On our last day in San Luis Obispo we watched the latest Harry Potter film, before heading down to the weekly Farmers Market to gorge on hot corn on the cob with butter and paprika, fresh strawberries, malted ice cream and Cornish pasties (the sellers of the latter advised us, rather unnecessarily, that they were an English invention pronounced 'pas-tee'). If we'd had the room we could have had barbecued meat, tacos, churros, smoothies, cookies and locally made chocolate too. It seemed like the whole town had turned out, with the crowd gnarling and tripping over itself wherever there was a particularly good stall or a band playing. It was easily the most people we'd seen in our whole time in SLO, which had otherwise seemed fairly quiet. I wouldn't mind spending a week or two exploring the town and the surrounding hills in the future as I think there's more to the place than people initially realise.

But that will have to wait for now as we leave for Fiji on 9th August. We headed back to LA on the 5th by Amtrak. The coastal views out of the train window were beautiful but we were so tired (it was a 6.45am train!) that we slept through most of them. From LA Union Station we caught a bus to our hotel, in Inglewood. It's not the nicest area - sirens pass our window at least twice an hour - but it was a bloody relief when we got off the bus after some of the areas we drove through. This relief was short-lived. There was no hot water and stains on both the bed and the chairs. At 1am on the first night the owner rang our room to complain that we'd run a bath; apparently there are problems with their piping so they have issues whenever a bath of more than a couple of inches is run. I still fail to see why this is my problem or why he had to wake us up at 1am to tell us about it. Geez.

Yesterday we walked from Venice Beach to Santa Monica Beach, taking in the canals of Venice, the street performers, the shops lining the beach and the musclemen working out on the monkey bars along the way. There's a great vibe about the area and it was exactly how we both pictured LA to be before we came to America. It was a sunny day and Jak now has a bright pink back and bright pink backs of his legs. He flinches whenever I poke him there so of course I try to poke him whenever I can.

Today we explored Manhattan and Hermosa beaches. Manhattan Beach is a bit poncy and nothing special but there's some good bars around Hermosa Beach. Unfortunately we are too scared to travel through Inglewood after nightfall (I'm not even joking) so we left earlyish and have spent a night watching films on our hotel's fuzzy black and white TV whilst munching on Burger King and chocolate bites. Any longer in America and we would be a pair of fatties...