Im in San Francisco!!!! It took 12 hours yesterday and 4 hours the day before, but we saw some beautiful coastline and I got to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge!!!! :) We set off from LA at about 4pm on Monday, and drove for about 4 hours till we found a random place to stay (Buellton, CA anyone?!). We did this via Malibu, where we had a quick wander on the beach and had our photo taken with a real life Malibu life-guard, who invited us to a Labor Day BBQ on the beach that night. Had we not needed to get further than Mailbu we would have gone, but it was only a half hour down the road!! After a comfortable night in a Motel 6, we got up and headed onwards towards Santa Maria. I should point out at this point that 'we' is not just me and Lorna, but a girl called Amy, who we met at the LA hostel and who wanted to drive to San Francisco and offered to share the costs with us. She's a really nice girl and it was nice to have someone else along for the ride!!
The incredbly long journey yesterday was broken up with several stops, mostly for Amy and Lorna to go to the toilet, but a few more interesting ones! We stopped at a place called Hearsts Castle, which bless the Americans is their idea of history (its been there since the 1940s!!) but was actually quite interesting. We didnt get chance to do the tour as it wouldve taken too long but we did look round the museum and obviously the gift shop!!! We also stopped at a look out point where we saw some elephant seals who had come in for a couple of months to shed their skins and to mate, to look at some Giant Redwoods (which really are huge!) and so take some pictures of the genuinely beautiful Big Sur coastline. We stopped for 'gas' once at a really cute gas station, it cost $30 to fill up a big Hyundai (small rental car my ass!!) which we all thought was amazing, and told everyone we saw for the rest of the day that it was!! We also stopped at some really randomly cute restrooms, that had a spiritual garden and an abundance of Bluejays. We had a slightly stressful time getting into San Francisco, the excitement of driving over the Golden Gate Bridge overtook us all and we missed the (not very well signposted) turning off to it and had to turn around. (For those of you who know the Gretna Green story, this one involved much of the same people!!!!) We then had to find the hostel in the complex one way system, and then had to take the car back to the airport (a very sad event, we had become very attached to Hilary) and then get back again. We managed it though and after having a Burger King promptly passed out! The hostel is much more what we expected than the LA one, which was genuiely lovely! This one has a much more hostelly feel to it, and I dont think we'll be sad to get to a proper hotel on Friday!!
We had a brilliant time in LA, we spent Monday before we left at Universal Studios, which is AWESOME!!! We did the studio tour and saw such amazing places as Wisteria Lane, the set of The Grinch, the set of War of the Worlds, the shark from Jaws (whos name is Bruce!), the set for Back to the Future and the cars used in Back to the Future, The Fast and The Furious and Jurassic Park. There's loads more that I cant think of right now, but dont worry, I have thousands of photos for you all to see :D We also went to a special effects show, which was fascinating. We would have done more, but time didnt allow it, but we saw enough to keep us amazed till now!!
Our first day in LA was a busy one, we started by taking a trip round all the stars' homes, seeing loads of random people's houses as well as some interesting ones (a house owned by the Beach Boys, Magic Johnson and Richard Gere!!) We also saw the place where Michael Jackson died, which is still very sad and covered in flowers, and the toilets where George Michael got arrested. Ha! We also saw Rodeo Drive, Sunset Boulevard, Graumans Chinese Theater and the Avenue of Stars. We then got the bus back with the intention to sunbathe on Santa Monica beach for a bit, however it had other ideas as it was very cloudy and pretty cold! So we went for a coffee instead and did a bit of shopping. I bought a lovely blue and white dress, that I wore out to dinner that night with Liz, a nurse from camp, and her son Greg. We went to a bizarre restaurant, a mix of Latin and Asian foods, and everyone who knows me should be incredibly proud that I ate enough to feel full by the time I left!!!! I had finally had some tuna the day before, after we landed in LAX and took a somewhat terrifying bus ride from the airport to the hostel. (Venice at night is not pretty!!) The flights from Chicago went smoothly (if you overlook the fact I booked me and Lorna on different flights.......oops) and I even managed to get a seat on the aisle with a spare one next to it so my knee brace had plently of room. Sadly no upgrade was available, despite the best efforts of the man next to me!!
I had had a lovely couple of days in Chicago, and was very sad to leave! Rachael's family are lovely, and their couch is really very comfortable so it was a good time!! Helen left us at 5am on the Friday to head for Green Bay (quietly God love her!) and the rest of us got up and went to do some touristy things. It turns out there aren't that many of those in Chicago lol but we did climb Sears Tower, the tallest in the Western Hemisphere and, discounting a random building in China, the world!! We were 103 floors up and at one point 40 feet out over the street below. Thank goodness for the cute Spanish football team who were also there to distract us :) We were going to track down the ER hospital but it was too far out of the way, so settled for a subway station instead!! We (who in this section is me, Tina, Simon and Rachael) then went down to a pier and wandered down it, have to say piers just arent the same without fish and chips!!!
For those of you who know about my souvenir magnets plan, it isnt going well :( not one place in Chicago had an Illinois one, and nowhere in LA had a California one. Its getting desperate, and Im going to have to hope I come accross a shop that sells all 50 or my NY and VT ones are going to look very lonely on the fridge!!
I think Im very overtired, and in hindsight should have gone to Gills first to have a weeks to catch up on sleep, because I keep having massive homesick pangs and teary moments. It didnt help being away for another baby's birthday (Tom was 3 on Sunday, very sad times!!!) To her credit Lorna is helping a lot with those, but thank you to everyone who's sending me messages and making me smile, I appreciate it lots and will see you all very soon!! If I dont look pleased to see you its coz Im massively jet-lagged, give me a week and I will be I promise :) And get ready for my next post from Utah with all my Vegas news........its gonna be good :D
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