California (and Nevada) Girls

Bare with me kids, this is a long one.

My last day in Fiji was spent with Karin in a luxury hotel by the swimming pool. We naturally ignored the 'inhouse guests only' sign and pretended we were guests. It was very nice to have some luxury and enjoy a bit more sun. That was my first experience of August 14th. My flight to LA was at 8pm that night and I touched down in LAX at 1pm August 14th. It was quite a bizarre experience to regain 18 hours of my life and be at the tail end of the day.

After racing through immigration and customs ('you sound like an aussie' - Mr US Immigration), I set about waiting for Becca to come off her flight. I suddenly realised her flight wasn't on the board. I didn't know her flight number, who she was flying with or where she was flying in from, except I had the vague idea she was coming from Canada. I rushed to another terminal on the off chance she was flying with Air Canada and sure enough there she was! It was great to see Becksy again and we chatted nonstop as we got on the Flyaway Bus and then the metro onto Hollywood Boulevard. Our hostel was right in the thick of it, opposite the Chinese Theatre. We went for dinner at the newly opened Hard Rock Cafe Hollywood, where we had our first experience of sickeningly friendly service (I hadn't tipped since I've been away) and had a very early night. 13 hours of sleep later we decided to begin the day with a Hollywood tour. Our minibus took us to Rodeo Driver, Sunset Boulevard and around the celebrity houses of Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Our tour guide seemed to take great delight in pointing out the houses people had died in and where various British people (George Michael, Hugh Grant) had committed lewd acts. Nice to see our contribution in there. Sadly no celebs were spotted, although Paris Hilton had been spotted earlier that day in the Guess shop on Rodeo Driver, as our driver no doubt tells every bus load...

Once the tour was over Becca and I hopped on a bus to the Abercrombie and Fitch store in the Farmer's Market. The clothes were not as nice as I had hoped but I did buy a $40 white hoody, which I promptly spilt fanta down. Score. After visiting a few more shops like Victoria's Secret, we headed out for dinner near the Hollywood Sign. We found a bizarre little place called uwink where you order yourselves from computers in front of you and can play games on this computer. Becca and I played the 'first date' game, which involved asking each other lots of probing questions. The portions of food were ginormous and when I'd finished it barely even looked like I'd started.

The next day Becca and I got ourselves up early with the intention of hiring a car. We carted our stuff back on the metro and the Flyaway bus to the rental place Dollar at LAX, where we were informed it would cost us $1700 to rent a car for 10 days, despite only saying $800 in the quote online. We told them to go f*** themselves and sat miserable in Terminal 1 of LAX, contemplating our next move. We had had the intention of driving to San Diego, but we didn't really know why. So we did a complete uturn and upon consulting the nice old lady at Traveller's Aid, got directions for Santa Monica. Why not indeed?? 45 minutes later and the discovery that the motel we wanted was reduced to rubble, the YHA full and the hotel wanted $200 a night, it became clear why not. The whole time we were traipsing around I attracted a lot attention as I was wearing a 20kg backpack, twice the size of me ('You must have a strong back', indeed).

So, pretty stressed we ate a giant pizza slice and decided to get a bus back to Venice Beach. We had missed the bus and I was majorly pissed off with waiting so we grabbed a taxi and $15 later we finally had a place to stay in Venice BEach. By now pretty much the whole day had been wasted pissing around, so a power nap was in order. We arose only for a sunset walk along the beach to admire the skateboarders, the man with a piano and the men that shouted 'you're beautiful!' after us. Bizarre.

We discovered pretty quickly that Venice Beach was predominantly a place where life's odd balls and nut jobs congregated. Walking along the infamous board walk you saw just about anything from a dwarf in a Halloween costume, multiple marijuana doctors and of course botox clinics. Only in LA. Needless to say we loved it. Despite me feeling that my blonde hair and tan would help me fit in with America's most beautiful, Becksy and I stood out like sore thumbs amongst the hispanic and black community, which frequented everywhere we went. It was probably a good idea that we were pretty oblivious to the dangers, as I had a man tell me to hide my purse that I stupidly had sticking outta my bag ('You're in California now') and the woman at the Greyhound bus stop who told us 'don't go outside its not safe' and it was the middle of the day, eeek! One early morning in Venice we were awoken to a nice bit of racial abuse on the street below: 'f***ing whites, f*** 'em', this rant continued on for a good twenty minutes.

