Exploring LA!!

Right we're back here again. A bit of a delay since the last post (and I'm afraid I think the gaps are just going to keep getting greater from here on out- we join the tour on Wednesday and internet connection is likely to be a bit hit and miss).

What is there to tell you wonderful people about what we've been up to in LA? Well we've had a pretty action packed two days! Yesterday we headed to the Walk of Fame (am I even supposed to capitalise that?). We saw some pretty cool hand and footprints there too. Including: Emma Watson's, Rupert Grint's, Daniel Radcliffe's, Tom Hanks', Johnny Depp's, Judy Garland's, Adam Sandler's, Bruce Willis's, Shirley Temple's etc etc (you get the picture).

Alice and Gillian (being the House fans that we are), managed to find Hugh Laurie. No big deal.

Then we joined a tour (which we managed to haggle down to half its original price) which took us around Hollywood:

Beverly Hills:

aaand Rodeo Drive:

(obviously we we completely fit in with all the designer shops, and felt like we could purchase anything we wanted). Apparently Sandra Bullock had been shopping there just that morning. It was a nice Sunday morning; I can certainly see the appeal of spending ludicrous amounts of money on ludicrously overpriced clothes.

Moving on, we went to admire the actual Hollywood sign (from a distance since the only real way up close is by car, and because car companies suck, you have to be 21 to rent a car here!) I'm not including a picture here because they're all quite rubbish, and look a bit like we've just taken lots of photos of some pretty standard, any-old-place hill. The videos are GREAT, but I'm tired so won't be uploading them for the time being.

Finally we ended the day in Kodak theatre (where the Oscars are held!) and went to see a film in the famous Chinese Theatre there. We saw the film Fast and Furious, which we all actually really enjoyed (although the initial decription hadn't sounded exactly our type of genre). The best part about it, however, were the seats. We sat in some new line of cinema viewing seats (called D Box seats) where the whole chair rocks and tilts and shudders along with the film. It was quite an experience!

The cinema/ theatre:

Today was not quite as glam and glitzy at all that. And that may well be the understatement of the year. We woke up at about 10am, and we were all still in our pyjamas at half past 3 in the afternoon. In the hotel room. We had to turn the cleaner away once, and then she cam back a few hours later and cleaned around us (which was very kind of her, and we were very grateful!) The thing is, is that today was a bank holiday in America (Memorial Day), so not much was going on really, and also we all decided we needed to book stuff to do in Canada now, while we had reliable interney. So we booked the coaches, the hostels, the dorms etc. etc. AND IT TOOK FOREVER. We were researching and booking on the internet for about 4 hours. Deciding that we'd better get a move on, we then headed out to go to the LA Dodgers vs. Colorado Rockies baseball game we'd booked:

The LA Dodgers won, which was cool sicne that was the home crowd, and therefore who we'd been supporting (did the hat and hand give it away?) The funny thing was, we had absolutely no idea who'd won the game, until the point when the information boards starting flashing 'DODGERS WIN', and everyone started cheering crazily. Turns out none of us had the foggiest idea how the rules of baseball work. It was exactly like we'd all imagine though. There were the crazy people running up and down the steep steps trying to sell you refreshments, and the commentator sounded just like he was meant to, and we all bought hot dogs for dinners, and everyone sung songs about 'long live America' (which we of course joined in with!), and generally it was just a lot of fun.

On the way back to the bus, we were asked (for about the 3rd or 4th time in the last 6 days), if we'd been to the Royal wedding. I think our accents are a bit of a conversation starter really. Sad that our response is always just 'nah, sorry, we just saw it on tv'. Oh well.

Anyway this evening we went and hung out in the jacuzzi on the rooftop of our hotel, and met three very lovely Americans who we got chatting to for ages and we may well be meeting up with them tomorrow.

p.s. GUTTED to hear about Reading!! I'm sure they'll go the whole way next year. Hope anyone who went had a good time at Wembley despite the hugely disappointing result!

Goodbye SF! Hello LA!

So we started yesterday pretty late relatively speaking (at about 7.30am). We had breakfast, and then packed in the corridor (which was the biggest faff ever, and I think most of the rest of the floor found us highly amusing to watch), so as not to wake Adam/Ryan (again).

Then we went to Union Square, and hung out in Tiffanys, discussing wedding rings (as you do), and looking decidedly out of place amongst the thousand dollar jewellry in our worn out trainers. Although we were making sure to flaunt our accents to make us sound a bit posher haha.

Eventually we left, and went to the Macys store (also in Union Square). We found a massive assortment of evening dresses, and naturally decided to try some on!

Sadly all the dresses were a bit out of our price range. So instead we next went to the top floor of the store to where there was a Cheesecake Factory. We poured through the many different flavoured cheesecakes on offer...

...but because we'd only just had breakfast, we settled for a few drinks instead.

Finally it was time for our guided tour of Chinatown!

We visited a Buddhist temple, and also a Dao one:

Next on the tour was a visit to the last handmade fortune cookie factory in the world (a tradition incidentally, which started in San Francisco's Chinatown, and not in China). Then we went to a tea shop (although the owner told us rather emphatically that it was a "tea bar, and not a shop") and got to do a bit of free tea tasting! And finally after the tour had ended, we ate a very late lunch (at about half 4), at a ludicrously overpriced Chinese restaurant. We bought some Jasmine tea to eat with the meal (we'd all rather enjoyed it at the tea shop). He's a bit of a video about about the tea.

