Canada, eh.

Been a while since the last update! Hired a car and drove back to LA where we spent a few days just relaxing at Venice Beach near Santa Monica in LA. Wandering up and down the boulevard, having huge margarita’s and all you can eat sliders (mini burgers) in at a little place we found on the Promenade. Hired another car one day and went down to San Diego via Laguna Beach and the Pacific Coast Highway. 

That night we waved good bye to our Aussie buddies and then sat on a train to Seattle for 32 hours – not as bad as we thought it would be! We spent just the night in Seattle before moving on to Vancouver for the rest of the week. Stayed with Aimee’s Aunty and Uncle in North Vancouver who were extremely generous and showed us around all the Van has to offer. We became enthusiastic band wagon Ice Hockey fans and cheered the Canucks on in their victory to enter the Stanley Cup – we now have 4 more games to watch in order to see them win (for the first time since ’94). 

Visited Totem Poles and Hollow Trees in Stanley Park, caught the ferry across to Vancouver Island to catch up with Chris and partied the night away before returning feeling slightly seedy, thanks 2L of cider. Sampled Salmon Jerky at Granville Island and drove up to Whistler to bask in the carefree atmosphere of the mountain life – mentally planning a big trip back there already! Get fit week in Vancouver very quickly turned into get fat week with a night out to all you can eat sushi and another round of huge burrito’s, this time at a place called Raglans in Lonsdale Quay. We also enjoyed our first Poutine experience – fries cover in gravy and cheese – amazing, just when I thought the diet was looking up!! 

Burger count = ~25. Pizza slice count = ~20. Run count = 2. Hmmmm.  

We are back to Seattle now before heading to Chicago then making our way back down south. Go Canucks Go!

Santa Monica Pier

Margarita!

Dolphins in Victoria, Vancouver Island

Vancouver city at night from Stanley Park

Shannon Falls between Whistler and Vancouver

We decided we need more photo's with us in them - look out point over North Vancouver and Lion's Gate Bridge

Climbing the Hollow Tree

Vancouver and Me

Manky Racoon - possibly (but probably not) the one that ran away after our taxi ran it over the night before

Viva Las Vegas!

So, Vegas. What can I say… What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? Pretty much!

Did the token tourist things - Stayed at quintessential Vegas – Caesar’s Palace – where we relaxed by one of the 8 or so pools after staying up all night – clubs, shows, casinos… Walked the strip, visited Fremont St in Old Vegas, photo’s by the Las Vegas sign etc.

A huge thank you to Shelley and Denie who had us around for dinner last night, and then Denie for my ride up the strip on a Harley and for taking us all out to the Hoover Dam this morning, we were feeling very untouristy until then!

Casino’s are all amazing inside but they didn't manage to steal too much money off of me. Amazing acrobatics (and bodies) at Cirque de Soleil. And of course the lights show at the Bellagio!

Sorry for the short message, like I said what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas :) Missing all my friends and family at home so much, especially my buddy Kieran who flew all the way to LA to see me the day after I left xx

Rolling around in cash after winning big at the casino's and before partying it up big in town... (disclaimer, might not have won big at the casino's)

View out over the pools from our room

Token tourist photo

The Strip by night

"I can't get a sig on my beep" mosaic in Caesar's lobby

Hoover Dam - the new bridge

Arizona, Nevada, Arizona, Nevada...

San Francisco - Part Two

At the moment I’m sitting in LAX again in transit to Vegas!!! We’ve had a very busy last few days in San Fran, on Wednesday night we headed out to the Castro (gay district) to party (very briefly) before heading back into town to a club. After a slow start, we headed to Pier 39 for some clam chowder and sourdough from the place it all began – Boudins (apparently). Then we tackled the bridge, we hired bikes and cycled our little hearts out for about 4hours, stopping every 20 or so minutes for sunscreen reapplication – it was a stunning day. We finally arrived in a gorgeous little town over the other side of the bridge – Sausalito and relaxed there before taking the ferry back across the harbour where we took some more snaps of the bridge and Alcatraz, as if 200 of each wasn’t enough already…  I went for another giant walk through town to get some photos in at Union Square before heading home to get ready for another night on the town. Our wolfpack was starting to grow extremely large by this night and we had aussies, kiwis, scots, brits, americans and safa’s along for the ride to a club that had a slide to drop down into it – coolness.