Becksy and I had had an interesting time in Lala land and I think we both felt we'd got to know the city pretty well in the four days we'd been there as we must ahve been on about 5000 bloody buses all over the goddam city. We had also discovered that next to no one could understand us as we got very unusual answers to questions ('hire a car? what does that mean??' it means RENT!!). Still it was time to board two more goddam buses and 90 minutes later we were at the Greyhound stop at Downtown LA to take the seven hour journey to Vegas.

Up until this point Becksy and I had been bemoaning the lack of heat. In LA it was around the twenty degree mark, which is bloody cold after Aus and Fiji and not what I was expecting at all. However, several hours inland into the middle of the desert, it was thirty-five degrees at 6pm and we felt like we were being microwaved. Put into the mix that we didn't want to pay for a taxi, so we ended up walking six blocks with my backpack on, just to get to the bus stop. We then had to walk back from the Bellagio for about twenty minutes, it was a very sweaty experience! Eventually we managed to check into our hotel, the Imperial Palace and our lovely room with car park views. It also happens to be the cheapest property on Becksy's Las Vegas Monopoly Board, still we were pretty impressed and at only $60 a night it wasn't too pricey either. A swift shower, change of clothes and some yummy Mexican food later, we found ourselves at the slot machines. I managed to successfully double my $5 bet and Becksy won $35! She took it to the roulette table where she made another $10 before we called it a night and headed back to our two king-sized beds.

No matter the time of day, the streets of Vegas are lined with men offering 'ice cold water' and Mexicans wearing tshirts saying 'hot girls direct to your room' (they kept trying to give the flyers to me and Becks too). You're constantly accosted for nightclub tickets. One very embarrassing incident occurred where a woman wanted us to pay $5 each for some free club tickets and we had to runaway. Inside the casinos it can be anytime day or night as everything is open 24 hours. Its a bit like being in a time warp, the hours and days subside without you really noticing before you emerge into the light dazed by the sun, pockets empty.

The second night Becks and I were due to meet up with Karin and her friend Sylvia. Before dinner Becks and I engaged in a flutter on the fruit machines. I made $12.50, Becks squandered $20. We decided to go for a kick-ass steak, which was amazing! Followed by very expensive drinks in a bar that were predominantly vodka with a shot of juice. I don't know if it was the vodka, but I felt myself going a bit soft as we went to a piano bar and I thoroughly enjoyed singing away to some terribly cheesy tunes, something I would never dream of doing normally. Perhaps its just the Vegas affect. The bar itself provided plenty of entertainmen as we were repeatedly asked to dance by randomers and watched basically several live sex shows on the dancefloor. PDA overload. People were clearly cutting loose. When I discovered I'd spent over $100 already that night, despite walking miles down the strip to a club, I clearly didn't have the funds and returned home.

A particular highlight of the evening had been watching the fountains at the Bellagio cleverly choreographed to 'Hey Big Spender'. It was just one of the extravagant excesses that I had come to expect from Vegas. Every casino contains wild and wacky displays that are unneccessary indulgence. It seems almost indecent when you think how dreadfully America has suffered during the recession, but Vegas makes no attempt to apologise or to hide the fact it is made entirely out of money people have thrown at it, it is what it is. Whether its the white tiger cubs in The Mirage (an awesome casino) or the giant flower garden in the Bellagio, its really exactly what this place is all about and why people love it.

Its pretty hard to do very much with your days in Vegas. The strip is so much longer than you envisage and the heat so unbareable, that instead you opt to take the bus. This involves standing around forever before getting on a bus that is constantly stuck in traffic and stops at every hotel. As you can imagine this is not a quick process. Still Becks and I had pretty much been into all of the main casinos like MGM Grand, Caesar's Palace, Bellagio, New York New York, the Stratosphere and The Mirage.

Of course the main reason for us coming to Vegas when we did was to celebrate my 22nd birthday. By the time we emerged from a slightly hungover stupour, we decided to treat ourselves to crepes in the Bellagio, home of the largest chocolate fountain in the world. After wasting time on the free wifi in McDonalds (and eating some McNuggets), we wandered around Circus Circus fora bit before heading back to our room to shower and change. We had dubiously been talked into buying tickets for the Playboy Comedy Lounge. We were hoping the guy hadn't looked at us and thought we would fit in well... It actually turned out to be pretty hilarious and I really enjoyed the show. We also got to witness Miss Septembere being heckled by the audience, which actually resulted in Becks and I feeling really sorry for her. We gambled the rest of the night away, losing copious amounts on the slots to Hugh Hefner, before we took ourselves to bed.

