so happy to receive such a package. While I am arranging my new treasures in front of me, Kathrin and Thomas talk about their life in America, where they moved to a year ago. Thomas is a computer scientist and is looking forward to a career in Silicon Valley, not very far from San Francisco. They share a spacious apartment in Haight-Ashbury, the famous neighborhood where the hippie culture originated in the sixties.
We speak in German, eat German treats, and watch the Tagesschau (German daily news) at night. Sitting on the sofa with a woolen blanket over my legs, I feel like I am at home in Berlin. S
ince my package provides some reserves for the next few days, the next morning I take a tour of the city.
It is, so far, the highlight of my trip. Architecturally, San Francisco can probably compete with any European city. Every house is an original; no two are alike. Because San Francisco is at constant risk of earthquakes, large parts of its buildings are made of wood. San Francisco is also known for its Victorian-styled homes that were built during the Gold Rush era in the middle of the nineteenth century. Although many houses became victims of the earthquake and the fire of 1906, there are still about 15,000 Victorian structures existing in the city today.
There are also some buildings here, quite old ones, which you don’t see too often in the United States. The Mission Dolores Church, for instance, is really a magnificent building that was built by the Spaniards in 1776. Contrasting this is the downtown core, which comes across like a smaller version of New York. I run through the deep street canyons that were built in the various decades of the twentieth century, and gaze up at the Transamerica Pyramid, probably the most well-known landmark in the downtown area. My tour takes up the whole day, from the Golden Gate Bridge to zigzagged Lombard Street, and I even ride on the cable cars up the steep hills. It is mild and sunny, the weather this city is known for.
I am blown away by San Francisco and would like to stay here forever. However, time is pressing. It is now the middle of August and if I really want to make it to Antarctica, I must reach Ushuaia—the most southern city of Tierra del Fuego—by the seventh of November.
Before and during the trip, I send out emails to research companies, scientists, and tour operators who can register me as a worker on a ship. Many of them do not respond, or simply refuse, but eventually a Chilean shipping company agrees to my request. In their email, they tell me that I can travel with their ship to Antarctica if I work onboard and take the first ship of the season on November 7. Apparently, during that time, there aren’t so many tourists onboard. Since there is no choosing the ship’s sail date, I stake everything on reaching Ushuaia in twelve weeks and plan out my next few days in detail.
Every morning I get up at seven. From nine to twelve, I go to a different part of the city each day to collect food from the shops. This way I can see more of the city and also avoid making the mistake of asking the same shop twice for donations. So within ten days, I visit the artsy and alternative Mission District, the colorful and gay Castro District, Union Square (where the men wear suits), and the vibrant Haight-Ashbury neighborhood with its organic markets for hippies, eco-activists, and health fanatics. Every morning I manage to collect enough food to feed myself for the whole day.
The plan for each afternoon is to earn money, as I need an airplane ticket to Central America. Only with an ambitious leap over Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Belize, Guatemala, and Costa Rica will I be able to make it on time to board that ship. Moreover, it currently isn’t the safest time to travel to these countries alone and without money: In Mexico, the crime rate linked to the drug trade has recently soared. In Honduras, a military coup has taken place within the last month. I need to find money to reach Costa Rica directly, but how?
I can’t offer any talent for the street arts in San Francisco. I can’t sing or paint or do pantomime (as I love the art of talking too much). So what can I offer? On the first day I sell myself as a “hill helper.” I write my offer on a big cardboard and hang it around my neck: HILL HELPER FOR JUST ONE DOLLAR! I go and stand at one of the extreme slopes in San Francisco: the world famous Lombard Street, which Steve McQueen hurtles down in the film Bullitt.
This appears to be the best spot because the incline here is a whopping 27 percent. The tourists laugh and find my service offer interesting indeed. However, there is just one problem: the hill helper is required to support the customer with his hands in order to push the groaning customer up the hill. For many tourists, this may be too close in contact with a complete stranger. Many give me a thumbs-up for the creative idea but make it up the hill on their own. However, there are some who do take me up on my offer, and I push some Brits, French, and Germans up the steep hill. Depending on their comfort level, they are allowed to lean back and rest their entire weight on me. Each dollar earned is a real backbreaking experience (almost literally), as some of the tourists exceed 200 pounds, but at the end of the day I have collected thirty dollars.
Pushing people up the steep streets of San Francisco as the "hill helper."
On the second afternoon, I have another idea. In Berlin, I once participated in a huge pillow fight in the trendy Bar 25. It was incredible to see how the cool Berliners suddenly shed all their inhibitions and participated in this childish game of striking each other upside the head with huge pillows. Would this work with . . . Americans?
