3rd March - After a mammoth 4 hour session updating the blog into the early hours of the morning, we arose rather late and too late to go on NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's once a week tour today, so unfortunately Kirsty will have to miss this NASA facility! We decided that since Venice Beach was so nice yesterday, we would continue looking at the beaches, starting with Santa Monica beach. We have seen the pier and beachfront at night when Regis and Hazel took us there, but it is really beautiful in the sunshine, with a rollercoaster, arcades and a solar powered Ferris Wheel on the pier and chess boards bolted to tables on the beachfront. We spent a few minutes watching old and young, black and white guys playing each other at chess in the sunshine, next to the ubiquitous parallel bars and various fitness equipment that seems to line each beach in Los Angeles. That will be why everyone looks so much fitter and healthier than us (along with the fact that we have to eat out every day!) After a really nice walk soaking up the sun, trying to decide what to do with the remaining month of our Visa when we leave San Francisco, we went back to the car and made our way north to Malibu beach (where Hazel sometimes walks her beautiful dog, Scout) and took a look at the 27 miles of sweeping beaches and rugged coastline that Tom Hanks and Barbara Streisand's houses overlook.Santa Monica Beach has the advantage of having recreation areas, restaurants and an amusement pier all in one small area to provide plenty of entertainment, but neither impressed us as much as the vibrancy and chilled-out nature of Venice Beach yesterday.We saw a group of paparazzi photographers stalking around snapping pictures of a young Hispanic-looking female surfer, but we had no idea who she was and as I have contracted another ghastly cold (since Roswell in January I have not had more than half a dozen days free from colds or cold-sores. I think the aliens are doing medical tests on me - that would account for my unusually high cholesterol levels and the bloated appearance of my belly), so we took the painfully drawn out freeway journey back to the hotel a mere 20 miles away.Malibu Beach is very beautiful and is familiar as a backdrop in many films but as it is so long we are going to spend more time gorging on the scenery when we head north to San Francisco in a few days.We were planning on going to Babe's and Ricky's Inn, a downtown blues bar that opened in 1964 and has a famous 'Monday Night'. We planned on going last week, but preferred the opportunity of a meal with Hazel and Regis instead and, because my cold is ruining Kirsty's fun, we will have to settle for going another night (which reviews of the place suggest are equally good).

4th - Seeing that the Kodak Theatre tours weren't available by the time we arrived, we decided to sell our souls to the devil and, while I'm not proud of it, we took one of the many tours of movie stars' homes. We took off in an open topped jeep for Beverly Hills, Bel Air and the Hollywood Hills to stalk some celebrities (having already bagged Jaime Lee Curtis, Russell Brand, Paul McKenna and some bloke off Seinfeld earlier in the week, we were hungry for fresh blood!) We saw some of the most beautiful houses we have ever seen here. What often look like small tasteful cottages from the streets turned out to have huge sloping sides carved from the Hollywood Hills to make huge patios, decks and pool areas with stunning views over LA. Halle Berry, Jodie Foster and Drew Barrymore have really nice houses. Keanu Reeves and Ricardo Montalban (the 300 year old Mexican who played Khan in Star Trek II Wrath of Khan) have beautiful modern avant-garde homes, while Gwen Steffani's house and Hugh Heffner's Playboy Mansion are big brash affairs. While it was all rather tacky and a bit creepy, I was getting more and more annoyed with the driver who insisted in delighting in the misfortunes and downfalls of his quarry. I thought that since this guy was making a living out of these people, he shouldn't have been so bitter and nasty about them, even if they are overpaid peacocks getting a daily diet of platitudes and compliments - oops, I guess bitterness is infectious!We saw the houses that Marilyn Monroe and John Lennon used to own, the massive houses owned by fitness guru Richard Simmons and Dr Phil, and more beautiful homes owned by Leonardo de Caprio and Christina Aguilera, which she bought from the Osbournes.All in all it was good fun and the tour also took us down famous Rodeo Drive to gawp at all the money being spent there, together with Dan Tana's, a place that has been popular with movie stars for years and where George Clooney hosts his Oscar's after show party every year.

