14/06/2005 : We finally arrived in LA today after a very long 10 hours flight from Fiji. The flight itself was okay but as per usual, we were sat right behind a very fat man who took up 3 seats to himself and smelt really badly of B.O! Not good at all!! We met with Cindy (Monica's mums best friend who lives here), and she very kindly let us freshen up at her gorgeous house, took us out to dinner and dropped us off at the hostel where we were staying. We have got a hectic week ahead of us. We are hoping to go to Mann's Chinese Theatre, The Walk of Fame, Universal Studios, Disneyland, Rodeo Drive, Venice Beach, Santa Barbara, A Movie Stars Homes Tour and see the Hollywood Sign all in one very short week. Keep checking to see how we are getting on. Take care, K & M xx 17/06/2005 : Hi everyone! Well we have been really busy this last few days. Our hostel is located just off Hollywood Blvd which is where the walk of fame and Mann's Chinese theatre is so we have been checking out all of the famous names that are situated there! Yesterday wewent on a tour of all the movie star's homes. We didnt get to see anyone but we saw the homes of Tom Cruise, Nic Cage, Marylin Monroe, Robbie Williams and Sean Connery to name just a few. It was really interesting but they all have huge fences around their properties so you dont really get to see much but we took as many pictures as we could anyway!! Today we went to Universal Studios with Cindy. It was very funny! Its a huge place. We went on the tram tour around the actual studios and got to see a lot of the film sets used in past films and also got to see a sneak peak of some of the sets that have been used in Speilbergs latest film 'The War of the Worlds!' - very exciting!! We also went on every ride in the park including Jurassic Park, The Revenge of the Mummy, Back to the Future and Terminator 2 to name just a few! We finished off the day at the Hard Rock Cafe and we went to watch 'Mr & Mrs Smith' at the cinema. Tomorrow we are going to check out Rodeo Drive and Venice Beach (we are so excited to perve on all of the men at muscle beach!!). The Regent Beverly Wilshire from the flim 'Pretty Woman' is at the bottom of Rodeo Drive and all of the designer stores that the stars shop at are there too so we might get some celeb spotting done!! On Sunday we are going to go to Santa Barbara with Cindy and her family. Apparantly Oprah and Wacko Jacko live there so we might run into them!! We are a bit disappointed that we havent seen anyone famous yet but we're going to keep trying!! Anyway, we hope everyone is ok at home. We miss you all and we will write again when we have more news. Take care, K & M xx 21/06/2005 : Hi everyone. We've had a really mad weekend. We went to Santa Monica/Venice beach on Saturday and got to see some hunky men on muscle beach. It was really cloudy in the morning so Karen didnt bother to put on any sunscreen on but in the afternoon it really brightened up and she burnt to a crisp! On Saturday night Cindy and Jose invited us to come and stay at their house for the remainder of our stay in LA and they made us a really nice BBQ. On Sunday we went to Santa Barbara with Cindy and Jose and we met Cindy's son and his family there. It was a really nice day and we had dinner at a really nice thai restaurant in the evening. Yesterday we went to Disneyland!! It was brilliant. There were loads of queues though as its the summer holidays here now so we had to wait in line a lot but we still managed to go on a lot of the rides and got absolutely soaked on the water ride!! All in all we've had a fantastic time here - Cindy and her family have been fabulous and have made us both feel very welcome. We leave for the Grand Canyon today and we are booked on a tour for tomorrow so that should be a lot of fun. We'll write again when we get to the Grand Canyon. Lots of love, K & M xx