Hilary & Pascal, Day 2 - Electric Boogaloo

Day 7, Saturday
San Jose, California
Sunny, beautiful, warm and happy
This post by: Craig

We kicked it this morning in Willowglen, San Jose, with Hilary, Pascal, Nick, some banana pancakes, and a guy in a chicken suit that we crossed the street to avoid. But when we saw HIM cross the road, Crystal wanted to run after him and say, “Why? WHY???” Ha ha.

Breakfast with Hilary, Nick & Pascal

So who is Nick? He’s a friend of Pascal and our old housemate Jeff, and he now works at Apple I’M NOT WORTHY I’M NOT WORTHY. But is he famous for that? No. He’s famous for being in an elite group of free-lovin’ musicians, with other guys from his uni. Individually, they’re nice guys. Together, they form… THE NAKED MARIACHIS. We only have two more to meet, and then we’ve got the whole set, like Pokemon!

The Naked Mariachis in full glory

That afternoon, it was time to mess with our minds, even moreso than with naked frat boys and banjos. We headed off to a place called The Winchester Mansion.

The Winchester Mansion

The story goes like this: Mr Winchester – creator of the Winchester Rifle, and thus partially responsible for bazillions of deaths, died before construction had finished on his on his wife’s mansion. The widow was then told by a psychic medium that she was doomed to die as soon as the house was finished being built. So she decided never to finish building it. 24 hours a day, for the rest of her solitary life (no visitors), she had carpenters, building and building and building. The house has staircases that don’t go anywhere, chimneys that stop before the ceiling, secret doorways, and just the creepiest sense of creepiness around. Was a great tour, but genuinely scrambled my brain for a while after.

Pre-tour nerves

The window in the floor was only one of the strange parts

Hilary inspects earthquake damage

Oh, before I forget, the gift shop and tourist stuff make the start of the tour feel a bit touristy, but hey, there was a video game arcade that was like a ghost arcade from a time long past. For a quarter a pop, I got to play Ghosts & Goblins, Asteroids, even Pole Position!

Mrs Winchester's favourite part of the house

It is rumoured that the Widow Winchester, right before building the gift shop, ticket booth, car park and releasing creepy organ music on iTunes, got the high score on Ms Pac-Man before keeling over.

So what do you do after going to a ghostly house? You go to Flames Coffee Shop and practically wipe yourself out on deathly food.

Note that there were only three of us, but we still got deep fried asparagus with ranch dip, massive nachos filled with cheese, milkshakes, and… THE BIGGEST SLICE OF CAKE I HAVE EVER SEEN, SERIOUSLY!

We’re calling this one the Junk Food of the Day, as we could barely eat ANYTHING afterwards. We did our best with the Oreo and fake cream cake, but still only got halfway. Here’s a video:

Somehow, we rolled ourselves back to Hilary and Pascal’s place, groaning all the way. And then it was time to bail!


We said our goodbyes to Hilary at the house and Pascal after he gave us a lift to the airport (swoit!), then were hurled back into the airport system. To sum it up, there was an overweight case (and a looming $150 fee for it), a hasty repacking on the floor at the check-in desk, a frazzled stomp to a bar near the plane’s gate, and a much-appreciated beer… then a realisation that they were calling our names and ONLY our names over the speaker, as we were the very last people to board. :)

The plane trip held Economy Plus seats (more leg room, didn’t ask or pay for that), Crystal watching Twin Peaks on her iPod, me blogging at great heights, and the promise of an unknown friend of Hilary, called Jasmine, who had been assigned to us to show us around Seattle the next day.

This holiday is bonza!

And for no reason, here’s another ad we like on TV: