Our last day before flying home, how devastating!

We had checked into our hotel, the Custom Hotel, booked specifically because it was close to the airport. It was relatively cheap, which showed in the no frills appearance of our rooms. Yet it was so comfortable and clean that it was fantastic, and I would highly recommend it to anyone. It had a gym and pool, along with a grocery store right around the corner, so it’s no surprise that it’s won awards for Business Hotels.

The plan for the day was to head down to Venice Beach and spend the day there before leaving for the airport, and flying home later that night. When we got to Venice Beach, I found it was totally unlike anything else in LA that I had seen. This was the hippy/surfy California I had hoped to experience, and I loved it. There was no consumerism and materialistic values here. It was all people who were chilling out, happy to be outdoors.

Our group split up, and agreed to meet back at a specific time to go back to the hotel. Mat and I teamed up with Amy and Pauline again, where we wandered down one side of the beach. I tell you what, the other side of the pacific is damn cold!

I got a kick out of seeing all the people riding and roller blading, purely because that’s what I’d expected after seeing the place in television shows and movies. White Men Can’t Jump anyone..? Yep, the basketball courts were here. We also took a stroll to Gold’s Gym (made famous by the current governor of California, Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger), and saw muscle beach.

There were also some fantastic buskers on show, one of whom was an amazing dancer. He actually got Mat and some other guys in on the show doing some dancing, which I captured on video. The sad part is that when we got home and our computer hard drive crashed it corrupted the footage on the computer, which I had also already deleted from the video camera. Devastated! It was incredibly funny, but it almost made us late to get back to the hotel in time to go to the airport!

Finally I was able to drag Mat away, and we ran back to rejoin the others and get the bus back to the hotel. Later that night, we boarded our plane and flew back to Australia, our holiday over.

Conclusion:

In hindsight, looking back at this holiday a year later, I’m so glad we took it. Deciding whether or not to go was a major thing for us. We sold Mat’s 4wd in order to fund our trip (we had 3 cars at the time), when the money could have been used to put us in a better financial position instead. I won’t lie, we’ve been through some tough times since. However, I still wouldn’t change a single thing.

I was very lucky. I got to travel with my family, who I love so very dearly, and my boyfriend (now fiance). I also got to see some friends that flew over from England specifically to see us, which blew my mind, and I am so very grateful for. This trip left us with so many wonderful memories, and they’re the ones that last. It was a once in a lifetime event, and has left us with a thirst for travel.

To my family, and to Mat, this holiday was a highlight of my life. I am  blessed and honoured to have shared those two weeks with you. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of it.

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This morning the family was all meant to be heading out to Hoover Dam, however Mat and I both agreed it felt like we had barely touched upon the innards of Vegas. We only had a bit over 24 hours left in the town, and we wanted to make sure we did as much as possible. We opted out of the Hoover Dam trek, and instead decided to spend the day going from casino to casino. Amy and Pauline must have felt the same, since they decided to stay behind as well, so we all spent the day together.

First thing we did was go and get some drinks. I can’t recall what I had, but Amy and Pauline went halves in a massive yard glass with the equivalent of 10 shots of rum in it. Or rather, they were *meant to*. Pauline ended up deciding she didn’t want much, which left it up to Amy to drink the rest of it. Not surprisingly, she got drunk pretty damn fast. The result was one of the biggest highlights of the trip for me. Amy was drunk, and in hilariously funny form.

We headed over to the Venetian, where Mat and I insisted on paying for a gondola ride for all of us. If you have a look at the video at the end of this post, you’ll see Amy drunkenly telling Mat and I to go and stand on a bridge so she could take a photo of us. I believe the exact words were “piss off!!” with a wave of the hand. During the gondola ride, she said aloud to me “let’s pretend we’re from New Zealand”, then declared to the gondolier (who Amy thought was stunning) that we were from New Zealand. It’s still funny to me, I laughed my head off when I re-watched the video and saw I had recorded it. The gondola ride was so much fun, and so worth the money. We walked most of the day, so to take the time to just sit down and relax was great. It also gave me a chance to really look around the Venetian casino, which was so beautiful.

After that we headed to the Wynn casino, where Amy danced under the fairy lit trees. I was amazed by just how rich the place felt. Everything just looked and felt expensive, and they even had a Ferrari dealership in the place. We kept walking, and ended up at the Stratosphere, where we quickly made our way to the top. Unfortunately the wind meant the other ride was STILL closed, and thus I wouldn’t be able to ride it this holiday. I was so devastated. I think at this point the heat of Vegas had gotten to Amy, as she quickly deteriorated into the hang over phase. She sat the base of a telescope and generally stared out at the vast land while I did some video recording and looked around.

Eventually we ended up at Fremont St. Mat decided to go and play poker (his first time in Vegas, I couldn’t believe how long he had lasted) while Amy, Pauline and I went to a sports bar, had a few drinks of water and chilled out. Soon after, they left to head back to the hotel while I continued wandering around. I found the 99c twinkies that I’d seen on a tv show and bought one, which I found was disgustingly awesome. I don’t think I’ll ever have another one, but I was glad I got to try it. I also found a super bright shirt in a novelty gift store, for which I made a mental note to bring Mat back and show him. I thought it was perfect for a gift for Mat’s brother-in-law, who enjoys wearing those sorts of shirts. It was like a hawaiian shirt, but with a deck of cards instead, and was bright red. It was so ugly, that it was brilliant.

If you’re not familiar with Fremont St, it has a roof covering the street (pedestrian access only) which is lit up at night with hundreds and hundreds of lights. They play music and shows on there every night. I stood outside and watched it (Mat missed it because of poker), and while it looked pretty awesome I remember feeling a little bit disappointed. It felt like just a big advertising attempt, and given the nature of Vegas I shouldn’t have been surprised. Soon after I went and got Mat from the poker table (he came out even), and we headed back to the hotel to call it a night.

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The coolest thing about Vegas Casinos is they all have something distinctly unique about them. They need to; there’s just so much competition they have to be able to draw tourists to their hotel. Back at home in Australia, you’ll be hard pressed to find more than one casino per city (I dont know of any that have more than one…?) and the ones I’ve been to (Jupiters, Treasury and Reef) they’re all quite boring. As the name implies, Circus Circus is circus and carnival themed. It even has its own “adventuredome” inside with rides, along with an actual Circus show. Where the pokies (or slot machines, as called in the US) are, there’s a section that looks like a carousel. The best part was that it actually rotates, just like a carousel would! Very cool.

Walking down the street, I was immediately struck by the heat. It was quite different to back home, where we’re more used to a humid, sticky heat. Here, it was just incredibly dry. It was a totally different culture too, evidenced by the magazine stands on the side of the road. I’d first seen these back in San Francisco, where you could pop in some coins, and help yourself to the daily news. But in Vegas, it wasn’t news. It was gay porn.

It’s hard to keep track of what casinos we visited during the day, so here’s what we managed to accomplish:

• The Sahara – we went on the rollercoaster (very fun, though not as good as Dreamworld), and saw a guy start on a challenge to eat a 6 pound (2.7kg) burrito. If he eats it all within the time limit he gets it for free, if he fails he pays for the meal.
• The Stratosphere, multiple times – we attempted to go upstairs for the rides a couple of times over the day but due to the high winds the main one we wanted to go on, the X-Scream, was closed. We decided we wouldn’t go up in the end, but enjoyed looking around at the casino
• The monorail – mono means one, rail means rail! We managed to convince Sam & Amber to jump on the monorail, and rode in air conditioned comfort from one end of the strip to the other
• Walking the strip – while the monorail took us in one direction, we eventually had to walk it back, and we walked for AGES. I got sunburnt, but thanks to my earlier purchase of sunscreen back in LA the damage was minimal. Unlike my heat rash caused by wearing shorts with the wrong material…that bloody hurt!
• MGM Grand – best known for its Lion Habitat. I also purchased a massive Pina Colada from there, and carried that around with me during the day.
• New York New York – our first taste of Vegas craziness; a slots machine competition. Basically, there was two rows of people sitting on slot machines, pressing max bet max rows as fast as they could. Person with the most points at the end wins. I’ve never seen anything like this back in Australia. I find the pokies to be brain numbing at best, so the idea of a competition just made me giggle. We also saw insanely large toffee apples, and rode on another rollercoaster.

She's having the time of her life

• Hooters Casino – purely because we were curious to see if the pictures from TV were real. We wanted to know if the girls actually got around in orange shorts and little tops, and yes, yes they do. Sam made sure to mention that he wasn’t impressed with the women though, as he’d expected major cleavage and felt they were severely lacking. Amber and I ended up joining up with the Hooters club (I still proudly carry my card in my wallet) while the guys played on the tables for a bit. We also stopped for a bite for lunch, where we saw a guy celebrating his birthday get serenaded by a group of Hooters girls. Tough day for him. I also bought a hooters cocktail, so I got to bring the cup home with me – score!
• The strip by night – very very pretty. All the flashing lights etc, it’s a photographers heaven (I don’t want to know what the power bills for the casinos are though).
• Bellagio fountains – everything I wanted and more. So SO beautiful to see, and I was quite awestruck by them. One of the highlights in Vegas for me.
• The Mirage Volcano Show – I hadn’t actually heard of this one until I arrived in Vegas. It was very cool, lots of bursts of fire over the lake, along with one big volcano. Whilst impressive, I still favoured the Bellagio Fountains

For one day, we certainly achieved a lot and had tons of fun doing it. Amber and Sam were flying back home to the UK early the next morning, so rather than pull an all nighter they bid us good night just after midnight (which still left them with barely any sleep time as it was). It was so great to see them, and had been one of the things I was most looking forward to doing in the US. My dear friends that I hadn’t seen in ages, I actually cried when they told me they were coming over to see us. They’re still in the UK now, and I can’t wait to see them when they eventually return to Australia.

It felt strange to spend an entire day without the family too (after one whole week of living in each other’s hair). The next day we were meant to be going out to Hoover Dam, but since Mat and I felt we’d barely even see 1/4 of what Vegas had to offer, we decided we would forego the Hoover Dam trip to spend another day in Vegas. Imagine Mat’s disappointment, he was being forced to spend another day in his ultimate paradise. What a shame. So after saying goodnight to Sam and Amber, we headed straight for our bed to ensure we’d have enough energy for what the next day would bring.

