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Published: April 21st 2010
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Where Jacko died I think and where we couldn't watch the Lakers! (Read this as if we published it a month ago if you want to know what we got up to in America. Sorry we've been very lazy....!)
Hello to all you blog enthusiasts! This should be our penultimate entry before we make our way back to the sunny shores of Britain. We flew out of Aukland and embarked on a 12hr flight which saw me and Joey sat in the confined middle-isle seats and with me suffering from a migraine and what is most commonly described as man flu, it wasn't exactly the best flight we'd taken on our trip. After landing in LA we made our way to Venice Beach on the west side of the city. Here we would wait for the arrival of Smithy, Moo and Charlie who were joining us on a 2 week "vacation" later on that week. In this time, my man flu had manifested into pretty nasty tonsilitis and a trip to the ER was ordered by my mother in order to collect some antibiotics. Little did I know this trip would require me to see 3 receptionists, 2 nurses and 2 doctors before being given hospital overalls and injected with steroids and
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Visited the celebs god-knows-what-else in the left buttock. A refusal of an IV drip and a $600 dollar bill later I was free to return to the hostel to sleep for the next few days!
When the lads arrived we made our way to the hostel they were booked into in Santa Monica and quickly set about looking for some bars to catch up on all the Darlington gossip. We were quickly informed not a whole lot had changed in our home town (except of course for the closure of the infamous Escapade bar) and were happy to set about making plans for the next couple of weeks (of all places, these plans were drawn up in a British pub we'd found - something the lads were no doubt enthralled about after travelling 5,000 miles to avoid such pubs!). After renting a car and packing, read cramming, all our luggage into the lovely Hyundai, we set off on our American road trip by heading south to the city of San Diego. With a combined weight of approximately 2 tonnes, the affectionately (and quite ironically considering the weather) named automatic car Sunny didn't have too many problems with the picturesque coastal route we'd
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Our wee trip to Mexico starts taken. When we arrived to our pre-booked hostel we were met with the sight of a pretty run-down looking house and greeted by a very bubbly African lady named Juliet who explained that we were her only guests. 3 minutes later there was an almighty roar from above and we very quickly came to the realistion that we were directly under a rather busy and very close flight path. This didn't deter us however, and we enquired what there was to do and Juliet explained that we should really go and check out Mexico just down the road. Excited by the prospect of a surprise trip to another country we were at the border within the hour. I say border, but in reality it was simply a couple of turnstiles that you'd more likely see at the entrance to a football stadium! A few minutes later we found ourselves being waved into one of the local bars. Expecting to only be in the country a few hours due to Juliet's warning that you probably don't want to stay after dark, we thought it best we utilise our time and head straight into the bar and out of the unexpected Mexican
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At the "border" rain. Several cheap margaritas, free tequilas and plenty of nachos later we were getting into the Mexican spirit and mixing with the locals. The fact that it had gone dark several hours earlier wasn't really a concern for us at this point! After getting the train back we bedded down under our new favourite flight path and awoke with slightly fuzzy heads.
We spent a couple more days in San Diego doing bits and bobs before setting off for the big bad Las Vegas. Unfortunately due to the unwritten rule of 'whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas', I'm unable to divulge any information of what went on in the three days we spent there. Just imagine the film 'The Hangover' but without Mike Tyson.
Another spell in the wonderfully cozy motor and we made our way to Yosemite National Park about 7 hours away. This was pretty spectacular and the fresh air was a welcome break! After exploring Yosemite for a few hours we set off for San Francisco and managed to time it perfectly for Friday night rush-hour traffic. After some pretty hairy moments in the one way system and some skilful driving from Joey, we
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Slurping our Margaritas and Tequila finally managed to find our apartment. On our arrival I was met with a text message informing me that the family dog had gone to doggy heaven so we all thought it'd only be right if we went and had a night out in honour of him. We had a funny night of impressing people with our over-elaborate English accents and raising our glasses loudly to STD (Sam The Dog) - something that was probably slightly controversial in San Fran!
We spent a couple more days in the west coast city where we took a boat trip under the impressive Golden Gate bridge and around the island of Alcatraz. While we were there the whole of America was celebrating St. Patrick's day so we went to see the huge parade that was going through the city centre. It was just amazing how many Irish people there are in America, who don't look at all Irish and have very strong American accents!
Once we got back to LA, the lads got their flights home and Joey and I went back to Venice Beach to wait for our own flights to the East coast in a few days time. Will
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Our friend Mario! hopefully publish a final blog entry explaining what we got up to in our final couple of weeks before returning home.
PK & JW x
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Lisa Smith
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Hey hun, long time no hear, we thought that you must have returned home to England by now, myself and Alicia were just wondering because we hadn't heard from you in quite a while. So the Vegas thing didn't involve Mike Tyson but I assume it did involve a tiger he he. Nothing has changed here, just 6 months or so older and diddled out of 40K but thats another story. Take care. Love Lisa x