By Friday we thought we’d pretty much covered off all tourist spots in San Fran so jumped on a train to go and have a nosey at the Berkeley Campus where we sat on the grass like token students – I’m pretty sure we didn’t fit in as the conversation wasn’t very intellectual (think Scary Movie 2 quotes, JenJen).  After that I’d been told about Irish Coffee’s at the Buena Vista pub down by Fishermans wharf so two of us jumped off the tube and headed towards there. However, we got sidetracked several times along the way – the first was at an Oxygen bar on the Pier where we got in these machines that gave you a massage using water pressure, that was interesting – great massage but super loud! Then for some pure oxygen up the nose, infused with things like peppermint and vanilla for different energizing purposes – it must have worked because I certainly felt alive after that, although that also could have been because the guy electrocuted me about 6 times with the stupid electric contact pads for some muscle relaxation until I told him that if I wanted electric shocks I could just go home and grab a fence and to take it off me and leave me alone – he didn’t get a tip. We left there and wandered around to watch the seals at the wharf either laze or fight – great free entertainment again! Some acrobatic street performers were the next stop – they did get a tip because they were awesome. And finally it was onto the coffees – well I had a Bloody Mary which was full of vodka but tasted divine. We got the best seat in the house and chatted to the bartender while he made the coffees full of sugar, tullamore dew and cream. He said they make about 2000 of these coffees a day, going through about 200 bottles of the whiskey. There seemed to be a very messy art to making them with coffee and whiskey going everywhere! We got home, enjoyed free dinner night again watched the Hangover to get in the mood for Vegas and had a quiet Friday night until some guy woke us up screaming like a banshee for about 45minutes in the middle of the night, I think he is in jail now.

So, sorry for the excess of photos showing Alcatraz, the golden gate and the city skyline, we’ve had a blast in SF, it is a beautiful funky city that is well worth the visit if you get the chance. Vegas baby!!! xx

Cycling the bridge

Chinatown

Half way across the Golden Gate

Berkeley Clock Tower

Yum - clam chowder in sourdough bowl

Hearts in Union Square

Obligatory bridge pose

Seals fighting and sleeping

Thumbs up across America

When you're going to San Francisco...

I completely forgot to write about the highlight, or lowlight, of our last day in LA – the brilliant machine when I was buying my metro ticket decided to give me my 14 dollars of change in quarters. So in amongst a hundred or so people in a bustling metro in the middle of Hollywood it sounds like I’ve won big time at the pokies for about 30 seconds while everyone stops and looks at me and the machine spits out quarters – very impractical and heavy!! I win! First up LA photos from the last blog...

Scotty outside the Farmers Market.

Token photo of the Stars House tour - Beckingham Palace.

That's where I want to be..

Shaking hands with Arnie

Walk of Fame!

Aimee and Katie standing under this thing to apparently get famous

At the Getty Centre

I wanted to take this MASSIVE couch, looked soooo comfy.

Rodeo Drive Baby

So we left LA on Monday morning, went to the airport and picked up our sah-weet ride, Dodge Charger, rearranged the boot about 6 times to fit our five suitcases in and then stuffed the rest of the car with the five of us. Got the Navman sorted and away we went. Drive was long and stunning and the Navman was the NavBitch by the time we got to San Fran but we made it!  We were to leave the tank as empty of gas as possible and the car wasn’t due back until the following morning so with a quarter tank of gas still we cruised the streets of San Fran for a few hours: number one on the list was of course crossing the golden gate, drove to a spot to get a beautiful view of the city, stopped by the Full House house to visit the Tanners and the rest of the gang, that was after going to “the address mentioned in Full House as 1882 Girard St”, a number that doesn’t exist – thanks NavBitch – on a street that does and was on the other side of town in the middle of the ghetto (if only we’d read the second sentence on Wikipedia) where we drove by a 4 police cars in the middle of a raid. Stopped by the Party of Five pad and corner of Haight and Ashbury too and just had a general nose around. Staying at the Green Tortoise-great hostel, free food (breakfast every day and dinner three nights a week) and great location.