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Our first stop of the day was to grab a bite to eat at Canters deli (who also operate a twitter account – I followed them until it made me miss being in LA). I had actually never heard of the place, and we only went there on Amy’s insistence. Once again, she had managed to find  an amazing place to eat; we ate sandwiches with the most amazing corned beef I’ve ever tasted. They certainly didn’t skimp on the amount of meat you got either, there was HEAPS. I went halves with mum, and was glad since I was quite full after eating just my bit. We all agreed it was definitely an amazing meal.

After Canters, we made our way to Beverley Hills. Amy had done some research and found a street for us to drive down, along with a list of who used to live where. Somewhere in the traffic Mum, Madonna, Mat and I managed to lose the other car with Amy, Pauline, Sue and Fiona in it. Thankfully the GPS took us straight there. As we drove down the street we found that due to the size of the gates etc we could barely see the houses. Fair enough – I think celebrities deserve their privacy too (which is ironic for me to think that given we were driving around purely to look at their place of residence). We didn’t see anything much of interest, so drove the street fairly quickly. At the end of the street we ran into the other car just entering the street. We said a quick hi, before a car behind them meant they had to continue driving. We opted to go for a drive down to the Beverly Hills Hotel, park and go for a walk down the street to have a look.

I was surprised by the number of people on the street. It seemed like there was a walking tour passing by, along with the people sitting on the sides of the streets were selling star maps. In the meantime, the car with Amy, Pauline, Fiona and aunty Sue had their own celebrity spotting (although they didn’t know who it was). A car coming out of a driveway of one of the houses caused pedestrians everywhere to rush towards it. Luckily, in amidst the chaos Pauline didn’t hit anyone, though if she had it would have been the pedestrian’s fault. No one had any regard for the cars on the road, they all just wanted to get in and look at the celebrity. After we’d returned home to Australia, Amy did a bit of searching to find out who lived in the house, and it turned out to have been Michael Jackson!

After they’d done the street we all headed out to Santa Monica Pier. I’d seen a bit of this on various tv shows and pictures from the internet, so was definitely looking forward to it. I got a kick out of seeing the lifeguard towers, it made me feel like I was in an episode of Baywatch! I was also shocked by just how wide the beaches were. Compared to back in Australia, where you’re only about 50m or so from the water when you enter the beach, in LA it was almost like 100m before you were near the water. There was just so much sand!

We elected to split the group up and make our own way around the pier, and meet back a short while later to head to the airport. Mat and I immediately beelined the store called “Bubba Gumps”, as Forrest Gump is one of Mat’s favourite movies. There were loads of cool shirts and caps inside, but in the end Mat decided he didn’t want anything. We kept walking and made our way to the Ferris Wheel and arcade section of the pier. We watched a guy try to impress his girlfriend by playing a side show game (titled “Big Bonger thing” by Mat), then decided we would go for a ride on the Ferris Wheel. Coincidentally, Amy and Pauline were going on at the same time.

It was quite peaceful sitting on the Ferris Wheel, just taking a few minutes to look at the scenery around us. I realised that we were on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the water which I am so familiar with back home. After the ride was over, we had a look at the roller coaster but unfortunately it was shut for the day. Instead, I challenged Mat and Amy to a side show game “Whac a mole” where you had to hit the little moles as they popped up. Amy emerged the victor, and unsure of what prize she wanted, I piped up and requested a dog. Agreeing, she got the one that most resembled my dog back home so of course it had to share the same name – Turbo. As I received the prize, Mat was still wondering how he’d managed to lose out of all three of us. He’s not competitive at all (ahem).

Amy and Pauline wandered off again, while I decided to try out a dessert from a store. I ended up getting a sundae, and even though I requested a small one it was MASSIVE. When we all met back at the car I desperately asked everyone in our group to eat some, and unfortunately there weren’t many takers. The heat of the day meant it melted incredibly quickly, so I managed to make a mess all over my hands. Looking back, I think I ended up throwing out almost half of it.

Finally, we went to the airport and flew to Vegas. When we arrived, we discovered we had to catch a train from the terminal back to the main part of the airport – very cool. We collected our stuff while Amy tried to confirm our pick up location with our driver – we’d hired a Stretch Hummer to pick us up from the airport and drive back to the hotel! Woohoo! I know Mat and I were looking forward to this most of all out of the holiday, so we were pretty disappointed when the driver turned out to be late. Finally he showed up, and excited we all piled into the car. The small boot meant we had to put some of the luggage into the main area of the limo, but there was still plenty of room for the rest of us. Inside, we had coloured lighting and all sorts of cool effects. Amy and Fiona imagined it was a disco and started dancing. Mat, meanwhile, couldn’t stop looking out all around him. The gambler had reached his ultimate destination.

Originally, the plan with the Hummer was to drive around for an hour before going to the hotel. Since he was late, it meant we missed out on driving around, and spent a total of 15mins in the limo, although he still asked for the full price for an hour. NOT impressed. I put on my bitch face and said to Amy that we should refuse to pay for all of it (and instead pay the equivalent of 15mins), which definitely put some pressure on her. I feel bad for it now, but as a group we were completely ripped off. One of most anticipated moments ruined by terrible service. We still wonder if our group was actually a job off the books, and just some extra cash in the pocket for him. Who knows, but it definitely spoiled the experience for me.

Trying to brush off the disappointment, we remembered we were now in Vegas, and more specifically, the Flamingo Hotel. We made our way inside to check in, where Amy informed me of the $20 tip trick. Put simply, you slip $20 to the front desk clerk and ask if there’s any complimentary upgrades available. If there are, the clerk pockets the $20 and upgrades you to a better room. If not, the $20 is returned. We agreed that I would try the trick first, and if it worked I would do a signal to Amy to let her know. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to do the signal so she didn’t try it, but the trick worked!! Instead of the standard room we had booked, we were upgraded to a bigger corner suite. The only downside was that it was in the smoking area of the hotel, and the room definitely reeked when we got in there, but other than that the room was fantastic.

King size bed and a couch in our hotel room

We had a gigantic king sized bed, two couches and a coffee table, a second LCD tv overlooking the bed, and a counter spanning the entire width of the room. When we compared it with Mum and Madonna’s room later, we were so thrilled with our upgrade. Their room was also very nice, but was literally just enough room for the two beds. Other common features of the rooms was the tv in the bathroom mirror (along with a main LCD tv in the main room) and mood lighting with the bathroom. Also, the curtains for the windows were power operated!! Very cool.

After we’d all gone to our rooms and freshened up, we all made the trips to look at each others rooms before settling in Amy & Pauline’s. They had paid extra for a strip view room, which had actually given them a view of the Bellagio Fountains. Very nice. We watched the fountains for a while (with Madonna providing backing music) before we decided it was time to go downstairs and get some dinner. Unfortunately, we’d left it a bit late so most of the places we looked for were closed. Eventually, we found a cafe in the MGM Casino where we ordered our food. Madonna proudly informed us all that she’d just discovered Lucy had gotten her driver’s license, so she quickly made a call home to congratulate her. In the meantime, I’d managed to get in contact with Sam & Amber, my friends from Australia that had moved to the UK for a couple of years. They were on their way to meet us!!

I got a message from them they were in the casino, and almost wetting my pants with excitement I made my way to find them. Seeing them, we did a slow motion run (like the typical “love scenes” in the movies, or uh, like this guy) and hugged each other. I can’t remember what we said exactly, because I was so excited I pretty much just blabbed away about anything and everything in my head. I brought them back to where we were all eating dinner, and we all chatted for a bit. After dinner, Mat and I said goodbye to the group as we were going to spend the night with Sam and Amber.

We went for a bit of a look around the strip and showed them our room and casino, before deciding we would call it a night. We would meet up with them first thing in the morning, and hit the vegas strip HARD. Arriving back to the hotel we went straight to sleep, knowing the next day was going to be long. We were in vegas baby!

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After showering and dressing we met everyone downstairs for our first full day in LA. We had decided to go straight to Hollywood and get on a jump on/jump off bus so that we could cover the basics of the city, and yet have the freedom to jump off where we saw fit. After buying our tickets and boarding the bus (it was a double decker but with an open roof – yes, THAT kind of bus), like cool kids we headed straight upstairs, and for the back seat. Back seat rebels!!

It was a beautiful day albeit a bit hot, quite a change from the cooler temperatures of San Francisco. I made a mental note to buy some sunscreen as soon as I got a chance since I burn relatively easy, and was grateful that I’d at least remembered to wear a hat. We had a few minutes left until we were due to depart, so I got in a bit of people watching time looking down on the street below. Along the Hollywood Walk of Fame there were a lot of street performers dressed as characters from movies, all posing for photos with passerbys. I saw batman, superman, several characters from Pirates of the Carribean (and made a mental note to tell Jo – she’s obsessed with pirates), and Mat’s particular favourite, superwoman. He thought she had a great body, but once he saw her face he quickly changed his mind. He compared her to a street walker working on a corner to support their crack habit. Harsh, but yet totally valid. Her teeth were incredibly rotten and hideous.

Turning my attention back to the bus, I found the state of the bus was quite dismal. There were a few chairs with rips in them, and once the bus took off we discovered the speakers were also broken. Instead of hearing a narrator explain various bits and pieces of the city as we passed, a staff member came upstairs and yelled to us. He did his best though, so props to him for trying to turn the situation around.

I found everything fascinating, from street signs to guitar stores, and tried to look in every direction so I didn’t miss anything.  In comparison, Pauline wasn’t fussed by it at all and instead chose to read a book she’d brought along. We drove past the Chateau Marmont Hotel and The Viper Room, where River Phoenix famously died, past Santa Monica Boulevard and eventually down Rodeo Drive. It was so bizarre to see these places in real life given I’d only ever read about it or seen footage on TV. I tried to video tape as much as I could, but the combination of riding on a bus and trying to keep a video camera steady just wasn’t working out for me. I decided I didn’t want to give anyone motion sickness, and culled a lot of it.

