Hey there! Well it's been ages since I posted a postcard on my site! I am such a lazy b*****. Actually the truth is i have been having a very busy wonderful time (Sorry to make you all jealous)! There's a lot to catch up on so I will start with L.A. What a crazy city. It was built with the car in mind and even side streets are 4 lanes. The main roads are generally 6 or 8! Still they are always full. I still didn't manage to see a police chase despite all the traffic, there were over 7,000 in California last year alone. Guess everyone was behaving themselves for the Oscars. You really can't feel how movie obsessed and driven the city is without living it for a few days. Even in the hostel I was staying at in Hollywood there were several wannabee screenwriters, actors and actresses and producers. Countless other people I met were involved in music promotion, technical jobs for studios, choreographers or simply waitiing for their big break. It can happen though. One girl from Australia staying at the hostel was invited to an Oscar after party at Robert De Niro's restaurant and met the head casting director of Paramount! I hope she's on the long ladder to success. Only time will tell. After a week I had to leave the glamour and frustration of Hollywood for the real California. I boarded an Amtrak for a slow crawl up the coast to a small town called San Luis Obispo. This small town had one hostel where i stayed for one night before hiring a car to see the coast. i should have booked ahead and the smallest they had was a Buick Le Sabre (compared with Jeppes and SUVs)! This was comparable with a BM 5 series but with a boring automatic gearbox. Went nicely on the relatively empty californian freeways though. First I headed North as quickly as possible to Monterray where I saw the worlds only captive Great White Shark (just a baby though at 5 feet long). I spent the next two days driving slowly down to San Luis by the awesome Coastal highway 1. The area is known as Big Sur (the big South). One my left were towering mountains and redwood forests. To my right plunging cliffs and the crashing Pacific, often covered in fog. It felt like drinving along the edge of the World at times. I Finished the slow trip with a stop to see some elephant seals and then a tour of Hearst Castle, the opulent mountain top home of enignmatic early 20th Century newpaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. He had colected antiquities from all over the ancient world to build his palace. I just kept thinking what he could have designed with that amount of money rather than putting together his jigsaw of old styles, wher nothing felt quite right. Last Saturday I arrived in San Francisco where I have been ever since. It is the most beautiful city I have seen in the states (look out for the photos coming soon). I stay only 5 minutes from downtown and also 5 minutes from the bay and views of Alcatraz adn the Golden Gate Bridge. Ever few blocks here brings new views due to the many hills and new sights and sounds due to the many different cultures, Hippy in the Haight, Gay in ther Castro, Hispanic in the Mission, Chinese, Japanese, Tourist, Finance worker, beautiful suburban victorian homes of the dot.com workers. This town really is full of colour and life. I have seen so much in the last few days, cycled the Golden Gate, visited Alcatraz, toured downtown and the districts. I strolled through Golden Gate Park and visited the home of radical student politics, Berkeley. I even had time to visit the museum of Modern Art and catch Million Doller baby at the cinema as well as sneak into a couple of theatrical previews through a contact I have made at one of the many art centres. That was just a whistle stop tour of the last few weeks. i will try to post my tales more regulary when i get access to the internet. That may not happen in the next few days as i head of for the wild splendour of Yosemite National Park. Hope you are all well and wonderful, Jonny.