After the final delayed flight with Air New Zealand (yay!) we landed at Los Angeles, having traversed the Pacific and crossing the International Date Line for the third time meaning we arrived before we left - very confusing. Our adventure began by realising that we hadn't perhaps prepared ourselves that well for America and had no guide book to help us (you really feel naked without one after a while). So after a little tour of the airport to try and find a helpful tourist info point (no such luck), we jumped on the bus to collect our hire car and then find a bookstore.
After the standard jet lagged cock up of forgetting your prepaid voucher at the car rental office, we drove off not really knowing where we were going - not a great idea in LA! After a couple of hours we got our bearings and decided to head for Hollywood where we booked ourselves into a cheapo motel on the slightly dodgy end of Sunset Boulevard (next to a strip club). We were so exhausted that we didn't do much on our first night, managing only to take a quick drive up and down the strip to take in the sights and sounds of Hollywood.
Next day after a leisurely start we spent the afternoon sitting in a LA cafe people watching and listening to people having LA conversations - hilarious! This friend is in rehab, that friend is having cosmetic surgery...blah blah. People here are so caught up in the whole celebrity ambience they all start behaving as though they are famous. Very funny to listen in and it was easy to spend the entire day gawking at the botox and hair dye strutting up and down Sunset Boulevard!
The next day we took a stroll up to the Hollywood Hills and also went for a spot of shopping, finally ending up in the famous El Capitan cinema. Well we thought you can't go to Hollywood without seeing a film can you? Our choice was 8 below which was pretty good, and made Zaida cry (such a girl). While we were there the Oscars were being set up and there were seating stands being erected along Hollywood Boulevard. No red carpets yet but it looked like a huge operation. They take this stuff so seriously don’t they?!?! We were planning on going clubbing that night but after a chat with a shop assistant decided that we wouldn't be glam enough, especially after she recommended that Zaida should 'really' dress up and then try and sneak Chris in. No trainers or 't' shirts here, strictly Gucci and Prada.
After a couple of nights soaking in the glitz and glam of Hollywood we drove around the famous 'home to the stars' - Beverly Hills and Bell Air. In our guide book it recommended a star spotting drive to various actors homes, we kinda thought it would be odd sitting outside peoples homes so didn't do that but took a nice drive through the area before hitting the shops on Rodeo Drive. We took a wander through the shops of Beverly Hills, only window-shopping as the designer stores and travelers budget don't exactly go hand-in-hand. We tried to get an 'al fresco' seat at a cool cafe for some more people watching but it seemed that everyone else had the same idea, or perhaps they wanted to be seen instead. We ended up in what appeared to be the most popular Italian restaurant in town, still no celebrities spotted but lots of wannabes. After leaving the restaurant we finally saw our first star, if you can call him that - remember the head teacher in Ferris Bulers Day off? Well it was him whatever his name is. He definitely wanted to be seen as he was cruising around in a vintage open top Jaguar. Does this mean he is officially a 'has been'?
After growing tired of being surrounded by millions of dollars and feeling like such tourists we headed for Santa Monica to keep it real and mingle amongst some normal people. Santa Monica is a really nice town on a huge beach where they filmed Baywatch. They have a huge park along the sea front, which is great for promenading at sunset and a pier, which is very much like the pier in Brighton. It even has the same magnetism to pikeys, vagrants and cheeky street performers - all good fun. They also had a restaurant called 'Bubba Gump Shrimp' which Zaida thought existed before the movie Forrest Gump(bless).
After our walk along the pier we noticed a huge stack of shipping crates in the car park with people queuing outside. We went over to check it out and realised that it was a photographic art exhibition called 'Ashes and Snow' by Gregory Colbert. There have been posters all around LA advertising it and we finally clicked it was linked to this. We went in to check out what all the fuss was about and it was pretty cool, we are sure the exhibition will come to London at some point so you must check it when it does. Anyway that was our bit of culture for the day ;o)
We stayed in Santa Monica that evening; the place has a really nice vibe about it with shops open until late and some cool restaurants and bars. Some of the pedestrian streets reminded us of Covent Garden as they had loads of performers (including a Physic cat, hilarious) and lots of people milling around - definitely a cool place to hang out!
We managed to see what we considered to be the main attractions in Los Angeles but couldn't do it all, well you can't in just a couple of days, its HUGE. It's a funny sort of place where celebrity is everything and if you don't care much about that sort of thing I guess you just won't get it; it was wicked fun all the same. With that in mind we decided to drive up the coast and head for San Francisco.