When we arrived in Beverley Hills it was immediately obvious that we’d reached the “better” part of town. Perfectly landscaped lawns lining the streets and brand name stores on Rodeo Drive were both pretty good hints that we were in an area of prestige. I tried to imagine how chaotic it would be to see a celebrity being hounded by the paparazzi, and was immediately grateful that I have the chance to go and visit places anonymously. I expect celebrities miss out on quite a bit when they travel because they don’t have a chance to enjoy their privacy on the streets, let alone just trying to live peacefully at home.

Amy, Pauline, Mat and I jumped off the bus at the Tar Pits (the others chose to continue to a different spot) and went for a look around there. Plain and simple, it stunk. It was oozing, and was cool to look at…for a total of 2mins. We went inside and looked at the store, chose not to go on any of their tours,  and left. I’d managed to find some sunscreen though, and set about applying it to anything revealed to the sun. When the hop on/hop off bus eventually arrived, we made our way to the next spot, the Farmers Market.

Unfortunately I didn’t get any footage of The Farmers Market except for a tram that ran between there and The Grove across the street. The market was fantastic though! Food stalls lined the aisles, and it reminded me a lot of Adelaide’s Central Markets. The only difference I could tell was that the Central Markets sold a lot more fresh produce, whereas the Farmers Market was really only concerned with offering entire meals made on the spot. It was so hard to choose something to eat for lunch, and eventually decided on a crepe. It was pretty darn good!

After we finished eating we headed over to the The Grove, where Amy and Pauline went their way and Mat and I went ours. The Grove was much like it’s own little city; pedestrian traffic walked the streets lined with prestigious brand-name stores (I began to feel like that’s all we could find in LA). I saw an Abercrombie & Finch store and immediately headed inside. I’d read about the brand when Improv Everywhere had bombarded the New York branch with 111 shirtless men, a take on the fact there’s a shirtless male model greeting shoppers at the door, and posters and statues of shirtless men littering the store. To my dismay there was no shirtless model when we arrived, but I went in anyway. It was a totally different atmosphere in the store to what I was used to. The lights were low, the music was loud, and there was levels upon levels of shirts. Mat didn’t like anything though and the store really wasn’t his type of thing, so we left quickly without buying anything.

Next stop was the Apple store. We walked in, walked upstairs, walked downstairs, and left. Mat’s hate for random wandering combined with his intense dislike of shopping was rearing its ugly head. His patience wearing thin, we made our way quickly to the end of the street, where we found a nice looking water fountain (I just wanted to dive in I was that hot). I quickly videotaped the bridge (to prove we had been there), and wondered what the snobby crowd surrounding us would have thought had I ran and jumped in the water. I daresay they wouldn’t have been impressed.

Thinking back on this place, I’m sure many of my friends would have been in heaven. Jimmy Choo, Banana Republic, etc etc etc. It was shopper’s heaven, but definitely not Mat’s scene. If we’d had more money, and Mat found some amazing ability to enjoy looking in the stores, I’m sure it could have been a bit more enjoyable.

Finished looking around, we started walking back to the entrance of the Grove to meet the others. Fiona told us about a gigantic doll store, and out of curiosity I went inside to take a look around. I was speechless. The doll store was massive! Not only was there an extensive range of clothing to buy for your doll, but you also had the choice of buying the exact same outfit for your child, just so they could match their dolls. Oh my god! I’ve never been a doll person, so this totally overwhelmed me. The store also had its own concierge just in case you broke a nail thinking about having to lift your own handbag. Slight exaggeration, but you get my point.

While we were in the store I saw the hop on/hop off bus arrive, so I quickly grabbed Mum (who had come inside with me) and we ran outside to get on the bus with all the others. We went past more famous streets, and Paramount Studios, before we got a glimpse of the famous Hollywood sign. For a total of 2 seconds. Through thick clouds of smog. Can you hear my level of disappointment? It was so far away, and such a fast glimpse that really it was like WOO it’s gone. It was so quick that Mat didn’t actually see it at all, and it was only when he saw the footage on the video camera that he realised we actually HAD passed it.

We arrived back to the starting point at the Hollywood Walk of Fame and decided we would all split up for the afternoon. A few members of the group decided to jump on another bus to look around, Mat and I decided we would wander the street. Stupidly, we got suckered into buying tickets to the Guiness World Records museum, and the wax museum next door. We would be terrible in places like Bali or Phuket, where the street vendors hassle you to buy their products. I’m sure we would end up buying one of everything on the street.

Thankfully the museums were air conditioned, but everything else we found to be pretty damn boring. I didn’t include any footage in our video summary of the day, purely because I didn’t want viewers to fall asleep. We zoomed through both places, then decided we would find somewhere to eat and relax to pass the time. We wouldn’t have enough time to get on a bus to tour LA again, and looking back on this day we really did waste it. It’s probably the reason why we weren’t too impressed with LA – we just didn’t experience it! That has to be one of my major regrets for the holiday.

Once we met back up with everyone we made our way back to the hotel. We decided we would take two cars for a drive up to the Griffith Observatory (checking out the city lights) before going down for dinner at the famous Pink’s Hot Dogs. Mum and Pauline opted to spend the night back at the hotel, everyone else jumped in the car. While we were driving to the Observatory, we apparently experienced our second earthquake in America. Once again, I missed it. We were in the car, and I didn’t feel anything different. We like to blame the earthquake on the fact that Amy managed to drive their car too close to a tunnel wall, breaking the side mirror in the process. Damn earthquakes!

We only found out about the earthquake when Aunty Sue got a text message while we were waiting outside at Pink’s Hot Dogs. Joanie had messaged, concerned if we were OK. We were more than OK – we hadn’t even realised. Later on, when we met up with Mum & Pauline again it turned out that Pauline had been lying on the couch reading, and felt the earthquake. More hilariously, Mum was in the shower when it occurred, and when the walls started shaking she thought that maybe that one glass of wine went straight to her head! I was so disappointed that I didn’t feel anything – I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like.

But back to Pink’s Hot Dog’s. It has a long history, starting as a small hot dog stand in 1939, retaining its original position 70 years later. It’s also been visited by a lot of celebrities, and is touted as something you must try when in LA. So we rocked up, waited in line for about 20mins, then finally ordered. I found it quite difficult to figure out what to order, given that I’m not a big fan of chilli and these were chilli dogs, it made my options limited. I finally settled on something, we got our orders then made our way back to the hotel. Mat was a little bit disappointed, as he thought we’d be spending a night out on the town, but it was not to be. Once back in our room, we cut our hot dogs in half so we could try a bit of each. Unfortunately, we weren’t all that impressed. It appeared that America’s love for all things greasy really wasn’t sitting well with us. Oh well, at least we’d been there and tried it.

The following day was the one that we’d been waiting for since planning our trip to the US. We would be arriving in vegas.

For Amy’s version of events you can see her blog post here.

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After checking out of the hotel, the first car containing Amy, Pauline, Aunty Sue and Fiona made their way to Pismo Beach while our group (Madonna, Mum, Mat and I) attempted to find a post office. We had bought stamps back in Big Sur but hadn’t yet found anywhere to actually mail the post cards we had written to family and friends back home. We entered America Post into the GPS and within minutes we arrived at our destination. Mat dropped the post cards in the mailbox and we made our way to Pismo Beach to join the others.

When we arrived, Mat got a kick out of looking at the massive trucks in the car park while I got a kick out of looking at the lifeguard stations along the beach. It was exactly like Baywatch! If there are any americans reading this blog they’re probably shaking their heads, but it was still pretty cool for me. As we walked along the pier, I also enjoyed seeing a little shack with “rod rental” on it. Maybe I haven’t visited enough places in Australia, but as far as I know we don’t have shacks on piers, with big cool signs on it. I gazed at the people on the beach and the children playing beach, then turned back. I’ve seen the other side of the Pacific Ocean, so the water didn’t impress me.

Once I reached the carpark I was stoked to see a woody! I’ve only ever seen these cars in photos and movies (or on a t-shirt I had purchased for my dad back in Carmel – coincidentally my sister had bought Dad a nearly identical shirt from the same store the first time she had been to Carmel, I didn’t know that when I bought it). Seeing it in real life, I was in awe of the amount of love and care that had gone into keeping that car in such pristine condition. It definitely exceeded the amount of attention my Suzuki Swift received! I made sure Mat video taped it, then we were back in the car and on our way.

We took the route through Santa Barbara into LA. There had recently been fires there only days before, so the landscape was still scarred. As we drove through we saw many signs thanking the firefighters for all their efforts. I understand a lot of homes had been threatened, but due to the firefighters damage was minimal. Another job well done, and it was fantastic to see people offering their gratitude. In some shops I even saw signs offering firefighters discounts.

Our next stop was at some Buddhist church, or a monks place, or something. To be honest I really didn’t have much interest in it. There was a cost to go on a tour, which only Mum and Aunty Sue ended up going on. The rest of us spent the time sitting on the lawn in the sun, and interacting with some random dogs that approached us. We didn’t have food, and once they realised that they didn’t stay long. It looked like there might have been a wedding going on as there was a lot of people in formal wear, and I think we might have even seen the bride at one stage. I took some random video of the big pit out the front where the monks washed their clothes (it looked quite boring so I didn’t include it in my final video edit) and some beautiful flowers in the pond. Eventually Mum and Aunty Sue surfaced, and we returned to the cars to continue to LA.

We knew we were close to LA once the traffic on the highway started building up. It appeared there was more people trying to get out than there was getting in, which was a bonus for us. I also remember the roads being quite terrible, and incredibly bumpy. Over the course of our time in LA I would soon discover this to be true; the roads were the worst I’ve ever seen. I expect this is from the sheer number of earthquakes they encounter over a year. Why fix it if they’re just going to get cracks all over again?

