Hello! Well first off I am not in Los Angeles I am home! Currently really jetlagged and shocked to actually be somewhere familiar. Anyway explanation; back in Thailand I changed my last 2 flights thinking I'd be really bored in the Cook Islands for two weeks. May of been the case or not but it was fun shocking the family last night as I didn't tell anyone I'd be 6 days earlier.

So I actually left Raro on the 14th and four of us from Varas flew to LA. Cheryl was super organised so me, Sarah and Laura just followed her to a retro hostel on Melrose Avenue which is a sort of alternative shopping street full of weird shops. LA is huge and so are all the cars, the portions of food (we went for an Indian in the evening and were all nearly sick from the amount we ate) and the people :p.

Next day we did a LA city tour with Mickey Z, who as you can probably tell from a name like that was a bit of a twat. Real ego problem :). However we saw lots of movie locations and celebrity mansions (some of them were horrible and tacky, actually most of them were horrible (especially the woman from Murder She Wrotes house)). We went to Venice Beach and did the Hollywood sign and the high school from Grease.

Me and Cheryl decided it would be a good idea to go to Magic Mountain the next day, and it was. The park has about 19 rollercoasters and we got on all of them I think. Some of them were insane, we both nearly blacked out on a couple and I went on a 4 dimensional one (which you spin around on as well as going up and down) which is the only rollercoaster I think I've ever been really scared on. That evening I took a night bus to San Francisco which was horrible and stuffy and took about 8 hours.

San Fran is so much nicer than LA, LA is big and smoggy and really boring looking if you're not in the hills while San Fran is very Victorian and scenic with big hills and ancient trams on the streets, along with two huge bridges and a really nice bay. I wondered around during the day and then met up with Shyla! Was great to see her again and we went on a little driving tour and then went to a bar and met some of her friends. Sucked how the drinking age in the US is 21, and it's enforced :(, felt like I was 17 trying to sneak drinks! Next day I walked to the hippy district of San Fran where during the sixties loads of hippies smoked pot and hung out in the park here; now it is a colourful load of hippy shops and strange people. I've never met as many crazy people as I have in San Fran, one guy started talking to me on a stoplight, introduced me to a church street group, who then gave me lunch! Love it! After another night of drinking and a small earthquake I went back to LA on a huge bus ride through the desert. It's not until you go away from a big city that you realise how empty most of the US is, flying over it there'd be about one road every 100 miles or so!

Then a day and a bit of stressful travelling and I turned up on the front door yesterday evening, to everyone bar Sam's shock, who doesn't know I'm back yet.

Feel a quite sad that it's all finished, hasn't really sunk in yet. I've had an amazing time and even though I wanted it to end at some points I really have no regrets. Thanks to everyone who followed my travels and everyone who messaged me and all the people I met along the way. Couldn't of done it without you! Bye!