One of the highlights of the trip has been the weird and wonderful Americans that we have met and chatted to along the way. On our travels of the LA bus system (really only the very poor and odd travel on the bus), we met an old lady (who admire my tan) and thought that England still had shillings. There was a man who gave us change for the bus, enquired after the techno/trance scene in London and told us his life ambition was to go to an underground gym in Sheffield especially for body builders. During our time in the Imperial Palace jacuzzi (another social hub), we met a very drunk North Carolinian man and a Canadian woman. The man clearly didn't realise that politics were not polite jacuzzi topics and went off on a rant about Obama. The next day we met a couple of guys from California, a cop and a UPS worker, who had never left America and asked if we had any clubs in England. We did of course tell them night life has yet to be invented there. One of them had never heard of hostels and seemed genuinely puzzled by the idea of backpacking.

Becksy and I had extended our stay in Vegas in order to visit the Grand Canyon. This did of course mean that we waited for our pickup at 6.30am at the wrong stop and despite them having Becksy's mobile number and our room number, they failed to tell us that if we walked 10m to the left we would have seen them. Nor were we allowed to meet the shuttle bus across the road where it currently was. b******s. We instead spent the day mooching about the remaining casinos and going up the Eiffel Tower. Like you do. Our last night was spent of course gambling in Caesar's Palace and The Mirage on the slots and roulette. We had it all - $30 for me and $40 for Becksy and we pissed it all away and more. Meh clearly Vegas wasn't built on winners after all.

After a Starbucks breakfast the next morning I managed to actually win $4 on our fave Monopoly slots (we won't talk about Becksy...)! We were due to fly to San Francisco with US Airways at 3.10pm. Eventually Becksy had persuaded me to be a flashpacker and fly instead of spending 14 hours on the Greyhound, which would have been cheaper but far less comfortable. We were in the emergency exit seats and we were asked about 800 times if we accepted our responsibility sitting there. This puzzled me until I actually saw the plane. Just four seats across with a cabin crew of two, we felt every bump and shudder. It was pretty nerve-wracking, although the beautiful views of the desert and Yosemite made up for it.

A crazed ride in an airport shuttle with a bizarre Eastern European driver later, we made it to our hotel, Renoir. We seemed to have developed a nack for picking hotels in interesting areas. This place was of course no exception. It was situated opposite an adult cinema and surrounded by abandoned buildings and 'cheques cashed here' stores. Enough said. Indeed after eating adequate Chinese food in Chinatown and an anxious fast-paced walk back to the hotel, we kept our window open for the entertainment. Who needs a tv when you can listen to the homeless people screeching at each other after all.

Despite our suspisions that San Francisco was going to be cold, our first full day proved to be the hottest day of the year so far. Naturally enough Becksy and I chose this day to sweat and burn our bums on the leather seats of a hop on hop off tour bus. Together with a large hispanic family, some aged pensioners and a Scottish tour guide we toured downtown San Francisco before boarding another bus that went over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. Several times it was confirmed to Becksy and I that we were staying in San Francisco's dodgiest area - the so called 'tenderloin' (perhaps named because back in the day the cops that worked there were paid danger money and thus were able to afford the finer cuts of meat, apparantly).

After the tour finished, Becks and I wondered around the Fisherman's Wharf, stepping over the homeless people (in a city of just 800,000, San Francisco has 20,000 of them) and visiting just about every gift shop we saw. The area itself was really very nice and offered a fantastic view of the marina, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge (for once the view wasn't obscured by the typical fog). We watched the entertaining sealions for a bit, before getting back on the bus and returning to the hotel.

We continued to meet weird and wonderful Americans in San Francisco. There was the homeless man who chatted to me in McDonald ('Do you speak English? You can never tell with you people.') Honestly, I just wanted to eat my snack wrap in peace. Then there were the three American guys who tried to pick up Becksy and I in Union Square when we were waiting for Karin and Sylvia. They asked us for advice on what drinks to offer a girl when they get her back to their place. The proceeded to take a seat next to us and talk quite a lot of crap before we managed to escap and join Karin and Sylvia. We all went for dinner and then drinks and some live music in an Irish bar. We decided to get a taxi home to avoid the threat of rape, but were horribly overcharged by the mean taxi driver.

