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Published: November 9th 2010
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From Florida we arrived in San Francisco just in time for halloween! San Francisco - love love love it! We stayed in a hotel near Union Square and Chinatown, it was a great location for getting around and there was a halloween party in the bar. One day we cycled through Haight Ashbury, by everyone queuing outside the clinics to get their medicinal marijuana to the Golden Gate Park, twice the size of Central Park. Haight Ashbury is in a world of it's own, some folk still think they're in the sixties. Then we cycled over the Golden Gate Bridge. Everyone hates people cycling over, there were lots of people doing it but there was plenty of space, I don't know why they don't make a cycle lane if it's such a problem.
On the way to the bridge there are the Lucas Arts studios from which George Lucas wrote the Star Wars movies. Apparently he was influenced by the massive cranes at the harbor from which he got the idea for the Imperial walkers in the films. Across from the studios, there is the Palace of Fine Arts with a domed roof which funnily enough looks like R2D2!
Then the Giants won the World Series, everyone was going crazy in the streets and all the beggars seemed to have raided the bins for the old halloween costumes and were parading about in full get up and creeping up on people in masks. The night after that we saw West Side Story.
We got cheap flights to Vegas. I always forget with Continental you need to pay to check bags so this bumped up the price especially as David bought a samurai sword in San Fran so obviously this wasn't going in hand luggage! But it's so annoying when everyone else carry on their suitcases, our flight was delayed as their wasn't enough space in the over head containers.
Arriving in Vegas I pretty much remembered everything about it that I hated the last time. The stink of fat, the trashy clientele, the bleeping slot machines and lights flashing (yeah, I know, its to be expected) We booked a non smoking room at the Circus Circus but apparently this request was irrelevant as they gave it to someone else and we were given a smoking room. I'm not kidding, it smelled like someone
had been chain smoking about 100 cigarettes, revolting! The hotel itself is old and dingy, the staff are rude and it's full of hookers who look like they've had a hard life. The only good thing to come out of Vegas was the show we saw - KA by Cirque du Soleil. It was probably the best show I've even seen. We left Vegas after a grand total of one day, even David said he couldn't have stayed longer and I don't think my heart could take anymore doughnuts or waffles and syrup so we escaped with all our stuff reeking of smoke.
One of my favourite things to do in America is stopping off at dingy diners in the middle of nowhere, the sleazier the better. So thats what we did on the way to LA off the Interstate 15. We arrived in LA late at night and rolled up to a motel in Chinatown, we always seem to end up in the Chinatowns for the cheapness and for the food of course! I don't know how we would have got about in LA if we didn't have the car, the traffic is bad but not as
bad as I expected but David was terrified I would crash into a lamborghini or ferrari!
The next morning, like good tourists we found ourselves on Hollywood Boulevard, checking out the walk of fame outside Graumann’s Chinese theatre. I got a bit distracted in Sephora so David went on a tour of the Kodak Theatre where the Academy Awards are held. Then we headed over to Beverly Hills and drove through horrendous traffic to Santa Monica and up to Malibu.
We walked halfway up to the Hollywood sign to take some photos. It's actually illegal to hike right up to the sign but we were goaded on by an aussie fellow hiker and the fence was practically down so what the heck, we decided to go all the way. Its quite a steep dusty slope to get up, sliding down was harder than getting up. We were up there taking in the view, sitting on the W for about ten minutes before being spotted on the cameras and issued with a warning through the speakers by the L.A.P.D to get off the private property or we would be arrested! By that point anyway we'd breathed in
enough smog so were more than happy to head back down but we did have one of the park helicopters over us!
For the last couple of days we stayed in a hotel in Hollywood and on our last day we went to Runyon Canyon Park and watched everyone walking their rats on leads, then went to the Melrose Trading Post flea market. We saw Florence Welch buying amazing vintage dresses. On day 365 my backpacker funds are pretty much depleted but I still found a bargain bag and necklace!
Our year away has come to an end but don’t worry, we’ll travel more! Just have to go back to reality, that thing called a mortgage and a normal working life to save up for our next adventure!
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