Hello/Bonjour,

We have arrived safe and well into a very cloudy and wet canada!

Continuing on from the last blog, we were unable to continue our car rental to drive to San Diego as for 3 more days they wanted to charge us $300! Crazy! So we had a mad dash to the greyhound where we managed to hop straight on a bus. San Diego is glorious and we would both have loved the opportunity to stay for longer and work here for a bit. The climate is a lot nicer than further up the coast. We stayed at a pretty manky YMCA, full of wierdo men that lived their etc, we even had to stay in separate male and female dorms! We did meet some lovely people in G's dorm though. On our first day, we did some walking around seeing the sights before heading to the zoo. It was great, we saw soo many animals including rare pandas. There was a tiny baby one playing with leaves which was very cute and we were both very taken with the gorilla though. Kates was not impressed to be sat eating a salad, with a peacock sat in the tree above her without realising til it jumped down! Because Kate is too young to go out in America we treated ourselves to a trip to the cinema. We saw Sex in the City 2 which was really good. But they only have salty popcorn here - whats up with that? On our second day, we did a day trip around San Diego city and into Mexico. The tour was brilliant, we had a coach tour around the city seeing places like Balboa park and the Coronado district. Whilst we were there we got to go in the famous Hotel Del Coronado, where all the presidents etc stay and where the film 'Some like it hot' with Marilyn Monroe was filmed. Very posh. We had the best cookie from the bakery their too. We then did a harbour boat cruise for an hour which was lovely.Back on the Coach we went to the Old Town which was awesome, it is the spanish/Mexican area and is still the way it was back 100years ish! We had an amazing mexican lunch. In the afternoon we went into Mexico. Very strange for it being so close but so different. We walked around the shops in Tijuana which was interesting, although they were selling lovely leather goods for really cheap. We then went to a bar for a corona each. The customs getting back in was ridiculous. Basically San Diego is a lovely city. The following day we caught the greyhound back to LA. The bus was full of wierdos. A crazy man put his chair all the way back so he could stare at me for the whole journey. Even G staring back at him didn't help. We then had a crazy lady sit next to us wearing the best white wig you have ever seen and then preceding to scratch the seats ad bang things and tap on imaginary buttons above her. She was talking on someone elses phone that she borrowed about her drug addiction - lovely.

So LA LA Land - it most certainly is! We made our way through Dodgy downtown on numerous buses and tubes to West Hollywood and our hostel. It was actually in a nice area, just off Melrose Avenue. When we arrived we went for a walk down Melrose before having an early night ready for our LA city tour.

The tour was one of the best we have done, it lasted for over 8 hours and we didn't get bored at all. We started off by going through streets to Hollywood Boulevard. Our guide all the way through the day was pointing out different places celebs old and new hang and hung out. We saw places where the Rat Pack hung out etc. Hollywood Boulevard was abit of a let down - not as glam as expected. But we still took lots of picks and Kates was happy to put her hands in Hugh Jackmans. We also took a picture of George Clooneys for Rosemary. After a walk around we drove to Beverly Hills where we did a tour of the stars homes. We saw so many, it was unreal. We even saw the house where Michael Jackson Lived and died. Catherine Zeta Jones house was very nice. From here we went to Bel Air and saw where the Fresh Prince was filmed. That area was so nice. After Bel Air we went to Venice Beach. Ver strange place. Full of people trying to be different but actually all looking the same. Even the shop mannequins have huge fake boobs. We walked down the beach and saw the muscle beach. There was also a film being shot while we were there so we will probably be part of the crowd, one of the actors from the film 'Fools Gold' was there acting. From here we drove past the Venice High School where Grease was filmed and on to Rodeo Drive. Very very posh. We didnt see any celebs but the hotel where pretty woman was filmed was at the end so took lots of pics. On the drive through to the Hollywood hills, we saw the cathedral from Sister Act and Pretty womans apartment etc. Lots of film sets. We went into the hills to see the hollywood sign which was smaller than people expected but pretty impressive so we got lots of pictures. Back at the hostel we were so tired, but we went down to the supermarket to get dinner. There supermarkets are awesome, they have peanut grinders so you can make your own fresh peanut butter and different nuts and pasta and seeds and fruits you can pour and weigh your self. They also have a freshly cooked and prepared food station wher eyou can fill a box of different foods and salads for dinner. It was quite cheap aswell. You could make tacos or have salad or curry or meat and potatos. Anything. I had sushi, the sushi here is amazing.