In Thomas and Kathrin’s kitchen I make a huge cardboard sign saying Pillow fight me for just one dollar! that covers two-thirds of my body. They both lend me their pillows—at least this way they will get nicely fluffed. Kathrin suggests that I try going to Fisherman’s Wharf, one of the biggest tourist spots in the city. Upon my arrival I can see that the sidewalk where the street artists are permitted is about 100 feet long. Standing on one side are the hip-hoppers, pantomimes, and spray painters, while on the other are the beggars with signs saying PLEASE, MONEY FOR WEED! AND PLEASE, MONEY FOR BEER!
The new guy holding two pillows causes a chuckle amongst most of the street artists, but no one is welcoming the competition. However, the passersby are coming up to me and saying either “Pillow fighting for a buck? That is so cool!” or “Man, you’re funny, just take two dollars!” Many tourists seem to love my idea. A class of junior high school kids takes turns. When the group finishes, completely out of breath, one of the students puts a five-dollar bill in my moneybox and says, in absolute seriousness, “One day I want to be like you.” Often groups of men walk by, and when one man strays slightly from his group, I take the opportunity to attack him with my pillow for a quick dollar. Whenever there is a fight, many people stop to watch, cheer, and share in the fun.
Later in the afternoon, two men in suits want to fight with each other, and I find it quite amusing to earn two dollars without having to fight either of them myself. Both of them strike each other with pillows as if they have some score to settle. The bigger of the two falls down after missing a blow and is properly suffocated by his adversary with his pillow. He lies like a turtle on his back, struggling to get onto his feet, and finally succeeds in freeing himself from his opponent with a kick. I laugh out loud, wondering what I have started.
The next day I decide to take the fight to Golden Gate Park, which resembles Central Park in New York in both its dimensions and landscape architecture. After forty-five pillow fights, I am sixty-eight dollars closer to my goal. A group of college students makes me eighteen dollars in one go; during this battle, instantly, the innocent pillow fight becomes a matter of patriotism between Germany and the United States. It is the Olympics, only Wigge-style. I have to compete five times with different athletes representing the United States. The rest of the group is cheering, of course, for the American competitors, chanting “U-S-A, U-S-A!”
During an intense pillow fight with one of the girls, one of the students shouts out: “Hit him for the bad Audi the Germans have sold me!” The rest of the group laughs and another student adds, “Hit him also for the VW Fahrvergnügen!” Some years ago, Volkswagen had run a very successful advertising campaign in the United States. in which the German word Fahrvergnügen (driving enjoyment) was introduced into the English language. The word even acquired a cult status in the United States; as a result, stickers with similar sounding phrases, like “f*** the fuel,” are sold across the country. For this reason, the rest of the group seizes this phrase vociferously: “Yes, the Fahrvergnügen was bad. Hit him for that f***in’ Fahrvergnügen!”
Another student adds: “And the Germans love David Hasselhoff! Punch him for that!” It continues like this for a while, and I get more blows for G
erman sausages, Boris Becker, and Schumacher’s Formula One successes.
The following day, I fight forty more pillow fights for fifty dollars in a small downtown park. Many professionals manage to squeeze in a small pillow fight between their work duties, lunches, and business meetings. On this day I meet Justin, who is twenty-three years old and originally from Florida. Over the past six months he has been traveling across the country, and for the last two months he has been living voluntarily homeless here in downtown San Francisco. He is fascinated by my pillow fights and plans to organize his trip in a similar fashion to mine; he also finds my ideas for pillow fighting, the human sofa, and the hill helper much cooler than simply begging.
Justin tells me that he left his old existence in search of the true purpose of life. In the meantime, he has also realized that homelessness and begging do nothing to help him develop spiritually. He now puts everything into the pillow fights. I wish him the best of luck and I’m happy to have inspired him. The next day, Monday, it is slightly rainy and I earn only fifteen dollars but when it clears up later in the afternoon, I make another forty dollars with thirty pillow fights in Dolores Park.
With each fight I become more of a pillow-fight expert, and by the end of my stay in San Francisco, I can even differentiate between different pillow fighting techniques:
Windmill: the fighter holds the pillow in the right hand and rotates the arm like the sail of a windmill. This rotation makes for a very dangerous pillow-fighting technique.
Sword fight: although no swords are used here, the pillow is moved toward the adversary in the classical sword fight position by thrusting it at the opponent in a diagonal slice from top left to bottom right, and from top right to bottom left.
How to Travel the World for Free Page 6
