Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco

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Days 25-33 (by Iain)

So, in this last week and a wee bit we have been travelling through from Las Vegas in the crazily hot Nevada desert to the pretty breezy hills of San Francisco.

Vegas was the middle of last week and is just as crazy and tacky as you hear about all the time. We did a little bit of gambling including pulling those slot machine levers down and trying to win pennies, of which Ben bagged $47 very early on. We also played some blackjack which was great fun. Ben sat down at the table first and suffered the consequences of not knowing the little hand signals. After much studying I took his place and pretended to know exactly what I was doing, and ended up doubling my money, Ben profited too. That was pretty much what Vegas had to offer, gambling and lots of incredibly cheap alcohol and more people with Scottish ancestors.

We followed Las Vegas up with our trip to Los Angeles, where we stayed in on Hollywood Boulevard. That was pretty cool, the walk of stars is pretty disappointing though, you don't know half of them. We met a girl at the hostel who is working for a record company in L.A. and she volunteered to ferry us around the area on the Sunday. She took us along to all the theatres where they have movie premieres (The Thing from Fantastic 4 said hello to me!), out to Beverly Hills and then over to Santa Monica where I got to swim in the Pacific, that was incredible. The waves are so huge and the water gets so deep so quickly that you lose sight of the beach 20 feet out. So Hollywood was great fun, the hostel had a free BBQ and a reasonably awful comedian on show too.

And then on Sunday we headed to San Francisco where we spent one night in the city and then came out to the suburbs to stay with Brian at his huge but stereotypically cool University campus. Ben was happy to put his feet up after our mammoth walk across the city on Tuesday where we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and back.

And so, Brian's flat is where we are just now, his girlfriend threw a 4th July party the other night that involved beach volleyball and crazy French people trying to soak everyone, it was good fun. Though I was saddened to discover that Amity Island in Jaws is not a real place- that honestly shocked me! At present Brian and Moria are off to a wedding whilst me and Ben sit drinking Rum and Beer respectively. Brian has been very busy this week with science stuff but has the weekend free now. Our plan is to stay here over the weekend then head up north.

N.B. for those who know Brian - his home is just a few posters and photos short of being a Scottish shrine. He has loads of pictures from his trips to Mull etc, plenty of whisky and we all watched Chewin' The Fat last night. And of course, Brian wouldn't be Brian without his ginger beard - still going proud and strong!

Ben's epic to follow...

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