The following day we took a trip to Santa Monica, which was beautiful and the nicest part of LA, overall we havent really enjoyed LA, the people aren't that friendly and its a bit rough to be honest. We wanted to change a $20 note into two $10 notes and no shop would o it for us, they said we had to buy something - Kates told him he wouldn't last two minutes in England. Then felt very guilty afterwards. So anyway sata monica beach was huge, but cold. we took a walk down to the pier and then back up to the shops. We went into Pottery barn - but they didnt have any apothecary tables (Friends Joke) however we saw Fees double! On the bus on the way back, we stopped at Rodeo drive, but again no celebs. We did go to a famous celeb cupcake shop and had the best cupcakes yum yum, they were all made from natural ingredients. It ended up being a very long day.

On our last day in LA, we werent really sure what to do so we returned to some of the places, like the hollywood stars and Rodeo Drive. This time Kates went into some of the shops. In Roberto Cavalli they were really nice to her and even gave her one of the catalogues with the photography in it. However in Versace they were very rude. I mean they only work in the shop, they cant afford it!! I only wanted to have a look. I did fall in love with all the expensive shoes though. Still no celeb spottings. However Kates is convinced she saw Jack Nicholson sat in a classic car outside of a bar. We had an early 5am rise the next day to satch our flight to Vancouver.

It is very strange that the Americans don't need a passport to fly interstate they can just show a driving license as ID. We flew with Alaska airlines which had huge amounts of legroom but no TVs and we had to pay for food if we wanted it!! Rubbish, bring on BA for our home journey. They flight itself was lovely out of LA as it was so clear and the captain was pointing things out over the microphone including the space shuttle launch place in the desert. However the nearer to canada we got the cloudier it got and it became very bumpy. Coming into land you couldn't see the ends of the wings and it only cleared about 25 metres above the ground - great. So we arrived to a very wet and cloudy canada.

They have very good public transport in Vancouver which got us really quickly to our Hostel. They were very nice and upgraded us to a better room - yey! We spent the evening organising our car hire and greyhound bus. It is saving us nearlly 200pounds to travel down to Seattle to hire a car to drive in Canada rather than hire it here. So today we had a 4.30am start to catch a Greyhound in the US again. Luckily no wierdos on this bus other than the driver - he was very nice because each time he unloaded our bags for customs etc he put them in puddles right next to dry patches - what a nice man. Not impressive to a very tired and hungry Kates - evil eyes were out in force. So in Seattle, which looks really nice, we picked up our hire car, the same type of car we had before, and drove back into Canada. We were warned we may have problems getting back through customs because of re entering etc so many times but i think the lady felt sorry for us when we pleaded poverty for the car hire reason. So we drove back into Vacouver to get a guide book and map and Were on the road out to Jasper. It is a very pretty country so far and we did have some sun although it isnt that warm. We have stopped at a town called Hope right next to a snow topped mountain. We have made up a word to dexcribe canada, it is very tree-ee. Everything is wooden and reminds us of log cabin christmas's. Lovely. So up early tomorrow and back on the road.

We are having a really great time but would love a sunny, hot, no rain beach holiday before we come home, so we can make you jealous of our tans that we promised. SO... If anyone wants to pay 400pounds for us to go away somewhere hot, donations are accepted :P (Joke)

Love you all loads

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Glad you are getting some nice weather!!

Photos of Fiji - http://s937.photobucket.com/albums/ad217/ZolaKT/Fiji/

photos of san francisco - http://s937.photobucket.com/albums/ad217/ZolaKT/USA%20San%20Francisco/