Amy & co arrived at the hotel before us; I phoned her and she told us she would meet us downstairs. I almost got our car parked for us (which we would have had to pay for) before Amy came out and saved us. I don’t know – I was vulnerable and the man knew it! She used the room key to let us into the car park, we grabbed our stuff and headed upstairs. The hotel was one that Amy had gotten using a mystery deal site, and it was fantastic. It was incredibly nice inside, and had two different wings. One to the left, one to the right. Amy & Pauline, and Mat & I were located in the left wing, while the others were on the right. We received our cards, said goodbye for a few hours, and made our way to our rooms. Side note – they had these “aquariums” set up next to the elevator on each level. The kicker? They were fake! They were monitors showing virtual fish swimming around. I had a bit of a giggle over it though no one else seemed to care. I guess the maintenance on those type of aquariums is cheap!

It  felt like our room hadn’t been opened up for a while when we first walked in, it was a bit hot and stuffy. I went straight for the air con, while Mat took the opportunity to do a tour for the folks at home using the video camera. While he worked his way around, I discovered the fireplace, and to my surprise found it was controlled by a switch! Instant fire! It’s like a pyromaniac’s jizz material! If you listen carefully in Mat’s video tour you can hear me calling out “baby! baby!” trying to call him over. I was also impressed that our bathroom consisted of a large closet with a makeup table, along with the separate room for the toilet/shower etc. Not that I needed a makeup table of course – it was used to dump stuff from our luggage on when we were trying to find things.

After exploring the room, we relaxed a little bit before dinner. After an hour or so we met the others downstairs and went for a walk to find somewhere to eat. We were situated in West Hollywood, which I guess is an area for the “well off” crowd. We saw Porsches, Lambourghinis, and many other beautiful European cars, Mat was in heaven. We also found some rather interesting clothing stores, which contained items like bottomless chaps, and sparkley tops. Quite extraordinary.

I don’t recall the place we ate for dinner, and I don’t even recall how good the food was. I found a photo that showed some calamari though, so I guess that’s what I must have had. Something tells me that I thought the waitress was a little snobby, but I don’t know if that’s right or not. I guess I’ll have to leave the details on our dinner to Amy. I do remember that Amy, Pauline and I sat at one end madly updating twitter/facebook etc on our iPhones, much to the group’s amusement. People need to know what we’re up to, sheesh!

On the way home we split up into two groups again. Mum, Aunty Sue, Fiona and I dawdled along when while the others went ahead back to the hotel. We suddenly found ourselves in the middle of chaos. On the corner of a street there was 9 fire trucks all surrounding a pharmacy. There was no fire from what we could tell, and they put a ladder up against the wall to climb onto the roof but soon after took it down. False alarm? We’ll never know. Thankfully, Aunty Sue was there to provide a detailed first hand account which you can experience in the video below.

I got back to the room, told Mat about the fire trucks, then went to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a long day – our first day in LA and we were going straight to Hollywood Boulevard. I couldn’t wait.

For Amy’s version of events you can see her blog post here.

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We met everyone up at the main lodge for breakfast; it was a big wooden cabin with quaint decorations. This place really cemented for me that I was in America, compared to anywhere else we had been. It resembled the small town places I’ve seen on the tv – the two bowser petrol station, the wooden cabins, the patriotic flag flying out the front. After breakfast everyone came down to look at our cabin and enjoy a cup of tea before we packed up and continued on our way. Unfortunately it was still quite foggy, so rather than redo everything we missed the previous day due to the fog, we continued towards Pismo Beach. The fog made for some beautiful moments though, where you could see the coast line and the fog over the Pacific Ocean.

Once again I don’t remember much from the car trip as I kept dozing off. In hindsight, it was perfect timing that the two days I’d be at the worst with my flu would also be the two days spent mainly sitting down. The copious amounts of napping in the car probably helped me to get over the flu a lot faster than I normally would have.

At one of the numerous stops for photos of the coastline we heard some seals down in the water below the cliffs. I tried to  video tape it (you couldn’t see anything in the video, just hear the sounds) then we continued on our way. Once we reached Piedras Blancas we found a beach with an entire colony of Elephant Seals, so merely hearing the seals before that seemed so insignificant. The smell was a little bit on the nose, but you could get so close to the seals it was incredible. The only time I’ve seen anything like it was when we visited Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Impressively, they had staff wandering around answering questions – quite the educational place!

I also managed to spend a fair bit of time in the car park, namely due to a beautiful old car with a matching caravan and bicycle. Unfortunately I don’t know what make and model it was, but it reminded me of the old Chevy Bel-airs (this car had Holiday written on the side). I circled the car a few times in awe, then circled some more video taping it. I briefly chatted with the owner and commended him on his “vee-hick-call” before continuing on to see the seals. The car definitely got a lot of looks, and more than a few photographs.You’ll have to look at my video to see it; I’m afraid to say I didn’t take a decent photo.

After the seals we continued on to Hearst Castle. Before planning the trip to the US I had actually never heard of this place, but once I had seen the website I knew it was one of the places I was most excited to see. It looked simply amazing, and once we reached there it exceeded all my expectations. The pools were my favourite areas by far, and I could tell as I made my way through the house that he had had exquisite taste. Amy and Pauline had gone on a different tour since they had done the first one last time they visited the castle, and I was a little disappointed I couldn’t have seen both. I just couldn’t get enough of looking around! I think I could have spent an hour in each room and still not see everything. So much detail!

After Hearst Castle we made our way to our accommodation in Pismo Beach. The lady checking us in was a little rude, but in all fairness she had 8 of us arrive at once and people waiting behind us to get checked in. I think that would make anyone flustered. I apologised to the people behind us (although the fact it was taking a long time *wasn’t* our fault), and they didn’t seem upset, so that was good. Finally we got our rooms and made our way there.

I was excited the room we were given was massive. Huge king size bed, a bath, and lots of living room area. We had received vouchers for a free drink in the bar each, so we returned upstairs to meet up with everyone. Mat and Pauline tried some random beer while I went with the standard vodka and lemonade, and donated my voucher to Mat. Everyone decided to go out for dinner, but as I was feeling extremely tired again and just wanting to kick the illness I opted to stay in. Mum and Amy also ended up staying behind, and we took the opportunity to use the laundry facilities.

After the washing was done, I made my way back to our room. I had planned on having a bath followed by sleep but the laundry had taken so long that in the end I decided to have another lemsip and tgo straight to bed. I had enough time to boil the jug when Mat wandered in, extremely intoxicated. He told me about some gay waiter at the Japanese Restaurant they’d gone to for dinner, and that the guy had apparently had the hots for him (according to Madonna). He then passed out on top of the bed sheets. It seemed like they’d had quite the dinner! I had my drink, turned the lights off, and fell into another deep sleep. We had reached the halfway point in our holiday.

For Amy’s version of events you can see her blog post here.

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After I eventually got up, showered and packed, I looked for the room keys so I could hand them in upon checkout. I had one, but couldn’t find the other, even though I’d seen it only minutes before. Knowing then it could only be amongst my stuff (Mat’s bag had been packed since the previous night) I ripped open my bag and immediately unpacked everything. I went through item by item, until the entire bag had been packed again. I started stressing out that I couldn’t find the room key, and searched the entire unit again. I searched my bag, our video camera bag, our day pack, everything. But nothing. Until…

I picked up my handbag, and found the missing card underneath it!

Argh!! So greatly annoyed, yet so greatly relieved, I then grabbed all my stuff ready to head down to Mum’s room. As I walked out the door, Amy rung to say they had the cars and would only be a few minutes away (well, that’s what I heard anyway, turned out she’d said something like fifteen minutes). I rung Mum as well as Aunty Sue to let them know, and we all met outside a few minutes later. We stood just out the front door, in the freezing wind, with our bags. By the time Amy and Pauline arrived, we’d been there for about twenty minutes. At one point though I’d gotten the others to look after my stuff, and raced across to the Walgreens Chemist across the road, and picked up some throat lollies. My head was starting to feel clogged, I was incredibly fatigued, and my throat was on fire. It appeared I’d lost my battle against catching a cold.

The cars they’d hired was a Dodge and a Toyota Rav 4. Amy and Pauline was in the dodge with Fiona and Aunty Sue in the back, with Madonna driving the Rav 4 with Mum, Mat and I as passengers. I was quite disappointed with the cars, since Mat and I had been pining for a “yank tank”, but it was not to be be. There was no point saying anything though, since it was obviously too late to decide on a different car so I packed my luggage into the car and jumped in. Amy programmed our GPS and we were off.

Once we were on the highway I found I still got a kick out of being on the right side of the road. we’d had 4 full days of trying to get used to the traffic not being on the left, but this was the first time we’d physically been in a car driving around. I happily looked at the country side and buildings on the highway, until eventually I fell asleep. I was becoming quite fatigued from my cold.

I awoke a short while later as we were pulling into what’s known as the Apple “motherland” aka the Apple Campus at Cupertino. We all walked into the store to have a look around, where I pointed out the iphones to Mat (he wasn’t impressed) and the ipod speakers (I got a mild “mmm” from him). I continued wandering around until I looked up and realised the rest of the family had gone back to the car. Refusing to go with out buying something I bought a new iphone case and left. Back in the car, we headed off down the highway once more.

I found I could barely stay awake in the car for longer than fifteen/twenty minutes at a time, and again quickly dropped off to sleep. Thinking back, it’s quite lucky the worst two days of my illness were the days we spent a lot of time driving. The extended sleeps in the car no doubt helped my body to rest while my immune system waged the good war. My head hurt, my throat was on fire and I was like a walking zombie, but thankfully my nose was dry.

Our next stop was a massive factory outlet centre. Anything and everything was there, from watches and jewellery, manchester and silverwear, to sporting stores and designer clothing. We agreed to meet back at the cars at a particular time, then all split up. Mat and I immediately headed for the sporting stores, namely Adidas, Nike and Converse. I scored a $5 converse hat, Mat went crazy in the Adidas store and bought about $150 worth of clothing (that would have easily been over $300 in Australia), but nothing in the Nike store impressed us.

We had caught up with Amy and Pauline by this time and we were all starving for lunch. Mat and I hadn’t eaten breakfast, so with Amy and Pauline we all headed over to the In ‘n’ Out burger we’d seen nearby (upon my return to Australia I discovered they apparently have secret menu items that you can order – I wish I had known that beforehand). We got the food to take away, and headed back to the meeting spot for the others. Initally they sooked a little that we had bought food and they didn’t, but they soon got over it once we agreed to share our chips. Then it was back on the highway.

