Hey everyone, it's Erin here...my turn to update the blog. Well...what a couple of days we've just had! We set off from San Diego full of excitement in our GTI hire car, with Sophie at the wheel just about managing to control it. After half an hour, we heard the strangest of noises... "Is it the wind?" we thought, so us being girls we stuck our heads out of the windows (whilst Sophie was driving at 80mph) to investigate! Although it was quite windy, there was no way that this was the cause of it. "We'll just carrying on driving, and maybe it'll get better...after all, our planned trip to Walmart is far more important" we thought, but sure enough, it got worse. So we did the responsible thing and pulled over, only to find that the underside of the car was hanging on by a thread and was dragging along the road (where were our Dads when we needed them??)

So I took the matter in hand, and called the roadside assistance people to come out and rescue us, only to be told that "I needed to go and find a man to pull the panel off and find the nearest Avis office to get a new car"

You can imagine my response to that...

"I'm English", I told the man..."I don't know where I am and I'm certainly not finding a random man to start pulling bits off a car that we don't even own" So I put the phone down on this idiot then called up Head Office and got the matter sorted...we had a new car within an hour and we were back on the road.

We then arrived in LA and headed for Pasadena to do some much needed retail therapy after our ordeal. Sophie found the roads in LA particularly exciting to drive on, especially as every single time we missed every exit and every turn going that we needed to take. She has now become an expert at cutting across eight lanes in one go (she's featured on the local news quite a few times since we got here on Britain's worst drivers abroad!) Oh, and in case you were wondering, we made it to Walmart that night also, to pick up a few bargains.

The next day we went to Universal Studios and had a great day out on the rides and seeing the shows.

The following day we went to Hollywood and saw the sign, the Walk of Fame and the Chinese theatre. Whilst walking along the Walk of Fame, we were approached by a man offering us a tour of the Hollywood Celebrity Homes and Beverly Hills etc. for $20 each...not very cheap. So Sophie used her bartering skills to knock him down to $15 (believe me, we were lucky to get that!) And as we approached our luxury vehicle (which was actually a 25 year old pick up truck with the roof taken off) those bartering skills were well worth it. It was a good tour though and we saw the Beckhams', Tom Cruise's, George Clooney's and many more mansions, as well as taking a trip down Rodeo Drive. In the afternoon we drove along to Venice Beach which was very nice.

The next couple of days were taken up with trips to various beaches (Laguna, Newport, Malibu) as we soaked up the sunshine and the 80 degrees heat (it's been really warm here ha ha ha!) We drove along the Pacific Highway and also stopped at Santa Monica and Santa Cruz, where we stayed the night in the strangest hostel going (we had our own little cottage, with a rulebook the size of a Yellow Pages and a curfew of 11pm, or we were locked out for the night.) We managed to fit in a few games of bowling at the local hillbilly alley however (which was a hip and happenin' joint...not), and also performed in the karaoke bar, singing the classic Wham tune "Wake me up before you go go" And we certainly did that... and then we sped back to our hostel before we turned into pumpkins.

That's all folks for LA...we didn't spot any celebrities unfortunately but we had a great time and now it's up the coast to San Francisco