The last days have been perfect, I only spent time at the beach, booking stuff for my trip, and getting tix for the Film festival.

By now I have a pretty good tan, just about managing to avoid a sunburn.

I’m either at Banana Beach, where the waves were so enormous the other day that I literally got wiped off my feet and turned upside down and around like in a washing machine.

Or the more quiet waters at Hilton beach, where the boys gather to parade and listen to the latest club sounds blaring from the beach DJ. Yes, the beach has a DJ.

The booking process took quite some time. I had a number of gaps in my itinerary that needed filling.

First, a flight from Montreal to Seattle in July. I did not include it in my RTW ticket, as air fare in the US is rather cheap, and I was over the maximum allowed stop-overs anyway. Same thing with the ticket from Seattle to San Francisco in August.

Now it would seem a rather straightforward affair, however the US hub system makes the whole thing complicated. There are no direct flights between both cities, and US airlines prefer to haul you back to DC or have you wait 8 hours in Phoenix for a connection on to Seattle. Turning what would be a four- to five-hour flight into a whole day affair.

But, I got a reasonable connection with Air Canada at a reasonable timing and price, and the flight to San Francisco was downright cheap. So I ticked one thing off my list.

Still, I have a couple of things to cater for: an airport hotel in Mexico City on my flight out, a night in Chicago that need to be organized… And once I have set the final return-to-work date, I will be able to start planning the last flights of the trip.

Finally, the box office: I’m a frequent visitor at the TLVFest, having seen a movie a day, or two.

Yesterday I watched Test, a moving picture about a troupe of dancers in San Francisco in 1985, at the height of the AIDS scare. Made me really nostalgic to return to the city, I’ll always feel at home there.

Today then I saw two movies: Bar 51, one of the main movies of Amos Guttman, the Israeli director I discovered on the first night, with a strange, but beautiful, Almodovarian melange.

After that, To be Takei, about George Takei, better knows as Lieutenant Sulu at the helm of the star ship Enterprise.

All in all, somewhat quiet, yet filled days.