It is a weird experience...

When you take two connecting flights to get you from Auckland to LA, and you travel for 16hours, just to arrive at the same time as you left....
Jet lag is never fun. But when you have a cheap motel room and even cheaper American liquor, all is forgotten.

We arrived at LAX, greeted by cousin Rob, who had taken 4flights and 2 days to get from Scotland to L.A, or 'The Angels,'in a real language.

We went directly to Hertz to pick up our Ford Mustang convertible that Rob had booked for us.

Rob had two little bags with him. One with a few items of clothing and a pair of school shoes, and the other loaded up with geek-tastic (yes, that is a real word) equipment.

Cameras, iPhones, iPads, wireless Internet routers, GPS, music recording equipment.... .....and an expired provisional driving licence. Good start on the car rental....

The lucky combination of all of our driving licences, none being complete, all of our credit cards, all maxed out or not in order, and a young, slightly dumb American Hertz customer service girl, meant than within half an hour I was sitting in the driving seat of a V6 left hand drive Ford Mustang.

There was just one thing to do.... Get the roof down!!!

We drove off into the LA sunshine, gasping at all the fast food joints and multi-lane freeways. Listening to music, Rob smoking English rolled cigarettes and Katie basking in the sunlight.

Living the American dream.....It took me around 15 minutes to crash the car and knock off the passengers side wing mirror. Gooooood times. Thank goodness for the insurance waiver we paid extra for.

God Bless America.

The first night in L.A was spent mainly planning a route for the next month, and me Being told to f*** off by a pizza boy..... Apparently tipping is important in this country.....

We spent the next day down at Hollywood Blvd. looking at the stars fitted into the 'sidewalks,' and all the wanna be stars walking down them. There are so many bleached teeth 'actors' fighting for their dream of being the next big thing.

Did you know, that it isn't a nomination, or a celebration of any sort when you have your name on a Hollywood blvd star, it is infact the celebrity who buys thier own star. A mear 30,000 dollars, and you get your name written on the floor.....

I was doing that as a 6 year old with crayons. My mum had to change the lino.

We took the cheesy tour of Hollywood, 90210 and the celebs homes. We took the tour quite sarcastically, but the others on our open top bus were totally retarded with excitement by the prospect of parking up outside peoples houses. Houses included Al Pacino, The Playboy mansion, Michael Jackson (apparently he wasnt in that day) and Beckingham Palace..... The list goes on.....and so did the most annoying guy ever to be on a tour, ever. He found it necessary to repeat and then add to everything the tour guy said, while pointing excitedly at front doors.

I think it is important to say at this point, that these 60-100 million dollar houses, we're quite nice,some average to middling and some pretty plain. They all lined up against each other, right along the main road, with tour cars parked all alongside them, while people looked out, into their windows. (some excitedly pointed and repeated the words of their tour guides).

If I had all the money in the world, I wouldn't choose to live there. Living next door to Robin Williams may be great if you fancied hearing a joke, but he is unlikely to help you out in the garden is he?!

Madame Tusade was the plan for the next day. This mainly consisted of myself and cousin Rob sexually violating many wax dolls, and generally behaving in appropriately in public......We have some great photos though..

Our first stop was San Diego in the morning.....

Peace and flip flops

Nic and Katie (and cousin Rob) xxx