We arrived at Monterey a little after midday. It was a beautiful little seaside town, and we spent about half an hour to an hour just wandering around looking at everything. One of the most amusing places for me was “Candyland” – a great big candy store. Mat and I had fun looking at the labels on the chocolate (he found one called Sugar Daddy, and they also stocked “Sexy Water” – just plain bottled water), then marvelled at the sizes of the chocolate blocks for sale in the counter at the front. Other than the chocolate store we also had a look at some of the small little antique doll stores, but nothing else in the town really caught my eye. The main section with its landscaped gardens was quite beautiful though.

Back on the road, we drove down 17 mile drive, a scenic drive that passes through Pebble Beach. We had been given a brochure with points of interest along the drive along with a little bit of background about each. The points of interest ranged from rock formations and trees, to golf courses (of Pebble Beach Golf Links fame) and equestrian centres.  We stopped off at quite a few for photo opportunites, and were blasted by the freezing winds off the pacific. The colour of the water looked stunning, but it was just too damn cold! I was rather impressed by the family that still attempted to have a picnic regardless, even though they were rugged up with blankets. I half expected Pauline to go and sit down with them, because we all know Pauline likes picnics!

Our next stop was the gorgeous town of Carmel (or Carmel-by-the-sea), though unfortunately we didn’t get to spend a lot of time here; It was getting late in the day and we wanted to reach our accommodation before it got too dark.  We walked around the town doing a bit of window shopping, and I bought dad a t-shirt from one store which funnily enough was the same place Amy had bought Dad’s present the first time she’d visited Carmel (although I didn’t know that until later). We also stopped in at the small bakery for some dinner and a coffee (I got a yummy hot chocolate). If I could pick one of the places in America that I could easily go back to and spent a week it would be Carmel. It was so beautiful, and I can imagine a week or two there would be extremely relaxing. Given the temperature, I’d also be requesting a fireplace too!

From Carmel we made a bee line to Big Sur (although we did stop off at a monastry for my Mum to take photos). It was amazing to see the fog getting thicker and thicker the later in the day got. It meant that we missed a lot of the stunning views of the coast line, but we had another day of driving to do yet so hoped the fog would be gone by the time we left the following day. We were staying at Ripplewood in Big Sur, small wooden cabins spread out amongst the redwoods. Mat and I were in one cabin, with everyone else sharing two cabins. I cheated a little bit in that I’d done my research and knew which cabins were down by the creek. When we had originally booked the cabins while in San Francisco I had immediately grabbed the cabin by the creek, but the others had the benefits of fireplaces.

When we arrived there was a little bit of confusion with the managers there with regards to keys; they didn’t want to give us the keys for the other rooms, but handed them over once they realised we were all in one big group together. With that sorted, we began driving to our cabin so Mum and Madonna could drop Mat and I off before driving back to theirs for the night. It took us a little bit to work out where our cabin was though, as we didn’t see there was another pathway across the road which went to the creek cabins. We finally figured it out, and quickly found the cabin that Mat and I were occuping. It was so small yet so cute, and was cheap too (the cheapest in our entire holiday I believe). The main room was the bedroom/dining room/lounge room, then a small kitchen and separate bathroom. We also had a small balcony out the back where you could sit outside and listen to the creek running just below. After a long day of driving, it was such a welcome sound; complete relaxation.

We bid goodnight to Mum and Madonna, then headed inside. I immediately started boiling a cup of tea, while Mat busied himself videotaping the cabin. He then built a fire in the fireplace out the front, and we sat out there listening to the crackling of the wood and drinking our teas. I was extremely tired by this point, and didn’t want to spend too much time in the cold lest it make my sickness worse, so finished my tea then jumped straight into bed. Mat opened the window a crack so we could hear the stream, then we both passed out for one of the best night’s sleeps I’ve ever had.

For Amy’s version of events you can see her blog post here.

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Everyone but Mum had agreed to come. We booked the tour at 11 so we would have enough time to catch a ferry across to Sausalito and eat breakfast first. Mum would catch a later ferry, and meet us in town afterwards. The cafe near where we were meeting our tour guide, Taste of Rome, had a fairly decent review on Yelp so we decided we would have a walk around Sausalito, then have breakfast at the cafe until it was time for our tour. As a bonus, the cafe had free wifi which Amy, Pauline and I happily used on our iphones. I can’t remember much about the cafe other than it was packed, had a lot of cyclists, and had an extremely bossy guy running the show. I got yelled at for standing in the wrong spot to be served, apparently the “line” was on the other side of the room. Well sorry buddy, but maybe make the signage a bit clearer?

We finished our breakfast and headed over to the carpark to wait the final  few minutes until the tour started. Amy, Fiona and Aunty Sue sat down on a park bench while being the bogan that I am, sat down on the wooden walkway where I was lucky enough to get two splinters buried deep into my hand and finger (it took me 2 days until I remembered to ask Amy for her tweezers so I could get them out – must remember to take tweezers with me on holidays from now on). Eventually our tour guide arrived, unpacked all the segways, and our tour began.

First up we got training on how to use the Segways. They were laid down on the ground, and to pick them up we merely had to put our foot on the platform, then press down so the handlebars rose up and we caught them. Aunty Sue was first up for training, and she immediately pushed her foot down a bit too fast and was almost overwhelmed by the speed of the handlebars coming to greet her. Typically, we all giggled. After turning on the segway, we then needed to move the handlebars to the centre until the light went green. The lights on the segway showed if the handlebars were too far forward, or to one side etc. Only when it is completely balanced (i.e. green light) are you able to step on. First you put one foot on the platform (the segway will beep to let you know it’s activated the stabilisation system) then you step up with the other foot. Once on, it’s amazing how stable it truly feels!

After hopping on, the guide got you to move forwards and backwards, practising directing the segway. We all bunny hopped to begin with – as soon as it started moving we tended to lean back, thus stopping it. We did this a couple of times until we got used to the motion, and became smooth. We then had to do a “cowboy maneouver”, basically leaning forward and backwards quickly so you look like you’re riding a horse. It was only when we did this that it actually clicked in our minds how the Segway worked, and we were instantly experts. The guide also got us to turn in circles on the spot using the handlebars to ensure we would be able to steer.

Stopping was easy; if you were traveling forward you merely needed to lean backwards with your feet to slow down and eventually stop. To perform an emergency stop, we had to squat, or pretend we were sitting down on a chair. Our feet would lean back thus quickly stopping the Segway (albeit smoothly). We all practiced stopping and then our steering by going in and out of some cones the guide had set up. Finally, we were ready to go.

We traveled down the waterfront past the marina, looking at all the unique houseboats along the way. There were several impressive ones hand built, and a couple where our guide explained the tenants came ashore once a month for suppliers, then went straight back to their boats. Complete hermits.

We also visited a building which housed a complete working model of the San Francisco bay – The Bay Model Visitor Centre. A gigantic pool inside replicated the bay, including islands and bridges, and amazingly even the tides! The Mythbuster team had even visited there when recording their Alcatraz special, using the tides to determine whether it was possible the 3 men from Alcatraz could have escaped by a raft built from raincoats. We enjoyed the break from the sun (the tops of my hands were extremely sunburnt) while looking around the model, before jumping back on the Segways to head back to the starting point.

Just before we had reached the Bay Model Aunty Sue had managed to get a flat tyre on her Segway, so swapped with the guide. While unfortunately he could control our top speed on the machines, he couldn’t control how fast we went around corners. As such, Aunty Sue sped around a particular corner and almost lost control of the Segway, ending up in the garden next to the footpath. Unfortunately I’d missed recording the event on video, but we managed to get the aftermath. She was fine (hadn’t fallen over), and even managed to have a laugh at herself. Apart from breaking off a branch from a small tree, there was no other damage. She jumped straight back on, and we finished our tour.

The Segway Tour had definitely been one of the highlights for me. It had taken a little bit of convincing on my part to get anyone to do it with me, but afterwards they all agreed that it had been a lot of fun. We happily walked back into town to meet Mum, where we had some pizza for lunch at a pub, or at least something that resembled a pub to me. It was great tasting pizza, and we sat outside overlooking the bay. Very relaxing, and an incredibly beautiful sight.

We caught the ferry home, then got on a cable car to the park where part of Full House was filmed. We had a look around, then made our way to the corner of the park to look at the Painted Ladies – six Victorian/Edwardian homes in a row. We stopped for a photo opportunity of the group, where I informed them it was time to take a “unique” group photo, like jumping all at once (similar to the Toyota ads). I videotaped it, while Amy took photos. After they’d been made to jump twice, Amy requested another photo much to their dismay. After they all groaned, Madonna counted them in where they all jumped for the last time. Well, sort of. Mum just made a sort of lazy kick in the air with one leg, Mat didn’t move at all, and Aunty Sue just made a star sort of formation with her arms.

However, Pauline had saved her biggest jump for last, putting in so much effort that (in her words) she tried so hard to get her legs right up behind her that she didn’t have time to get her legs back down properly. Instead, she fell on her butt then rolled onto her back with her legs in the air. All of it caught on video. It was hilarious!! We all burst out laughing (Amy and I had tears), then finally checked she was ok. She confirmed that she was, and we spent the next couple of minutes reviewing her fall on the video camera, laughing hysterically when we saw it in fast forward. We decided then and there that we would need to make a Benny Hill special of our holiday, purely so we could watch her fall over to the Benny Hill show theme music. Slapstick comedy gold.

After we finished laughing, we split into two groups as everyone decided to go back to the hotel except for Mat, Amy and I. We were on a mission to find another bar that Amy had heard about, however this one involved catching a train out of town. First stop though was to a nearby chemist so I could buy some throat lozengers (I had a killer of a sore throat) and some lip balm.

After the chemist, we went down to the Powell St station, where instead of buying 2 x $5.50 tickets I bought one $11 ticket. We checked if that could permit both of us downstairs, but unfortunately it wouldn’t, so I had to cough up another $5.50. We caught the train to the station, then using Google Maps headed towards the bar. Earlier, because I hadn’t been feeling so well I was tossing up not coming, but I was so glad I had changed my mind.

