Hello! Welcome to my first blog entry!

Well I arrived in L.A. on Monday evening, however it was around 4am back home, so it had been a long day. Flight was OK - had an empty seat next to me which was a bonus! The woman who was on the seat next to that was great - she was going to Fiji for a family wedding and had been to New Zealand, so started telling me about the skydive she did recently. She's in her seventies and the video of her skydive is on YouTube! Awesome.

Jackie & Perry's house is really nice and I met their two dogs as soon as I arrived. One's a part Westie, part other things called Wendal and the other is a Westie called Barney. Wendal growls at me alot and hasn't yet got used to me being here but Barney, who's a puppy seems to like me (he licks my feet alot).

On Tuesday I had a chance to just relax in the house and went for a walk around the area. The sun was sooooo warm :-)

On Wednesday Jackie took me to Huntington Beach, which is south of Long Beach. We drove past the 'Dog Beach': dogs aren't allowed on beaches here, so a beach was designated for them! Then we had lunch at Ruby's Diner on the end of the pier at Huntington. Very Americana - it's a fifties style diner where the waitresses dress up in fifties style outfits and they sell alot of milkshakes. Makes me think of Back to the Future Part 1. "MCFLY! I thought I told you never to come here!" Huntington Beach is where surfing first started in the USA - from what i've been told it really started in Hawaii, but obviously took off here big time! There were loads of people surfing.

I went shopping at Huntington Beach, bought some flip flops and a dress - good stuff! Then we went to an outlet place where you can get things cheaper but didn't manage to find anything. Typical!

Today I was lucky enough to go to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach with Perry, who is a Director there. I got to see alot of the behind the scenes goings on, including feeding Charlie the Sea Otter and seeing the top of the big tank. I found out after that people pay quite a bit of money to do that, so I felt really priveleged! Got a tour around the public bits as well, it was fairly quiet, so an ideal way to see the fish.

I've been to lunch again to day in an American Diner and was so full that I fell asleep when I got back to the house!

Tomorrow i'm off to Hollywood and will go into one of the big film studios - it's got to be done! :-)

Well that's it for now! Hope all is well back home!

Emily xx