My first site of LA was from the airplane and it was exactly how I imagined it, a sprawling concrete jungle dotted with palm trees and, from the air, splotches of blue, the swimming pools. LAX is a massive, insane airport with six terminals and I still consider myself lucky to have found the little minibus that would take me to my hotel in Anaheim. The second myth that was true was shown to me on that drive from the airport; the traffic. Yes, the freeways in L...

After a major delay leaving London, I arrived in Vancouver nearly 2 hours later than planned. Luckily, Ashley had been late also and had only been there a little while by the time I'd made my way through customs and collected my bags. It was lovely to see her and meet her family, amid catching up and reminiscing about the European trip. Arriving at her house, it was late so after visiting some of her friends, I crashed, absolutely exhausted. The next day ...

Leeds Castle I'd planned to head off to Leeds Castle by myself on Saturday but by the end of Thursday night, I found myself being joined by a great group - Joel, Matt, Kel, Ray and Cath (Matt's parents who are here on holiday). We booked tickets with National Express which included bus trip and castle entry. So we were on a bus leaving Victoria bus station at 9am and at the castle at 10:30am. The castle itself didn't open until 11am but the gro...

Basingstoke, Winchester and Surrounds - weekend with Emma and James After many months of emails, I finally organized to catch up with Emma. She'd moved in with James a few weeks before at Basingstoke, about 45 minutes from London by train. The weekend before, they moved into their own house so we decided I should go visit for the weekend. We decided during the week to meet in London and go see a theatre show first. I met Emma and James at the theatre...

Wimbledon As I'd wanted to go to Wimbledon last year but couldn't go due to work and plans already made for the weekends, I was determined to get there this year. So I took a day off work and headed off with Meg earlyish one Tuesday morning, catching the tube and bus to Wimbledon before walking through the town to tennis centre. Access to the centre, 1st and 2nd courts operates on a ballot system but to get in to watch the outside courts, you need to q...