The Forbidden Lounge Tiki Bar at Alameda is a hawaiian style bar complete with bamboo huts and waterfalls. We sat at the bar, and for our first cocktails I chose a chamborlada (effectively just a pína colada with a black raspberry chambord twist) while Mat had a banana mamacow. I forget what Amy had (possibly a Zombie??), but it came in an awesome tiki mug that was hers to keep. I had a taste of the drink (it was excellent), so made sure I chose that as my second drink so I got to take a tiki mug home too. We also decided to get the secret cocktail volcano, a drink designed for 4 people with a mixture only limited to the maker’s imagination.

The drink was amazing. It tasted superb, and came in a gigantic bowl with a raised bit in the middle filled with cubes lit on fire to make the volcano effect. It was designed for four people, but the three of us gave ourselves the challenge to finish  the drink before the cubes went out. We succeeded with plenty of time to spare.

We had also noticed a lot of $1 stuck to the roof of the bar. we asked the mixologist what the story was, and apparently it was tradition that all the men in the armed forces would write their names on the money and attach it to the roof so that when they came home from war they had drinking money. We asked for a pen, then wrote on our own $1 note, and Mat added it to the collection on the roof. It said:

Newsflash: Aussies get sunburnt on segways! Crikey!

We finished our drinks and headed outside to start the long drunken journey back to the hotel. Mat almost wet himself with excitement when he saw a 4wd parked outside the bar. It was a Ford ute lifted so high and with massive tyres that the bonnet was over our heads! Mat is quite partial to large 4wds (having just sold his own back at home) so excitedly raced around the truck looking underneath at all the modifications, while exclaiming loudly how much he loved it.

After Mat had video taped the truck we kept walking until we happened upon a bus stop. As we waited for the bus, it dawned on us that once again we had found ourselves in a scary looking neighborhood in the dead of night. Thankfully the first bus that came along was heading to San Francisco so we weren’t waiting for too long. The bus arrived in the city, and we stumbled outside from the transit centre to get onto a cable car. On the ride home we joked around with the driver who confirmed there was a bell ringing competition the following day (Aunty Sue had told us about it earlier). He let Amy have a go of ringing the bell, before entertaining us with his own tune, after which we cheered and clapped. His timing had been perfect, as at the conclusion of his song we found we had arrived back at the hotel. We thanked him, then headed upstairs where our big comfortable king sized beds eagerly awaited our arrival. It had been yet another fantastic day in America.

For Amy’s version of events you can see her blog post here.

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It certainly lived up to expectation. I got a bacon and egg bagel (with extra grease apparently), while Mat attempted to order a bacon and egg mcmuffin. Turned out they didn’t actually have those, so she ordered Mat an “egg mcmuffín” (people actually eat that by itself??) with bacon as an extra. We also got a large OJ to share, which turned out to be one of the biggest drinks I’ve ever seen!! It would be about the equivalent of two large OJ’s in Australia, I couldn’t picture anyone drinking that much by themselves.

After breakfast we continued to walk along the wharf, having a look at the shops along the way. We made a mental note of a souvenir shop we saw with a promise to return to it later, as well as Pier 39 (where all the seals are). I was impressed to see a Hard Rock Cafe, while Fiona was impressed by all the herbs growing in the gardens along the road.

We reached the ticket booth for Alcatraz when we noticed everyone in the line was distressed a little. It turned out that all the lines for the EFTPOS machines were down, so it was either cash or book your tickets via the phone then quote the reference number to staff in the ticketing booth. Mum rang and booked our tickets while we all sorted out cash to repay her, then with the crisis averted we picked up our prepaid tickets and went to join the line for the boat.

Apart from Mum and Madonna, we all became distracted looking around the Alcatraz gift shop. I was disappointed they didn’t have any “inmate” shirts, I had been planning on getting one for a friend at work. When I walked outside I saw Mum and Madonna were at the very front of the queue, so I ducked the ropes to join them (effectively pushing in). Mat was reluctant, but eventually did the same, as did Aunty Sue and Fiona. Amy and Pauline weren’t as rude as us though, and they went and joined the back of the line like good people. Unfortunately, this meant they missed out on the requisite souvenir photo taken by the company as you boarded the boat (available for purchase later). Mat and I ended up buying a copy – it was quite a nice group photo (except for two important people missing – sometimes it pays to be rude).

We boarded the ferry and immediately headed up top. After a short ferry ride across the bay (the island is a lot closer than I had expected), we disembarked and tried to decide what to do. The options were to either  listen to the guide tell a little bit of background of the island, or just go straight up the hill to the jail. We opted for the latter option, trusting Amy and Pauline (who had been there before) to show us the way. It meant we would beat the crowd for the audio tour.

Once inside, we were handed the equipment for our audio tour – headphones and the controls. The audio was timed perfectly to give you enough time to dawdle down the corridors looking around before giving you the next direction on where to go. They had audio from both previous guards and prisoners telling stories and sharing the feeling of the jail while it was in operation.  The best part of the tour was if you found you were struggling to keep up as well as take photos, you could always press pause on the controls. Much better than racing to keep up with a physical tour guide. I found I only got confused once or twice, and that was purely because I wasn’t listening – my fault. The funniest thing was while you were in a room with twenty to thirty people, you could press pause and find the room in complete silence – everyone was too busy listening to their headsets to talk!

The audio tour also taught me a lot about Alcatraz, things you wouldn’t ever hear of. Everyone knows the story about “the” escape attempt – the one with the fake heads, climbing through the walls and disappearing on a raft never to be seen again. But there are a lot of other interesting stories to be told, like another failed escape attempt that resulted in riots with grenades being dropped and bullet holes. The marks are still there in the building today. The audio also had stories from guards and inmates, so you really got a feel for what the place would have been like during its period of operation. Overall, I was really satisfied with the audio tour – job well done.

With regards to “the” escape attempt, it was so surreal seeing the papier máche dummy heads in real life. I’m a fan of the movie “Escape from Alcatraz”, so when I saw the false heads it almost felt like I was still watching the movie. I had to stare at the holes in the wall, before it clicked that this was where it actually happened. They also had a clear section where you could see through into the wall to see where they would have climbed amongst the pipes to get out. It must have been a damn tight squeeze for them though; the holes in the grates where they climbed out of their cells were tiny!! For the record, I’m a believer that they made it, although the wikipedia article states the official stance is they drowned.

After the tour had finished we made our way back down to the ferry and rode back across the bay to the mainland. We sat downstairs this time, and during the trip I amused myself by videotaping a woman who was falling asleep across from me. The deeper she snoozed the more she leant sideways, and at one point I was sure she was going to slide into the lap of the woman sitting next to her. Alas she awoke at the last second and sat back up. I quickly pointed the video tape in the other direction so she didn’t see me recording her and had a giggle to myself, while Mat scolded me.

Once back on the mainland, we walked back along Fisherman’s Wharf, taking a look at the shops we hadn’t seen the first time. We passed some hip hop dancers and musicians who tried to sell us one of their albums by shoving the CD in our faces. It didn’t really help their case as it tended to annoy me more than anything. One guy made me crack up laughing though when he pointed a CD in Mat’s face and asked “you like hip hop white boy?’” Mat’s face was priceless! Quite the shocked look on his face, and he told me later that he just couldn’t think of an appropriate response other than to laugh a little and shake his head.

We also stopped to have some lunch at In-N-Out burger, which I’d heard a lot about. Without going into too much unnecessary detail, the portion sizes were again big (we knew to only get a medium sized meal this time), and the burgers and ingredients were freshly made. The burgers were a lot better tasting than anything available in Australia in the equivalent takeaway category i.e. McDonalds, Hungry Jacks.

After walking along the street a bit more, we set off towards Ghirardelli Square, where I got my first taste of a peanut butter and chocolate square from Ghirardelli’s. Trust me, it sounds disgusting but it’s a match made in heaven – SO good. Based on Amy’s claim of being the location for the best hot chocolates in the world we also ordered two of those. They were pretty damn good! Had I lived in San Francisco though, I don’t know if I could have them all that often, as I’m sure they would be pretty high up in the calorie count. Plus, you’d have to keep them as a treat to ensure you didn’t become spoiled and lose the novelty of it.

After the hot chocolates we joined a long queue to catch a cable car back to the hotel. Amy and Pauline opted to catch a bus instead, as they weren’t really in the mood to stand around waiting. There was a homeless man hanging around who seemed to have his begging down to a fine art. He had a line that he kept repeating every few minutes, but unfortunately for him it didn’t really have much of an effect as we didn’t see him collect any money from anybody. It kind of went along these lines:

If anyone could please spare a couple of dollars I would really like to just go and buy a burger, fries and drink.

As the time passed he appeared to become more and more desperate. By the end of it, he was only asking for enough money for the burger. There was also a busker nearby entertaining the crowd, who seemed to have a bit more luck with the money. He had a ukulele, and was playing random songs while wearing one of those colourful hats with the fan on top. Someone must have said there were Australians in the crowd, as he began singing “Waltzin’ Matilda” and “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport”. Had I not known the lyrics to “Waltzin’ Matilda” I would never have guessed that’s what he was singing based on the tune he played. Extremely unrecognisable. My aunty rewarded him with 89c though, so he was happy. Finally our cable car arrived, and we went back to the hotel.

After a short break back at the hotel we rejoined in the lobby and made our way to Haight Street. For those not familiar with this street, it played a major role in the 1960′s hippy movement. There is still a lot of them around today in one form or another. Walking down the street, we saw people like stoners smoking some joints, to some hardcore punks. Unfortunately for us, the stoner’s smoke infiltrated our clothing, so we all smelled like we’d been having a few joints ourselves.

There was also quite a lot of interesting buildings to look at in Haight Street. One place in particular had a massive pair of legs sticking out from a window on the first storey! We visited Amoeba Records (famous for its size – it stocks over 100,000 cds, tapes and records), and Amy also informed us that it was on Haight Street that Charles Manson found some his followers. A lot of history for just one street!

