Oh my...so much to catch up on already!! I will try and make this as brief as possible...but there's a lot to say!

Since we arrived in the States we have been keeping ourselves very busy, places to go, people to see, that sort of thing. The flight from Samoa thankfully went without a hitch and we arrived into LAX around lunchtime. 'Ooh' we thought, 'I bet LAX will be nice, what with it being a big airport and what not'...err, no, it wasn't fancy or even particularly nice, and the staff really need to work on their customer service skills. 'Why are you here?' demanded the scary immigration man when I approached his desk...in such a way that I almost felt I was lying when I told him I was just here for a holiday and hoping to have a nice time! Eek, these guys take their job waaaaay to seriously, stupid Americans thinking they're the only ones in the world who have to be cautious....but I digress!

So after we had been suitably grilled and had our eyes scanned, fingerprints taken, blood samples...ok maybe not the last one but you get the picture, we picked up our rental car and were whizzing off up the 'freeway' (get me with the Americanisms!!) to our home for the next few days, the Stalboerger residence. (Quick note: our car is tres swishy and we are muchos impressed with it, and so far Nick has only tried to drive on the left once so, so far so good!) Anyway, yes we would be staying with a lovely couple called Joan and Eric who are relatives of our friend Sarah who lives in Minneapolis - everybody keeping up so far? Good. Joan and Eric were so kind and put us up for 4 nights, took us to the local diner for a yummy meal and showed us around town, they even helped us plan our onward travels...so we figured Americans outside LAX are actually pretty nice!

After a beautiful homecooked BBQ and a good night's kip, we were up and ready for our first day of exploring what LA has to offer, and where better to start than Universal Studios?! We were glad we had opted for a GPS with the hire car, as LA is just a mass of freeways and even with a map it was a bit of a puzzle getting there, but we arrived safe and sound and hurriedly entered the park... Thus followed a full and tiring, but excellent day of roaming the park and seeing as much as we possibly could! We did the fabulous studio tour, where our tram got attacked by Jaws as we drove through Amity and we got into a bit of bother with a certain Mr Bates when our tram stopped outside his motel, his mother didn't look too good up in the house behind either...

We saw sets from War of the Worlds, King Kong, plus they were filming on Wysteria Lane when we went past so we all had to be quiet. We saw the Delorean from Back to the Future and some cars, and dinosaurs, from Jurassic Park...basically it was fantastic, we saw loads of scenery, props etc from so many good films and got to see where all the studio lots etc are...didn't see any film stars though!

We went on all the rides during the day, of course, including a great Simpsons simulator ride, a terrifying Haunted House, a very fast rollercoaster through the Mummy's Tomb and a rather wet Jurassic Park water ride! We also met lots of characters, such as Homer, Marge and Bart, Shrek, Frankenstein, Dora the Explorer, Spongebob, Marilyn Monroe even!!

I won't go on and on about the day, but it was great and a fab start to our time in LA. We returned that night, bags of goodies included, a bit knackered but ready for day two...DisneyLand!!

It took about 2 hours to get to Disney, which gives a bit of an idea of the size of LA as on the map it just looks the other side of town! As we entered we looked at the map we had just been handed...this place was huuuuuge! We quickly plotted a route around to try and squeeze in as much as possible and hurried off to the first ride of the day, a Buzz Lightyear based shoot 'em up where we had to help Buzz defeat evil Emperor Zurg!! Fun!! We also had fun on Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain...plus some other none-mountainous rides...

We met Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger, all very cute, and must have walked miles around the park exploring the different areas. Toontown was fun, as was the Roger Rabbit ride we went on there! As it began to grow dark, we stopped for something to eat before getting ready for the big finale to the day - the Disney Parade! It was really good, all the characters plus lots of dancers flinging themselves around in sparkly costumes...it was all a bit 'High School Musical' but we loved it and had a really good day. Yet again bagged up with goodies galore (the shops are amazing!) we left for home and to get ready for our final day when we would finally explore a bit of LA - sightseeing time!

The next morning we set out with Joan and Eric who had kindly offered to show us around for the day, which was great as it meant we could relax and not have to worry about where we were going and how to get there! We started by driving down to a restaurant for breakfast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was great and we both decided a good American breakfast of pancakes was what we needed to see us right for the day! Yum yum!

After some scrummy pancakes, we set off down the coast a bit to Santa Monica Pier where we had a look around at all the little stalls and investigated what the local fishermen had been catching. As on our last couple of days, the weather was glorious, warm and sunny and definitely not what we would think of as November weather!!

Next was Venice Beach, where the beautiful people go jogging and big muscly men lift weights...and also it seems where unsigned musicians try and sell their CD's! Nick got captured by a few and ended up parting with $5 for a reggae style album...we had a listen in the car and it's ok, not as bad as the awful loud shouty rapping on the CD Eric got badgered into buying!! Ha!! The beach looked lovely, very flat and wide, with white sand, although I don't know if anyone would have fancied a dip in the sea as it looked mighty chilly!

After leaving the beach we drove up Sunset Boulevard all the way into Hollywood, through Beverly Hills and Bel Air where we saw some amaaazing houses, sorry, mansions! They were fantastic, although the really good ones were hidden behind fences and hedges, damn them! We got to Hollywood Boulevard and parked up, ready to go looking at the stars on the Walk of Fame, but first...those pancakes had started to wear off...where could we find a quick bite to eat...??

After a rather tasty lunch at the oh-so-classy Hooters restaurant (Nick was delighted of course!) we were ready to go for star spotting, literally. We spent the next hour or so walking around looking straight down at the ground, probably not advisable for safety reasons but we saw lots of recognisable names and took a lot of pictures of the floor! We walked past the Kodak Theatre, home of the Oscars ceremony, and the Grauman's Chinese Theatre, which is where all the handprints in the cement are. These also required lots of walking around looking at the floor!

We saw lots of people dressed up as various celebrities, with varying degrees of success. The Michael Jackson look-a-like was very good, as was the Samuel L Jackson and the Storm Trooper...however the Superman, Spiderman and a few others who I couldn't even tell who they were supposed to be, well, they just looked like leftovers from Halloween! Ah well...we took plenty of snaps and felt we had had a very successful day sight-seeing, especially when we got a glimpse of the famous Hollywood sign as we drove home.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in LA, our hosts were super and looked after us so well, we had lots of fun at the theme parks and enjoyed going to all the places with the famous names!! Places we have seen on tv and films so many times, but now we've actually been there! I particularly would not have been interested in LA a year or so ago, and it was definitely not high on my list of places to look forward to on the trip, but it was great! I would definitely go back as clearly in 3 days we only just scratched the surface, but it was fab, not quite as crazy as we anticipated and a lot friendlier. We just hope the rest of the States can match it!!

Love to all

Katie and Nick xxx