The next morning we discovered we weren't in fact going to Alcatraz that day after all, but the next. Thus we had wasted 45 minutes on the tour bus listening to the same tour as the day before. We instead went on yet another bus tour, this time of the Golden GatePark and Japantown.

It appeared that the fluke nice weather was over. Unfortunately Becca and I hadn't realised this and I basically won the award for most inappropriately dressed of the day. Whilst most were in winter coats and jeans, I was wearing denim shorts and flipflops. I even had an old Granny talk to me because she was so concerned I would catch a cold. Becks and I finally got to go to Alcatraz. We caught the ferry from Pier 33 in Fisherman's Wharf before wondering around the prison, which was really interesting. When we returned it was still pretty early and we didn't want to head back to our dodgy area just yet. So instead we worked on our topic for Mastermind - gift shops in Fisherman's Wharf. Eventually we went and waited for the streetcar home. Whilst waiting we got told by two gypsies that we had beautiful auras, one of them gave me a free sampling of palm reading, in which she told me nothing. I'm pretty sure when I declined to take her up on a 'tip for good luck' she wished me a whole host of bad luck. You couldn't make this s*** up!

Due to our delicate positioning within the tenderloin and the tendency of cab drivers to rip us off (plus the price of San Fran drinks) Becks and I soon resembled a middle aged couple, back home and in bed by 8pm and bizarrely addicted to watching various prison documentaries that tended to scare us s***less.

Our time in San Francisco had come to an end and we were once again flying into our favourite airport, LAX. In LA we had booked ourselves into a Travel Lodge. Not only was it a Travel Lodge, but it was also very close to LAX, meaning all hours of the day planes could be heard. On the upside it had a pool and a 24hr Denny's Diner (that could be an advantage if you have an urge for all-you-can-eat pancakes for $4 at 4am). It being Friday night an' all we though we would go crazy and grab a beer at the bar within Dennys. Sadly this was not to be, the bar tender had called in sick and the bar was closed. Rocking. We instead spent the evening strategizing Dover escape plans.

The next day it was time for mine and Becca's last bagel with cream cheese together as she was heading home via Toronto of course. My state of depression at the immediacy of my own return home caused me to go back to bed until the Mexican cleaner woke me up at 1pm and I realized the sun was actually shining. I threw caution (and skin cancer) to the wind and sunbathed for the rest of the day and of course I ended up extremely sunburnt. After spending the majority of the day on my own, I was delighted to receive a call from Karin inviting me to join her and Sylvia on VeniceBeach for some dinner. I got the bus to where I assumed VeniceBeach was only a short walk away. 45 minutes later in a very fast-paced walk in the fading light I finally managed to find them. Honestly of all the countries I have ever been to, the USA is most definitely the one that I have felt the least safe in. I look out of place, my accent shows I'm a tourist and people are always looking at me in a shifty way. Or maybe I've been watching too many late night shows about murder in LA! Still it was nice to spend the evening with Karin and Sylvia and over a dinner of fish tacos it seemed very surreal that in under twenty-four hours I would be boarding a flight back to London. Thankfully Karin and Sylvia also delivered me back to the Travelodge, sparing me the trauma of a late night bus ride back.

After packing up my bag the next morning I headed to LAX for one final time in the airport shuttle bus with a crazy Canadian lady taking (no joke) nine dogs with her. Apparently they were going to be destroyed so she was taking them ALL back to Canada with her. Barking…. An unattended bag led to a swift evacuation of the Tom Bradley International Terminal, however we still ended up taking off on time and I began to feel uneasy at the thought of my return. It was over. What an amazing nine months and 15 days. I'd done things I never thought possible and I get quite overwhelmed when I think about just how many nice, good people I have met, it really makes you feel a bit better about the state of the world. I'd learnt to be spontaneous, to relax, to think more and worry less. I'd never been poorer, lived off so little and had such a fantastic time.

And so my backpack was swiftly unpacked by my mum and relegated to the loft, where it will remain until my next adventure. I was back where I had started, blonder, 10 kilos (yep 10) heavier, approximately £10,000 poorer, minus many lost items, 4 cameras later (yep another one broke in San Francisco). I was exactly the same as I had been when I had left, only different.