Laura: Recap cont'd

What's up? (this is american for 'how are you doing, fine people?') see i'm picking up the slang already.

Ok, so recap, the trip got off to a rocky start when my claims of 'we dont need to check in for the flight early online,' proved erroneous, and we ended up being two of the last three people to check in and therfore not able to sit together on the plane. Maybe not the biggest dilemma for anyone who's fine with being stuck in a tin-can, death trap 30,000 feet into the air, but considering me and fi both like flying even less than Paris Hilton likes driving sober, there was some pretty hysterical crying before we even moved off the runway. Things got worse when the captain, NO JOKE, said this over the louspeaker:

Captain: "Good Morning, I am Captain rahrahrah....so you may have noticed we are running a little late for our scheduled time of departure, that is because 2 of our 4 engines failed to start when we tried to initialize take off a few minutes ago. The machine normally used to test them has actually boken down so e're gonna try to track down a new and give it another go. Not to worry though, we'll take off soon anyway"

Me & Fi: "F**K, F**K, F**K" and all sorts of other potty mouth language

Luckily a kindly airhostess took pity on us and moved some people around (probably cos we were freaking the other passengers out) and 10 bum-numbing hours later we hit the beautiful, drenched beaches of San Francisco, or so we thought....

it turns out the tourist industry's best-kept secret is that San Francisco is BLOODY FREEZING. I'm genuinely thinking of suing the city that resides in California, supposedly the 'Sunshine State' under the trades description act. We had packed about 10 bikinis each, four bottle of factor 25 and only about three jumpers, so spent the entire week we were there looking like the abominable snowmen, each in about seven layers. Saying that San Fran was a really cool city, the people are crazy friendly and one time we ended up stranded in the gay district with the campest man i've ever met who just kept repeating the phrase 'I am gonna tear that shit up' whenever a moderately attractive bloke walked past, and quite a few hideous ones aswell (he meant bum them.) We walked over the Golden Gate Bridge and went to Alcatraz for the day, the US's most high profile maximum security prison which (contrary to the Sean Connery film 'The Rock's' version) had seen three people manage to escape. It was the best thing we've done so far and not only housed the Birdman of Alcatraz but also Al Capone. They let you stand alone in the solitary confinement cells and with no windows and just four tiny walls, its really eiree, especially when you see the cell where prisoners shot three of the guards they manged to capture during a botched escape attempt.

After a week in SF the weather got to us and we were ready to migrate south for the duration, we got a lift with this Austrian bloke called Marco who was living in the same hostel as us. Now i know you should never get into cars with strange men, but this guy had hippy written all over him (long white dreds, funny smell etc.) and only weighed about 8 stone so we thought if it ever came to it, we could both probably take him. We drove down through Santa Cruz then onto Monterey where we went Whale Watching (with all sorts of Free Willy style action) and to this giant Aquarium. However, after a few days we realised that whilst nice, the Austrian (as he shall henceforth be known) had a less-than-casual relationship with personal hygiene (he never washed or changed his t-shirt for the four days and nights we were with him) and was totally humourless, so I think he found me and fi quite annoying, especially when we would get back to our motel room and force him to watch late night re-runs of Dawsons Creek and Sex in the City. Then as we drove to Santa Barbara the next town along the 'Big Sur', a road which is carved out the cliff and is the only thing between the car and a 20ft drop to the ocean, he instisted on trying to map read AND drive way faster than the speed limit at the same time, and we decided it was best we cut the Austrian loose, before we killed him! Like they say two's company, threes a crowd...

We're currently in LA and loving it, its sunny and there loads to do. So far we've been to a couple of Hollywood Museums, strolled along the walk of fame, watched a late night talk show being filmed, been to a graveyard where all the famous people are buried (not as creepy as it sounds) and of course spent the day at Universal Studios. Famous celeb sightings have so far included: Max Beesley, Samuel 'motherf**king' L. Jackson, Robbie Williams, Don Rickles (old school hollywood legend) a guy from the Grinch movie, Spencer Moon from Eastenders, Johny Wilks and a couple of TV people who are big over here but I have never heard of in England. True to form Fi blagged us into the VIP area of some posh club on Hollywood Boulevard on Saturday, disappointingly there was a lack of celebs but the club is the one in that new movie 'Knocked Up' and we're currently working on the finer details of how to blag our way into more venues, using Fi posing as Kate Middleton (hey it could happen)

My favourie moment so far was when we met Spencer Moon and Fi didnt realise who it was (in her defence it was really dark) and spent about half an hour asking him cringy questions about where he lived in london, what school he went to, what he did in LA and who he knew in London. Seriously it went like this:

Fi: So where about do you hang out in Chiswick?
Spencer: I go to the Soho House (v.posh)
Fi: Ooh get you! very nice. So who do you know around Chiswick, what are their names?
Spencer: (awkward) well my mates i used to work with (from eastenders, but he was too classy to say it out loud) and Fern, Reggie (from radio 1)
Fi: haha what Fern Cotton yeah? (joking)
Spncer: er, yes actually (not joking)

It was very reminicent from that scene in Notting Hill where Bernie's taling to Julia Roberts without realisng who she is, we nearly wet ourselves when we realsied, but he was so nice so it wasnt too bad. We're gonna do a couple more studio tours, hit rodeo drive (only to shoplift cos we cant actually afford to buy stuff) and go to the doger stadium, aswell as a few other bits and pieces before we move on to Vegas (we saw Oceans 13 the other day so are now convinced we can rob the place)...