After we’d wandered up and down the street we located a cafe for dinner. At first glance the place didn’t look very appealing (I admit, I judged a book by its cover) but actually had quite a tasty meal! Unfortunately I can’t recall exactly what I had, but I just remember enjoying it. I had a juice of some kind, and either a burger or a lasagne. The cafe also had free wifi (like most places in America) so there was the usual yuppie crowd with the laptops lining the counters. Unfortunately it didn’t appear the wifi was working, as none of them seemed to be able to connect (we had problems with our iphones as well).

After dinner, everyone headed back to the hotel except for Amy, Pauline, Mat and I. Amy had heard about a cocktail bar (called Bourbon and Branch) in San Francisco that was only a short walk from the hotel, and quite exclusive. We all decided we would go for a walk and try and find the place, have a quick drink, then return to the hotel and go to bed. Thus 15mins later we were standing on the street corner where we had heard the bar was meant to be located, but couldn’t see anything of the sort. In fact, we were standing in an area that looked incredibly dangerous, with lots of scary looking people walking around. It was confirmed when a guy looked at us (we must have stood out) and said ïf you guys aren’t sure where you’re going I would recommend not going any further – it’s really dangerous”. That was enough to put Pauline, Mat and I on edge, and we yelled at Amy that we should leave.

At that exact moment, a door opened and Amy saw the cocktail bar. She called us over, then knocked on the door. She explained we didn’t have the password (see the website) but Amy worked her magic and two minutes later we were in. Initially I was a bit overwhelmed by the menu, I can’t say that I’m experienced with cocktails, but decided to take a chance on a vodka mix. Let me just say, it was absolutely amazing. One of the best cocktails I’ve ever had. It left a powdery feeling in my mouth, which sounds worse than what it was. It was such a great sensation. One drink was also enough to make me feel on the verge of being drunk! I think Amy and Mat both had rum cocktails of some kind, and Pauline might have gone scotch? I tried each of their drinks and hated them all, cementing the fact I’m not a rum drinker (unless it’s bacardi – I enjoy that on the odd occasion).

After we had our drinks we paid for them and tipped the waitress, then started walking home. I was feel extremely tired by this point, but thankfully the walk home felt a lot quicker than when we were trying to find the bar. It was strange to see how only a few blocks separated the nice part of town with the dingy part. It was like two separate worlds! We arrived at the hotel, bid Amy and Pauline goodnight, and made our way back to bed. It was only day 3, but I was exhausted already!

For Amy’s version of events you can see her blog post here.

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First we went and waited for a cable car, but it looked so incredibly packed we decided to walk. After about 3 – 4 blocks, we entered into what we thought was just a normal shopping centre. Wrong. It was so impressive inside, it looked like somewhere designed for people only with wages in excess of $100,000. We looked at the price for some breakfast in a small cafe downstairs, but instead opted to walk back towards the hotel and look for places that had some appealing pancakes. We came across Lori’s diner, an interesting looking 50′s diner only a short walk from the hotel. We apologised to Aunty Sue for making her walk a fair distance (she was fine with it) and headed inside.

Mat ordered the country breakfast (two pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, hash browns and toast) while I opted for just the standard pancakes with maple syrup. While we waited for our food, we had a look around the inside of the cafe. Partial bodies of cars hung from the walls, along with a plane and other 50′s memorabilia. We were in a booth that had it’s own cool little juke box which reminded me of the old Johnny Rocket’s cafe we’d had at the Sunshine Plaza in the good ol’days. I couldn’t resist, promptly popping in a few quarters and choosing some songs. The service was quite speedy (although impersonal – it didn’t look like he was happy to serve us), and the food was very fulfilling. It took us a while to figure out how much money each of us owed including tax and tip, but finally worked it out and handed the money over. Next to the counter was a pokies machine that each person got to try their luck when paying for their meal. If they hit the jackpot their meal was free. While we’d been eating a man had won the jackpot, and unfortunately they were resetting the machine when we were getting ready to leave, so we were unable to try it ourselves.

One of the cars on the wall at Lori's diner

After breakfast, Mat and I had just enough time to go to AT & T and get a 3g prepaid sim card for my iphone before it was time to meet with the others. We all piled in the car except for Aunty Sue and Fiona, who chose to stay back at the hotel. We headed out of the city towards Muir Woods, getting fantastic views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the bay. I was shocked to see Alcatraz for the first time. It’s really quite close to the city! For some reason I had it in my head that it was further out, but it didn’t seem that way at all.

We arrived at Muir Woods, and after paying our entry fees headed in. What a stunning nature reserve. The landscape was full of gigantic redwood trees, bubbling brooks and wildlife. We saw a couple of deer, and a gorgeous little animal that after much debate we decided was a chipmunk (after googling this, I found that indeed, it was a chipmunk).

I had taken the opportunity to take my camera tripod with me this day, but unfortunately it also meant that I had to carry it around as well as the video camera. Mat refused to be my bag bitch, so I was lumped with it all. I cursed, but at the end of the day I’m glad I took it because it meant that I actually had some steady video. I was also really lucky to get some great footage with of the chipmunk. I had bent over and held the video camera at my feet pointing at the chipmunk, with the LCD screen swivelled up so I could see what I was looking at. Thank goodness for technology.

A redwood tree at Muir woods

At one point we all stopped to take some photos of the group on a bridge in the park. While we all posed, a small crowd started building up at either edge of the bridge. We were quite amazed that all the americans politely waited until we were finished before walking past. You don’t get that back at home! Australian’s are notorious for walking through people’s pictures (we walked through our fair share of photos while we were in America), and in fact you’ll find in my video footage of Mat walking through my video. At the time he was actually making a joke about walking in front, and told me later that he had intended to do it while I was filming. Whatever, I vote he was just being Australian *grin*

We finished walking the track then piled back into the car. On the way back towards San Francisco we stopped off at various places to get some beautiful scenic shots of the Golden Gate Bridge. Most of the lookouts were extremely windy I almost felt like I was going to be blown over! Once again I congratulated myself on the decision to bring the tripod because there was no way I would have gotten a steady shot without it. The wind brought with a deep chill as well, so needless to say we weren’t out of the car taking pictures for long!

We also drove the famous Lombard St, the most crooked street in the world. Correction – Pauline drove it and the rest of us looked out the windows gawking at how steep the road was, and all the brave people climbing the stairs on either side. The hill is so steep they made a winding road on it in an attempt to battle the incline (and saving brakes in the process). It’s paved in brick, and you can see where many people have scratched their cars along the walls on their way down. Thankfully we didn’t (due to Pauline’s amazing driving even with all of us being loud in the back). Unfortunately the video I recorded doesn’t really do the street justice, you can’t tell just how steep it truly is! When you watch the video I’ve made, try to look at the angle the pedestrians are standing on, and you can try to imagine what it felt like.

After Lombard St we drove back to the hotel, where we had a brief rest. We then all met downstairs again, and set off for dinner. The decision had been made to go to a particular Sicilian restaurant about 15 – 20mins walk away. Unfortunately for us that also meant walking through China Town, where we smelled some of the most disgusting smells ever. Think of rotting seafood, then add some dead carcass, maybe some mould, and then triple it. That’s how bad it was. There was one street corner where we waited for the lights to change so we could cross the street, and everyone was gagging or holding their nose. It was terrible. I guess you could tell we were tourists.

Thankfully we arrived at our destination, Trattoria Volare, with our noses intact. It was a beautiful little restaurant with an authentic interior, it definitely made you feel at ease. It was also nice and warm too, compared to the temperature outside (which was rapidly cooling). We all ordered various entrees to share around, along with some mains. I had the calamari entree, and given that I didn’t like much of the other stuff our group had ordered, I was only too happy to keep the calamari to myself and not share (I did offer once, but that was the only invite they were getting). I think I had the gnocci for my main. I can’t remember what it was called exactly, but I know I really enjoyed whatever it was and finished the meal in its entirety. Although I probably shouldn’t have, I’d eaten so much!

A handkerchief covered the controversial parts of David at Trattoria Volare

After dinner we walked around for a little bit. We saw the church where Marilyn Munroe married Joe DiMaggio, which looked absolutely beautiful at night. Religion makes Mat a little bit uncomfortable, so he questioned why we were visiting a church (he hasn’t yet understood my family has a habit of visiting old churches and monastries), but I gave him a look and he quickly shut up.

Dark was fast approaching, so we waited for the next cable car to show up. We rode it back to our hotel, and after sitting down with hot chocolates and tea/coffee, chatted for a while. Fiona updated Aunty Sue’s facebook to indicate she was hanging out at a male strip club in San Francisco (which made us all giggle since Aunty Sue kept coming up with better and better updates for Fiona to write). Eventually though it was time for bed, so we all retired for the evening. Tomorrow was going to be one of the highlights of the whole trip for me – we were due to visit Alcatraz.

For Amy’s versions of events, you can see her blog post here.

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We got up, showered and double checked our bags for the 50th time. Dad arrived right on time at 6am to pick us up, as he was kindly driving us to the airport (saving us about $50 in shuttle costs in the process). We had dropped Turbo off at the dog kennel the day before, so the house felt very empty. After double and triple checking the house was locked up, we packed the bags in the car and we were off! For a few minutes at least. Thankfully we hadn’t driven very far when Mat realised he’d left his (only) jacket back at home, so we turned around so he could collect it. We all teased him about being the one to forget something, then headed off again (I later discovered on the plane that I had forgotten the pashmina my mother had given me, but purposely neglected to tell Mat this for several days).

My dad's flatmate, my dad and Mat - just before we left for the airport

An hour and a half later we arrived at the airport, and bid my dad and his flatmate farewell, before walking inside. We thought check in only opened 3 hours before the flight, and we were there 3.5 hours early but thankfully it was already open. We checked our bags in (flashing my passport for the first time – big moment for me), and looked for something to eat for breakfast. Mat saw a coffee club downstairs, so we decided we’d get customs over and done with and find something to eat in the departure lounge. This meant finally crossing the line – getting to go through the big yellow “Passengers only” door frame. Mat didn’t see what was so exciting about it, but after I’d dropped off members of my family numerous times for their holidays it was fantastic to finally be the one crossing the line. I was a little disappointed there wasn’t anyone to see us off (and more importantly, be the one that wasn’t crossing the line) but excitement soon took over again.