5th - We got up to find an email from Hazel saying that she had organised some Universal Studios back stage passes for us and was taking us around the studio back-lot on her lunch break. We have been to Universal Studios theme park and seen the guided back-lot tour at Disney's MGM Studios in Orlando, but they have a distant and sanitised feel about them. Hazel has a lovely office in a huge black Universal tower just outside Burbank (where most of the major studios are) with a great view of the San Fernando Valley and she had sorted out a golf cart to take us around the working studio on! It was like being shown around Camp David by the president and I managed to nearly fall off the back a couple of times. We were shown around the numerous studio buildings where Heroes and The Office (the US version) are filmed, and the sets where Jaws, Back to the Future, War of The Worlds and numerous other big films were made. Kirsty was really giddy because we rounded one corner and couldn't go any further because we almost drove into a shooting of Desperate Housewives and later on we took a drive down part of the Wisteria Lane set used on the same show (which she was surprised to see was not as glamorous a setting as it appears on TV as the houses are just a shell). We then walked around the original Bates Motel and house on the hill from Hitchcock's Psycho, and Hazel took our photo in the huge disaster set for War of the Worlds (Tom Cruise version) where a real aeroplane, cars and houses had been ripped apart and trashed - whoever gets to do that job must go home every night a happy person! This was a really great experience and so much better than the limited tours in Orlando - we cannot thank you enough Hazel. After a quick coffee at the on site Starbucks, Hazel had to get back to work and so we drove back to Hollywood for a tour of the Kodak Theatre (where the Oscars are held every year). The only way the public can see the inside of the theatre is by taking the $15 tour which lasts about half an hour and shows the grand entrance lobby, the VIP bar with an actual Oscar statuette, awarded to Kodak, in it, takes you onto the stage itself so you can see what it would be like to accept an award and lets you sit in the front row while a tour guide tells you about the place and the Academy Awards. You are not allowed to take photos of the venue so they give you a 'unique' postcard with a picture of the auditorium on it and, on the whole, it's not a wow event but for £8 it's well worth a visit. We then headed off to find the Museum of Television and Radio near Beverly Hills, but after battling through the traffic we found that it is now an accountancy firm. Guessing that their tour would not be that interesting we battled the traffic again, heading back north, and returning to Burbank to take a drive around the Disney and Warner Brothers studios where shows such as Nip/Tuck (a favourite show of ours) and ER are filmed.

6th - After a good while researching the internet for flights home, potential career changes (a long way in the future) and how to spend the remainder of our US Visa after leaving San Francisco, today was all about tying up loose ends in Los Angeles. Kirsty loves Miss Sixty clothes and the U.S. only has a few dedicated stores (one of which is in LA), so we spent an hour or so shopping Melrose Avenue, before having dinner and then heading over to Babe and Ricky's Inn, the blues bar we were going to go to on Monday night before my illness ruined the evening. Unfortunately, when we got there at around 8.30pm the place had no bands on and appeared dead - if not shut. So it looks like we wont get to go there and might have to find a blues bar in San Francisco instead.The bar was in a very African orientated area and the shops there were open late at night selling things like African foods, Malcolm X t-shirts and, of course, Barack Obama merchandise.We have spent a lot of time in Los Angeles, a lot more than any other place we have visited.There are many reasons for this, including a couple of days lost due to Ralph's illness, but mainly because LA is huge and separated into districts, so it is not possible to walk around it all and you have to have a car to get from area to area.Because of this, everyone needs to drive and the roads are constantly packed, no matter what time you head out.We are glad we had the opportunity to spend as much time as we have here though, as we have got to see everything we wanted to and got a real flavour of LA.

7th - We got up and drove around 5 hours to reach Hearst's Castle, on our way to San Francisco.The drive up the coast was beautiful, watching the waves crashing against the rocks, mountains and beaches.On the way, we took a mountain detour to take a look at the Neverland Ranch owned by Michael Jackson. Only a couple of days ago he rescued the place from being auctioned off with another bank loan, but it seems the signs are down and there was nobody moonwalking around. Around about San Simeon, about 240 miles or 4 hours north of Los Angeles, the mountainous deserts give way to almost Cumbrianesque valleys and hills all covered in grass, but fringed with the most beautiful beaches and coastline you'll ever see. This area is really so green, with rolling hills and valleys, totally beautiful.Ralph managed to collect a new digital camera he had ordered on the way so hopefully the blog pictures will soon improve - although his old camera is pretty good, it struggles to take photos in low light settings like night-time or indoors without some blurring, so hopefully he wont have to spend every minute of our continued travels constantly looking around for ledges, walls or shelves whenever he wants an indoor shot! Today was essentially a travel day and after an awful Mexican meal in a deceptively beautiful coast-hugging restaurant, we settled into a very cheap and comfy hotel to rest before another mammoth drive tomorrow.

