This is different from Skype and Gmail Voice Chat because Gmail users can call telephones for free, not just other computers. Although Skype’s fantastic Skype-In feature has provided a similar service for years, a small per-minute charge has always been required.

So, will Gmail calls stay free forever? Probably not, as there is a small line of text stating “free in 2010.” Well, enjoy them while they last. Everyone else certainly is. Apparently, over a million free calls were made in the first 24 hours!

Hey everyone, welcome to ContemporaryNomad.com 2.0, an updated and upgraded version of our website with many new features which will make it easier for you guys to follow our travels, access our content, and share your opinions on the site.

First of all, notice that the register and login have been moved to the upper left-hand side of the page. New features include:

Signing In through your Facebook Account

That’s right, you can now log in to ContemporaryNomad.com using your Facebook account. When signing in, simply click the new Facebook button to integrate your account and allow for easy Facebook access to our site. When you comment or contribute to our site, your Facebook avatar (little sqare picture) will appear next to your comment. Don’t worry, your standard login and password will continue to work as well, you don’t need a Facebook account to access our site.

Support for Gravatars

For those of you who want to continue using your standard accounts, you can add your avatar (little square picture) through the Gravatar service. It’s easy and it will work with other sites as well. Just remember to sign up using the same email address that you used here.

New Twitter Page and Facebook Fan Page

We’ve created a Facebook Fan Page, which will allow Facebook members to view our Facebook content as well as share their pictures and content with us. In addition, we’ve set up a new Twitter Page under the account name Cnomad to tweet our latest discoveries, travel tips, recommended web content and more.

New Menu Leading to Archived Content

We have improved the menu, which now leads into better archives of pictorials, videos, 360 panoramas, and articles. Everything should be much easier to access now.

Improved Pictorials

We have improved the pictorials (galleries), which are now viewed through a Lightbox viewer. Within the pictorial, click on a thumbnail to open the larger version of the picture. When you move the cursor over the expanded picture, you will be able to read the caption. Move the cursor over the right side of the picture to reveal the “Next” button or over the left side to reveal the “Back” button. Click in the surrounding transparent black area to close the picture/viewer.

Improved and Updated Maps

Our Map of Featured Content and the TnT Tracker have been updated and improved. Click away.

Extended RSS and Atom Feeds

For those of you who want to view our site through a news reader, we are now publishing our complete blog posts including pictures through the RSS and Atom feeds. This will also allow you to integrate our syndicated content into your sight as well. But don’t forget to come to our site to enjoy our permanent collections of pictorials, videos, 360 panoramas and articles.

Give us your Feedback

Let us know what you think of the new site. Much of this upgrade required changes to the underlying programming (far too much of which had to be accomplished in one 12-hour stretch). If you discover any glitches, technical problems, or typos, please let us know either here in the comments section below or through our contact form.

Here’s to the next phase in ContemporaryNomad.com.

I love California and I’m seriously going to miss it, but expensive, pre-booked return flight tickets have a way of forcing you to stick to a particular departure date. Family, friends, the beaches, the sun, the Mexican food – oh, the tragedy, don’t make me leave

Being nomadic most of the time, there is true joy in plopping down on the couch with a pizza and watching a DVD. The thrill of not packing or moving, not being sandwiched into third world buses has made California the perfect vacation from vacation.

But it’s time to get back on the road. So, it’s back to Bangkok to continue our adventures. Stay tuned, the explorations have just begun!

When I talked about the ESTA scheme in Welcome to America, I was bothered by the lopsidedness of the reciprocal visa procedure. Now, Congress has gone a step further. It just passed the Travel Promotion Act, a law which is supposed to promote the United States as a travel destination. Part of this program will be financed by imposing a $14 fee on tourists from visa-waiver countries whenever they renew their ESTA registration. Basically, ESTA is a visa in disguise. So much for the visa-free travel between the United States and the European Union.

Slapping an annoying new $14 fee and a load of confusing bureaucracy on tourists doesn’t seem to be the brightest way to “encourage” tourism. If you are American and you think this doesn’t affect you, think again. Visa waiver countries are sure to retaliate with a similar system. Oh, will the bureaucrats ever learn? If this is the government’s way to promote tourism, just imagine what they’ll do with health care!

***Price Update from January 2012***

I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard that Americans have no food culture. Apparently, the whole nation lives on hamburgers and doughnuts. But it’s SO not true. They also eat microwave dinners and frozen pizzas. Clearly, we Germans are so much more sophisticated with our sauerkraut, bratwurst and “real” black forest cakes. It should be obvious that our culinary preconceptions of other countries are almost always wrong, and they are especially wrong when it comes to food in the United States.

What exactly is American food? Well, it’s like asking what an American looks like. There’s no one answer. America is a complex melting pot of ethnicities, a hodgepogde of different cultures and customs. And the food across the country is as varied as the people are.

From New England clam chowder in the East, to sausage and shrimp jambalaya in the South, to wild Alaskan salmon in the Northwest, to Navajo fried bread in the Southwest, there’s no ONE American food. It is more like a blend of European, native American, Asian, Caribbean, and African foods.

Once considered regional specialties, these and other dishes have since been adopted and adapted all over the country. With California being a trendsetter in creating fusion cuisine, new and exciting combinations are popping up all the time. Care for the spicy Thai burger L.A. style, avocado and grapefruit salad, or sushi with jalapeno?

Yes, you will have to look beyond the KFCs and Burger Kings if you want to try anything other than fast food. Take your time and have some real American food. It is so worth it.