Woke on Tuesday morning to a parking ticket on the car, who knew they street cleaned at 4am and fined you for it if you parked in the way. Went to Alcatraz Island first thing and had a look around and learnt all of the history (it was a fort and an army base before the prison and then home to American Indians for 18months before becoming the most popular tourist attraction in SF). Beautiful, cold and scary place, very well worth the visit! Wandered the streets of down town and sat in Union Square and had a beer in the afternoon with a spot of shopping to round things off. Thai dinner, Mexican beer and Salsa dancing in the evening until the early morning!

Today (Wednesday) we were told by one of Aimee’s friends to head to 16^th and Mission which we did and ended up in the middle of the Latino ghetto, very eye opening but we had the best and biggest burrito in the world for lunch – it’s now 6 hours later and I still don’t want dinner yet. We then decided to head back to the Full House house and Haight and Ashbury corner in the daylight, and coincidentally walked past the US Mint (where they make all US coins) on the way. Then a visit to the world’s crookedest street before heading home for some much needed legs up time, I think we’ve walked close to 30km today!! Not ideal in jeans and jandals – I need a beer! Ciao

Dodge Charger

Alcatraz

Cells - 5 feet by 9 feet each. Tiny.

The view from Alcatraz - so the prisoners knew what they were missing on the outside.

Alcatraz Island

United States Mint

Full House from Alamo Park.

Speaks for itself...

World's Crookedest Street

Californiaaaaaaa

After a slighty stressful beginning to our trip – the fog in Auckland caused Scotty’s flight from New Plymouth to be cancelled, only for him to, through some minor miracle, get booked on a new one just in time – we departed Auckland LAX bound.

The Banana Bungalow has played host to us while we have been star spotting here in Hollywood. We went exploring the famous Farmers Market on the corner of Fairfax and 3^rd, great little spot for authentic cuisine and in behind the markets is The Grove – some flashy shopping which our budgets don’t stretch to. We managed to get into the Jay Leno show featuring Steven Tyler so look that episode up and see if you can spot us in the crowd.

Kicked off our first Friday night in style with a par-tay here at the Banana Bungalow, free keg included, and then a stretch hummer picked us up to take us to a club in H town. The start to the day on Saturday was a bit slow but we managed to get our tourist hats on and jump in a van for sightseeing of the stars homes after a spot of Hooters for lunch.

After polishing off another bottle of $3.99 wine we hit a gay bar last night with near-naked greasy men swinging from the rafters with dollar bills stuffed in and around their crotch. The tequila shots weren’t really shots rather a lot of tequila just poured into a glass, hard to drink in one gulp!!

Slow start again to the day today but we spent a few hours at the Getty Centre and then (window) shopped on Rodeo Drive.  Have just been down to our favourite farmers market again for dinner, unfortunately it was closed so went to a diner instead. Burger count is getting high.

Americans are nice so far!! Even the bus driver who called us all sweetie as we got on the bus and then proceeded to drive the entire trip with her hand on the horn. That’s the other thing, they loooove their car horns, if anyone even looks like they are going to brake about 8 horns go HONK. Free entertainment.

I have found my dream supermarket – Whole Foods – it sells purely organic food and everything is divine, it also has the $3.99 wine so that might help it in the rankings. We have also joined forces with a couple of aussie guys and tomorrow we head off to San Fran with them – I think I’ve volunteered to drive part of the trip so that will be interesting, or alarming!

Til next time… xx