8th - Another beautiful California day with streaming sunlight and a warm breeze. We took another look at Hearst's Castle and private beach (if you don't know William Randolph Hearst was the first of the American newspaper moguls who hobnobbed with stars and statesmen and had a ridiculously opulent lifestyle and home in San Simeon. Orson Welles' Citizen Kane was based on Hearst and Kane's regal Xanadu was based on Hearst's Castle at San Simeon). A few miles north we found a stretch of beach that has tons of Elephant seals sunbathing all day and squirrels that eat out of your hand (Kirsty was in heaven). After that, it was just pushing on to San Francisco and taking in the views. Big Sur was a surprisingly small town with Canadian-style log cabins but Monterey and Santa Cruz were just picture perfect with unbelievable vistas at every turn, the Pacific Ocean always to our left and a winding coast road that would have been so much more fun to negotiate in a work car! The big shock when we reached San Francisco, with only vapours in the tank, was the cost of petrol and parking. Our job for the next few days is working some scams on the parking lots that charge $35 per day. As we only have six days booked in San Francisco, and this place is so expensive to stay in, we are aiming to pound the streets like we did in New York, so we will have seen everything within the six days. After checking into our hotel we wandered into the Fisherman's Wharf district. This area has piers and wharfs that have been regenerated and so now also have lots of nice restaurants, bars and shops. Although it is rather touristy and has quite a few T-shirt and souvenir shops, it isn't without a great big dollop of charm as well.

9th - Getting up quite a bit earlier than we are used to (we have gotten used to staying up until 2am) as we knew we had a lot of San Francisco to see, and SF is a big city with lots see, we moved the car to a space that is free until 10am Monday - we are determined to beat the system but Sunday was always going to be the easiest day - and headed into SF. Wow! Hills! Within minutes our calves were screaming from the steepness of the streets, but it is worth it for the views over San Francisco Bay, The Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, which looks easily swimmable in SF Bay. The Russian Hill district is very cosmopolitan and affluent and gave us our first views of the famous streetcars and cable cars. There is a free museum nearby that gives an insight into how the cable cars (trams) work, with cables running under the streets, the history of SF transport and the great earthquake and fires of 1906, which Kirsty really enjoyed. Then we saw Grace Cathedral, also in Russian Hill, which looks to be modelled on Notre Dame in Paris but with a very modern and all-inclusive ethos. This church has heard speeches from Martin Luther King, the Dali Lama and Desmond Tutu, has a stained glass window honouring Einstein's scientific discoveries, numerous modern frescoes on the walls including one championing the United Nations and an Aids Interfaith Chapel. It also has a lovely garden outside which is popular with dog-walkers, readers and sunbathers. We both left the cathedral thinking that it was so refreshing to see a religious institution that welcomed all peoples and didn't turn away from progress and science.If more churches were like this they may get a lot more members! After a steep downhill walk (that typically seemed half as long as the uphill streets) we walked through the Chinatown district which, in SF, is HUGE! It has the usual dragon festooned gateway and dozens of Chinese restaurants, but this one seems to go on forever and we saw a fortune cookie factory (they originate in SF apparently), a couple of temples with their altars, paper lanterns and incense burners, and Portsmouth Square - a little park where hundreds of Chinese gather to sit, eat and gamble over chess, cards and Chinese checkers. We then fell into The San Francisco Brewing Company for me to try all nine of their beers, before walking along Columbus Street where the Italian District has been infiltrated by lots of French patisseries, coffee shops and restaurants all the way to Washington Square (another church with a lovely park outside where people just picnic, read or kick footballs). Next was the ordeal of making our way to Coit Tower which provides, probably, the best panoramic views of San Francisco - but at a cost of $4.50. The walk up there is steep and unrelenting, but well-worth it. The views over the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, downtown San Francisco, the wharfs and Alcatraz are absolutely stunning. To finish off the day, we headed back to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 which is the most touristy area on the Bay. It has lots of restaurants and shops and an area where you can watch the sea lions that have taken over part of the boardwalk in the marina.