Customs was actually a lot easier than I expected. The staff were friendly, and it only took us 5 minutes to get through. In my excitement I didn’t realise “liquids” included toiletries, and that we had to take them out and send them through the x-rays by themselves. Thus our bags were taken aside and searched, and when the customs officer realised what had look abnormal in the scan she took out the toiletries (which we’d correctly put in a see-through zip locked bag) and sent them through again separately from the bag. She laughed and said she could tell we were novices, and cheerfully wished us a fantastic holiday. Not the “hardcore serious” customs officer I’d expected to encounter.

We had our breakfast, collected our refund for our video camera, tripod, camera bag and batteries from the TRS desk, then wandered around to look at all the duty free stores. We were going to be meeting some friends in Las Vegas who had moved to the UK for a 2 years, and they’d asked us to pick up some Silver label Bundaberg Rum for them to bring over (as they hadn’t been able to find anywhere to buy it over there). We purchased the rum along with a beaded neck pillow for the flight (recommendation from our chiro). Amazingly we’d managed to waste a lot of time, and was shocked to find there was only 1/2 hour before boarding time, so we walked to the gate and sat down. We spent the last half hour video taping ourselves and staring out the window. Eventually, it was time to board.

I won’t go through the specifics of our thirteen hour flight because it would get pretty boring. But here’s my main thoughts:

1. Thumbs up V-Australia for comfy seats – I didn’t feel squashed at all
2. Thumbs up V-Australia for a great entertainment system – when I was bored I watched movies, played some games, or video taped our progress on the map.
3. Thumbs up V-Australia for the food (sensing a thumbs up theme here?) I really enjoyed what we had, only complaint would be the waffles were a little bit dry, but it’s airplane food, not a 5 star restaurant. Mat taunted me with his delicious spinach fritata, it tasted so good.
4. Mat really struggled to get any sleep on this flight. However I managed to nap a little bit here and there, thanks to my noise cancelling headphones and the V-Australia eye mask.
5. We were lucky enough not to have anyone sitting in the third seat in our row, so were able to stretch out a bit.
6. When they handed out the customs form there were a few questions that made me nervous, like the date of our Visa Waiver. When I applied it said we weren’t required to bring it to the airport with us, and I wasn’t sure of the exact date we’d applied (I later found out they didn’t need this info from us anyway, so I’d been stressing out for nothing).
7. Flying from Australia to America takes AGES!!

As we were coming down to land it was like being in a movie. We could make out the freeways and cars, and giggled about them being on the wrong side of the road. We saw a black and white police car, and laughed because it was like out of the movies. We saw american vehicles, and laughed. Yes, we had the giggles out of excitement.

After we disembarked and collected our luggage we headed through customs. I kept reminding myself not to make any bad jokes,  and after getting our fingerprints scanned we made it through. We walked outside the terminal where a man immediately introduced himself to us and offered to help us find our destination. We told him we were looking for the entrance back to the Terminal so we could check in for our next flight, and he pointed out the way for us. The official way in which he spoke made me think he was an actual employee of the airport so I was quite impressed with the service, until I realised that he actually wasn’t a staff member. This was around the same time he asked for a tip for helping us out. Before I knew it Mat had given him US$20 (!!!) and we were off walking again. At that point I told Mat he was officially banned from handing out any more money to people on the street.

A nice view of LAX airport, better than what we saw when we arrived (Photo credit: marcus_and_sue)

We got to the elevators the guy had pointed us to and found it was just more carpark. We realised there was another elevator at the far end of the carpark, so walked over there. I wouldn’t be surprised if the parking area was a highlight of the day for Mat, as he found 4wd after 4wd. Each time he tried to inconspicuously look them over and drool, while I kept walking on. He really enjoyed the trucks that he saw all over America, given they have much more relaxed rules on what is a roadworthy vehicle. His “monster truck” back home (that he’d sold to help fund our holiday – amongst other reasons) would have been a baby in America! Finally we reached the other elevator, got to the right level and headed back into the airport.

We checked our baggage in, and headed outside to just have a look before going back into the airport and through security. The weather was quite overcast, and security were looking at us a little funny for filming the outside of the airport and some cars, so we packed up and went back inside. We went through security (one of the many times during our holiday we’d have to take our shoes off for security purposes, and Mat’s socks stunk!!) and walked towards our gate. I must say, I really found LAX to be quite a disappointment. Terminal 3 was old and tired looking and there wasn’t much to do. After coming from Brisbane International where everything is nice and new it was a bit of a letdown. We bought some coffee and snacks (confusing the starbucks people at the time with our accents) and sat down to wait for our connecting flight to San Francisco.

It turned out there was runway maintenance work going on in San Francisco, thus our flight was delayed by 2 hours. In total, we waited for 6 hours at LAX, it was a nightmare! We were bored and tired, so not in the best spirit to deal with a flight delay. Back home I would have been able to spend the time surfing the net on my iphone, but not having a working sim card meant I couldn’t do the same. Until I realised that T Mobile had a wifi hotspot, but it cost US $10 for 24 hour access. After an hour of boredom I caved in and bought a 24 hour access pass for only 5 hours. I spent the time updating twitter and facebook (with very cranky messages about the flight delay) and clearing my google reader while Mat attempted to nap on the chair next to me. It wasn’t very comfortable for him – he was sitting totally upright with nowhere to rest his head comfortably. Needless to say, he didn’t catch much sleep.

Finally we flew to San Francisco. We chatted a little bit with the American woman in the same row as us (she lived just outside of the city), but other than that the flight was pretty uneventful. Thankfully it was short! After we arrived we collected our luggage we set out to find the BART train. We did a couple of loops of the airport due to bad signage, but finally I figured out where we were going just in time to get our tickets and get on the train in the station. Once on the train we watched the passing scenery get more and more compact with residential property the further we headed towards the city. We weren’t used to seeing so many houses packed together (even in Brisbane), and it gave me the feeling of being a hillbilly! Very strange indeed. Originally when planning the trip I wasn’t sure if we would catch the train, get a shuttle bus or take a taxi. In the end I was glad we used the train – it was great value for money, just as fast as the other options and so incredibly simple!

Before we knew it we had arrived at our stop. We got off the train and headed upstairs. We saw all the signs for the various exits but unfortunately none of them pointed to the street we wanted to go to. As we were deciding which exit we’d gamble on we were approached by a passer by (he looked quite normal) who quickly pointed us in the right direction. He made conversation about the city, and even walked us out to the street. He asked what hotel we were staying at, then took out a map and pointed it out to us. Handing me the map and telling me I could keep it, he then asked for a tip. I cursed myself for not realising it was the same as the guy at LAX, and that I hadn’t seen the handful of maps he was holding in his other hand. Mat was switched on at this point, quickly handed the guy a dollar, and we walked off. Surprisingly, the guy was actually pleased with receiving a dollar. I have no idea how much these guys normally get, but we used the map several times over the course of our San Francisco leg, so I guess for us $1 was good value.

Arriving at the hotel I was impressed to see the doormen out the front in their costume-like atire. They greeted us warmly, and after we assured them we would be fine carrying our luggage to the reception ourselves (call me a tight ass for not accepting the service and tipping them) they returned to their post. I was very impressed with the interior of the hotel, it was incredibly beautiful. We checked in, and I inquired as to whether my aunt had arrived at the hotel. They were unable to locate her name in the computer, however informed me that I had mail (which later turned out to be a message from my Aunt letting me know what room she was in) and handed me an envelope. Thanking her, we then went upstairs to our room.

The doorman at Sir Francis Drake Hotel (photo credit: izahorsky)

Initially I was shocked by the size of the room – it appeared to be so very small. At the end of our stay though it felt like the perfect size. We’d really only spent enough time there for short breaks and rests, and sleep at night. The main thing was the bed was comfortable and very big (a king sized bed was probably the reason for the room feeling small), so we were well rested each day. I opened the envelope to find the message from my aunt, and phoned her to let her know we’d arrived. We agreed to meet in an hour downstairs. We had enough time to both have showers before my aunt rang again to let me know the rest of the family had arrived (as they were driving south to San Francisco to meet us – they’d already been in the USA for 3 weeks at that point). We all met downstairs and exchanged hugs, then ventured out for dinner.

We wandered around nearby, watching a cable car run down the street and turn around as well as seeing a Melbourne Tram go past (they’d been donated to the city by Australia). We ended up at a place called Buckhorn Grill, where we had our first proper taste of American food. Typically we went for the most outrageous things. I know I got a Bacon Cheddar Buck, but unfortunately forget what Mat’s “buck” was called. When our food arrived we were pretty shocked – they looked massive and greasy! I guess that was the best introduction of American food we could have had really – we’d been expecting huge and greasy food so may as well deal with it straight up. We managed our way through them, but I can’t say we were exactly satisfied. We sure were full though!

Darkness had settled by the time we walked back to the hotel, and the city looked quite pretty at night. Some of the buildings were lit up beautifully! I was impressed that Mat and I had lasted the full day without sleeping, and I think it worked out to be a full 24 hours that we had been awake for. I’d had the odd nap on the plane at least, while Mat had literally had nothing. We finalised a plan for the following morning with the family, then bid everyone good night and headed to our room. The bed looked incredibly inviting, and  we both fell asleep with ease, incredibly exhausted. It had been a long, long day.

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Video summary:

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To visit California and Nevada over a 2 week timeframe

The dates:

May 10th through to May 24th

The participants:

• Kelly – me
• Mat – my boyfriend
• Amy – my sister
• Lynne – my mother
• Pauline – Amy’s partner
• Sue – my aunty
• Fiona – my cousin
• Madonna – my aunty

Amy, Pauline, Lynne, Sue and Fiona had already been travelling the east coast of America, and we were due to meet up with them in San Francisco. Madonna arrived a day earlier than us, and joined us for the entire 2 weeks.

Anything else:

I decided I would video tape this holiday, as video is so much more fun. It’s easier to see the emotions we expierienced, you can relive the funny moments, and it’s more interesting to share with others! Of course, you can’t quite tell the whole story by video, thus each day of our holiday will be explained in a blog post with a video highlights reel afterwards. Enjoy!

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