We initially intended to take one week driving up the West Coast to San Francisco and then onto Tahoe, but by this time Chris was getting seriously itchy feet knowing that our snowboarding equipment had already arrived in lake Tahoe and that there was loads of snow. In the end the snow proved too much of a distraction and it was decided to cut short our tour of the coast and rush to the Mountains. Thing is there isn't that much to see in winter on the drive, the coastline is beautiful but not worth spending days shivering by the shoreline. Shivering on the top of a mountain is of course perfectly reasonable 
Our first stop on the drive was Malibu Beach, which is still awesome in winter although very deserted. We did see some lifeguards hanging out in their yellow 4x4's and had to make a quick U-turn to go back and get a photo. Just like Baywatch, except less scantily clad women and muscle men bouncing around. Zaida did the Baywatch slow motion jog (fully clothed) to try and recreate the scene.
After our brief stop at the beach we headed to Santa Barbara. Driving along the highway it wasn't particularly obvious when we actually reached Santa Barbara so we ended up driving around until we reached the town which was really nice. We stopped for coffee and cake in the awesome bakery and chilled in the afternoon winter sunshine before deciding to make the most of the day and get some miles under the wheels driving 250 miles up to Pebble beach and the Monterey Peninsular which is a couple of hours drive south of San Francisco.
After spending a brief night in a random motel we took the scenic drive through their Monterey National Park, we jumped out of the car for quick walks along windy beaches and great look out points on the coast. In the national park there has a fantastic member only golf course where the US open has been played 4 times, people that live and play golf here are obviously wedged!
We left Monterey rather windswept and headed for San Francisco that afternoon, breaking into song 'with do you know the way to San Jose, lalalala' every now and then. We have been really looking forward to getting to San Francisco as we have heard such fantastic things about it, and like most people who come here we also fell in love with the place and think it might by our favourite American city (as well as New York of course). It has a very relaxed feel about the place, the people are friendly and sociable which is cool for a big city.
We found ourselves a nice, good value motel in the posh Nob Hill area that was a great central location for exploring Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown and the Downtown areas. On our first day exploring the city we rode the cable cars and trams around the steep hills of San Fran, unlike other American towns we completely understand why people don't walk as the hills are killers and almost vertical in some places. The streets look like the ones you get in car chase movies (see 'Bullitt' staring Steve McQueen for the best example) where you see cars literally taking off over steep intersections.
We took full advantage of the seafood on offer in the Fisherman’s Warf area and had the popular Dungeness crab at Joes Crab Shack (lush). The clam chowder in the bread bowls is a real delicacy in SF, we didn't manage to try this dish but it looks wicked! We did however sample some good local beers and San Francisco’s take on an Irish coffee, which certainly warmed us up! Fisherman’s Wharf has a fishing village atmosphere which still has some of its original charm with old boats permanently docked in the harbour and warehouse style buildings. As well as the boats there are hundreds of very smelly and noisy seal lions perched on pontoons. It really was a sight to be seen and loads of fun watching them lounging around, playing, grunting and barking at one another. After ten minutes the smell became too much (they really stink!) so we took a tour around Alcatraz which was really interesting. We loved hearing the stories of what went on in the prison, kind of like being on the set of the movie whilst visualising all the action. If you are ever in SF go take a look.
On our last day in the city we wanted to make sure we took in as much of San Francisco as possible so we decided to take a 49-mile scenic drive which takes you to various famous locations around the city. The best being awesome views of the golden gate bridge, golden gate park and what has to be the widest and longest beach we have seen. It was great fun, but you really had to be on the ball as the signs would often disappear resulting in loads of wrong turns. We didn't end up actually completing the 49 mile drive as we got so lost and it was getting dark, so we kind of made the rest up as we went along and ended picking the trail up again when we reached Chinatown where we decided enough of the tourist stuff and went for a slap up Chinese meal in a restaurant with fantastic views of the city.
Before leaving SF we drove over the Bay Bridge into Berkley to meet up with Chris's cousin Julian and his wife Jessica for a wicked breakfast. It was really nice to see them both and we wish we could have stayed longer but the drive to Lake Tahoe beckoned and the weather was closing in. On our way to the mountains all the weather reports were advising to only attempt the drive over the pass with snow chains or a 4x4, as we had none of these it meant a detour to Sacramento so we could swap our little toy car for a more capable vehicle. To Zaida's joy we got a brand spanking new V8 Jeep, which she drove smiling all the way up the mountains through the snow storm.
We were absolutely over the moon that we were arriving in Tahoe when there are perfect conditions on the mountain. Three weeks on the mountain with tonnes of snow - what more could we ask for!!!