For those unfamiliar with American food, here are some of my favorite dishes:

• Chicken fried steak with scrambled eggs
• Buffalo burgers (much healthier) and steak fries
• Creamy butternut squash soup
• BBQ pork ribs, greens, black-eyed peas (with bacon) and sweet potato pie
• Banana nut muffins
• Biscuits and gravy
• Fish tacos with a side of black beans, tortilla chips, and guacamole
• Key Lime pie
• California rolls with lots of wasabi
• Roast turkey with cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie

You can find more information on regional specialties and scrumptious recipes on About.com.

On our way back to San Diego, we couldn’t possibly pass up the opportunity to visit the incredible Disney Theater located in downtown Los Angeles. Don’t be fooled by the name, this phenomenal construction, designed by Frank Gehry, just might be reason for Los Angeles haters everywhere to give the city a second chance.

But visitors beware, the beautiful, curving metallic walls reflect burning sunlight down on to the surrounding sidewalks. While exploring the structure, I felt like an ant under a magnifying glass.

If you are as big a fan as we are, you’ll want to check out more brilliant Gehry structures at the Flicker group dedicated to his architecture.

America is a land of extremes, from gigantic drinks to enormous cars to super-sized opinions. The latter is especially true when it comes to politics. All Americans have something to say about the wars, gay marriage, the Bush years, or the place of religion in American lives. Needless to say, where car culture meets uncompromising beliefs, opinions are expressed in the form of bumper stickers.

Coming from northern California, we spent an hour in Los Angeles traffic staring at the cars in front of us.  Bored and stranded in a sea of bumpers, I started to notice the endless opinions rolling by in the form of politically charged bumper stickers. It’s kind of fun to look at people and know immediately what they think. But it’s surprising how many times the face didn’t match the message. Looks can be deceiving. You suddenly realize that the sweet little grandma wouldn’t hesitate to burn America’s gays at the stake, or that the stern-looking business man would love to join a march on Washington to end the wars.

People feel safe voicing their opinions while sitting in their little shells on wheels – BUT with such liberal gun laws in America, I sometimes wonder…

 

I was thrilled to see the California sea otters and the northern elephant seals in the wild. They are not common in Southern California where I used to live, so this trip up north provided a whole new wildlife experience. The sightings were especially meaningful knowing the animals’ sad history. Both were relentlessly hunted, and by the end of the 19th century, they had almost been wiped out. While the sea otters are still considered an endangered species, the elephant seals are thriving and the population has grown to around 160,000 animals.

On the way south, we saw a small elephant seal colony right off of Highway 1 north of San Simeon. The bulls, which are much larger than the cows, definitely steal the spotlight. This species’ most distinctive feature is the pendulous, trunk-like nose that hangs down loosely. No secret here where the name elephant seal comes from. A good time to see more active elephant seals, and even witness bull fighting, is during the mating season from December to March.

The winter period is also the perfect time to observe another impressive California marine spectacle – the gray whale migration between Alaska and Baja California. Now that’s the way to spend Christmas!

Watch this short video to see one of the bulls basking in the sun and flipping sand on his back to stay cool.

As you can see from the picture of the park’s stunning beach above, that would have been a complete tragedy. Luckily, as we mentioned in our previous posting, the state parks have been saved – for the time being.

I’ve driven down Highway 1 countless times, but the wind-blown cypresses, spectacular cliffs, white-sand beaches, and raging seas thrill each time anew. It’s also remarkably undeveloped considering this is the stretch of California between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Highway 1 is hardly an unknown traveler’s secret. In fact, driving the legendary road is the reason many tourists come to California. But it is worth reminding people that what many might write off as a stale cliche, is indeed every bit as beautiful as the guidebooks suggest. Sometimes the tourist cliches are cliches for a reason.

Instead of releasing a closure list, the governor’s office announced today that the state parks will stay open. Good news, right? Well, it’s not all good. California’s huge deficit won’t just go away. For now, the parks will stay open on a limited schedule, some only on weekends, some only during certain seasons. So the fight is not over. Keep writing in those letters and making those calls if you want your voices heard.

No, I’m not some Jungian evangelist, but I do love a good mystery. And, what’s more, I’m crazy for good pop culture build-ups. (Even if they do ultimately prove to be let-downs.) And this build-up has a surprisingly intellectual edge. That’s a novelty!

A quick trip to northern California to visit my grandparents allowed us to take a day in Monterey. After otter-spotting in the kelp beds, nothing beats a great meal on Fisherman’s Wharf overlooking the marina. The boats were swaying gently on what looked like an expanse of jet-black molten glass. Hints of color revealed the waters were filled with hundreds of tentacled jellyfish. In the distance, barking sea lions splashed into the water. Phenomenal.

While taking in the scene from Isabella’s bay windows and finishing off my decadent piece of fried cheesecake (yikes!), I happened to notice movement from the wharf below. Something was peeking out at me from between the planks.

We left the restaurant to take a closer look, and much to our surprise, we discovered twin baby raccoons combing the wharf for their next meal. Otters, jellyfish, sea lions, and raccoons – who needs a safari when you can have a night out in Monterey instead.

Happy 40th birthday, Thomas!  Wow, that’s getting up there, but don’t worry, you don’t look a day over 39.

I was thinking of getting you the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, but the woman at the bookstore suggested that might not be such an appropriate gift for someone of such advanced age. So, instead, I got you this article: 5 Places Seniors Need to See Before They Die.

Sunset over La Jolla, the sparkling jewel of San Diego.