Unfortunately, it was after this meal that Gillian discovered she was missing about $100 from her purse!!! We have no idea what has happened to it, but it put a bit of a downer on the following few hours! However, to cheer things up a bit, we all went exploring through some of the classiest hotels in Union Square (e.g. the Weston St. Francis). Or to rephrase that, we went looking for the loos in some of the classiest hotels...

Then we made the long walk from the locker room to the Greyhound Coach station at half past 9 that evening, and caught the 11pm coach. Not kidding, every single member of staff there was SO stressed out. Turns out we'd bought the wrong ticket (an easy mistake to make), but it caused them severely unnecessary anxiety, and we were pretty glad to escape them and get on the bus! The coach journey was freakin' FREEZING cold, and it was rather uncomfortable, though we all did manage to get a few hours sleep at the least, and arrive in Los Angeles this morning just gone half past 6.

Naturally, the first place we went was to get a coffee/ hot chocolate from Starbucks. Standard.

We're now in LA, we did the grocery shopping, and then went to get a manicure and pedicure each- which was AWESOME. We're about to go out and watch a film projected onto the side of a building outside in the Cemetary. For any of you who've seen the film Valentine's Day, one of the scenes is set there! Oh, and our hotel is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!! We'll show you a video later! We're off now- BYE!!! x

Exploring San Francisco!

Having woken up bright and early (at half 6!!), and got ready in the corridor so as to not wake our roomate Adam/Ryan (not sure which...), we successfully navigated San Francisco's Muni Bus system (with help from a few friendly locals) to the Golden Gate Bridge.

The weather was sunny but windy. We walked the 1.7 miles across and back again, enjoying the cool breeze. Despite Bessie's suggestion to bring suncream, we didn't, which is biting us all in the bum right now!! Bessie has a nice farmer's tan, and Gillian and Alice are finding sleeping painful...

(It looks worse than it actually is. Honestly.)

Then we visited Alcatraz. According to the photo we bought, it was an 'inescapeable experience'. I know- impressive play on words there, we thought so too... Was a pretty interesting trip though. We got an audio tour with the commentary performed by a few murderers/ kidnappers/ bank robbers, and a couple of the ex-officers too. And the ferry ride was awesome- saw the city and the Golden Gate bridge in their full glory!

We walked to a Hispanic area called The Mission for some burritos, and found some pretty awesome murials on the way!

Next stop, LA!!

We made it!!!!

Last glimpse of England with a nice view of the Union Jack tipped wing!

As you can see we were all terribly excited and thrilled to finally be off.

This part was EFFORT. Filling in the customs forms. No we aren't smuggling snails/ our groceries/ fruit flies in the country.

Bessie and Alice eating one of the many meals we got- none of us were very sure whether it was lunch or dinner...

Engrossed in whatever films were on. I think between us we watched 127 hours (twice), The Social Network (twice), Love and Other Drugs (three times), Jackass 3 (Alice was watching this while Gillian was watching a guy try and cut off his arm; and the constant laughter was a little distracting), and many more...

Okay this picture is seriously shocking quality, but we could actually see the Golden Gate Bridge there in the very distant background. Failing to see that, at least you see the pretty Pacific coast-line!

Aaaand also, according to the in-flight map, we did end up flying over Greenland and Canada etc (the usual route) despite the volcanic eruption from Saturday.

Moving swiftly on, Virgin gave us complimentary magazines. Alice immediately found the page with Latin chat up lines on...

There is also a highly attractive video of Gillian eating a wrap on the aeroplane. But at the moment it's not successfuly uploading (she's gutted).

There are more videos and pics but we're insanely tired (it's 8.45pm local time- which feels like 4.45am for us). This is definitely the longest 25th May we've ever lived through- 32 HOURS!!!

Latersssss x

A bit of history!

This photo pretty much sums up our time together. This photo was taken on the last day of school in year 13, would you believe?! We were dressing up as year 7s and were re-enacting some of the excitement we had for school back then. We were also on our way to biology where we inevitably got even more excited planning our trip to North America. Which is what we spent most of biology doing.

Final Plans!

So while Alice was away in Kenya from the beginning of January until the end of April, Bessie and I were hugely productive (I know- we surprised even ourselves!) and booked a whole load of stuff. We sorted out the flights to San Francisco and back from New York; we're flying with Virgin. Not gonna lie, I'm not a massive fan of Mr. Sir. R. Branson (especially considering the fact that Virgin are probably British Airways's largest competitor- call me biased- I am!! If it weren't for BA, I'd not be here now... :P), but they were the cheapest flights we could find, and it beats the European cheapskate airlines like Easyjet or Ryan Air by a mile, so I'm not complaining!
Bessie and I also booked the overnight coach from SF to LA, the LA hotel, and a baseball game taking place in LA; Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Colorado Rockies. << for the game all three of us are planning on buying some of those big yellow hand things and wave them about madly. We're gonna look so cool. The players are going to L O V E us!!

Then this morning, all three of us booked the final accommodation in America (the New York hostel), and later in the week it's on to booking Canada stuff! YES.

And because booking gap year stuff just wouldn't be right if it wasn't preceded by a night out in Reading, we also went out...
Anyway, moving swiftly on, here is a photo we took (which I like to call 'The Walrus'):

And a slightly less alcoholic one... n'aww <3