Tuesday 8th April

After the laziest lie-in since we had been away it was way past 12 before we dragged ourselves out of bed (wolfie was awake and watching the football, the arsenal game in the champion's league). We dressed and I think washed before heading off to wholefoods for a bit of shopping for the week although it was only lunches that we were getting as most of the tea's or dinners as they say in the US were included, whilst out and about we were ever being observant for any celeb's who may have been going about their daily business.

In the late afternoon we had a drive up the coast about 10 miles or so and wolfie went surfing at Malibu was nothing to write home about but it's one of those places that you have to go when your there. Later that evening we had our free tea at the hostel before having a few games of pool.

Wednesday 9th April

We'd booked onto the hostel tour of LA for $55 each which was a full 8 hour day. Our intrepid driver 'Mickey' an apparent local lad who spent the entire day telling us of his mingling with the locals and how he turned a date down with Lisa-Marie Presley cause she's too much like her dad!!!! Anyways our first stop was the strip and the walk of fame, we saw loads of our favourite actors/actresses and personalities including Hugh Heffner. We spent some time around the Chinese Mann theatre and looked at the hand and foot prints. Walking along the strip there are wanna- be hip-hop artists trying to sell you CD's and dodgy movie star impersonators the Marilyn Monroe was in her 50's!Next stop once back on the bus was a good vantage and picture point for the Hollywood sign Mickey said it was near there were they filmed the old batman TV series (the bat cave scenes) and pointed a few bits out on the horizon in front of us. We left the Hollywood hills and took a bus ride out past Santa Monica and to Venice Beach which would be our lunch stop. It was not what we were expecting, when you think of Venice beach you imagine the steroid pumped up body builders and roller skating people, now there were roller skaters and we were lucky enough to see one body builder if you can call it lucky. He was wearing a tiny near black thong and bump-bag then a great big necklace thing with tiger teeth on it. The actual area was nothing to write home about, a bit run down but suppose it had plenty of character. Next to the beach was the basketball courts they filmed white men can't jump on.

Just after leaving the beach we passed the school were they filmed grease back in the day Corinne got very excited. We went over some of the remaining Venice beach canals which were a little emptied for cleaning. Next stop was Bel Air and Beverly Hills to do the stars home tour section of the day, we passed David and Victoria's new pad which is right next door to that wacko nut jobs house tom Cruise, there were a couple of Madonna's houses, the Playboy mansion and Britney Spears old place she had with K Fed. We went around about 35 homes and Mickey had an argument with a women who clearly had regular plastic surgery.Our last and final stop of the day took us to rodeo drive the shopping grounds for the rich and famous and it was pretty bling. There were all the regular big name brand designer shops and more, we all spilt up and headed off to try and spot some stars but to no avail oh well they must have all been working.

Mickey then dropped us back off the hostel and we got ready and went for another free tea this time a BBQ at the sister hostel which was great.

Thursday 10th April

We woke and had our free breakfast at the hostel amongst all the wanna-be movie stars reading their scripts/ rehearsing their lines. Afterwards it was time to use the last ticket out of the theme park book for universal studios. So we loaded the address into the GPS and got ready for a good old fashioned fun day. Arriving we paid the parking and queued up waiting for the opening, we were entered by a fella dressed in an old Charlie Chapman type police uniform and a couple of people pretending to be directors.We rushed straight to the famous tram tour and after finding which side Bruce pops up on we boarded and took our seats. We passed through areas used to film in which were basic sets and shown how they are just slightly modified for each of the films. We came face to face with dinosaurs, King Kong and final jaws which was soooooooooooooo tacky. We braved floods, earthquakes and even the mummy's curse. Finally arriving safely back we were dropped off at the start. During the rest of the afternoon we watched numerous shows like the animal one which was cool, went on the terminator 3-D show and the Shrek 4-D show.

We meet sponge bob square pants and Shrek and Fiona, Corinne has a conversation with donkey. We then done the last few bits the house of horrors which is a collection of old school scare people like Dracula, the mummy, Frankenstein and even leather face. Down on the back lot we went on the Jurassic park ride with its 80ft vertical water drop, the mummy returns ride and the back draft fire show.After an amazing and tiring day we headed across to universal studios and bought a few bits, we had tea in Bubba-Gump shrimp the Forrest Gump themed restaurant which is so nice. We bought some more pin badges for the HRC before heading back and chilling out for the evening playing some games off pool and catching a movie on the box.

Friday 11th April

We wanted a beach day so after a little packing and some phone calls we headed off for Santa Monica and took some time exploring the area we took some time to sun bath and watched the roller skaters go by. After we'd had enough we went and checked the pier out finding a mini-golf course we resumed the competition on the cool pirate themed holes. Needless to say Corinne won by about 6 shots in the first game and wolfie won the second so currently the scores are 2-1 in favour of wolfie.

We went for a walk up to the shops and had a look around there for an hour or so, the shopping is so cheap in the states with the pound being so strong even so if it wasn't it would still be cheap. Take a Rip Curl t-shirt in England we'd expect to pay around £30-40 in the states they were all around $20 and at the moment that like £10 ;-).Later in the evening we went for dinner at a 50's themed American diner called Johnny Rockets. The burgers were amazing and we sat on stool next to the bar. There were your only little personalised juke boxes in front of you and for 5cents you could choose a song form the 50's. We returned and finished packing up for the drive up the coast the next day.

Saturday 12th April

After chucking all the stuff in the car and having our last free breakfast we went for one last look around the strip before taking route one up the Californian coast. We drove past endless beaches and coves, occasionally through mountains inland as the road detoured away from the ocean. We stopped in a sleepy town for a McDonalds (and yes they are everywhere in the US) for a quick bit of tea before finding a spot to watch the sunset on a clear evening.

During dusk we came across elephant seal colonies and stopped for a look. After navigating our way around the cliff roads of the Big Sur we arrived at our bed for the evening in Monterey Bay kind of an in between stop for LA and our final mainland destination of San Francisco. We checked into our motel and got some sleep ready for the next day.