'You are natural stars'....really?!

Since i last wrote weve done LOADS!! we went to see the Giants play on our last night in San Fran..they won, blatantly because we are such supportive fans!! The atmosphere was amazing, we were soon chanting along, especially when this guy called 'The Beard' came on...hes pretty badass. Baseball is basically just jumped up rounders, so it was fairly easy for us girls to understand.
The day after we vacated our lovely room, said goodbye to the girls that broke the shower and banged the lockers at 7am with a little door slam and headed for our FIRST greyhound journey...which was surprisingly ok, even though the engine overheated and we sat on the side of the Freeway for about 30 mins! One thing we have learned- Americans are SUCH complainers, they feel like everyone owes them something...we sat stoically british not moaning even when someone fully reclined their seats onto our laps...we just talked very loudly about how INCONSIDERATE some people can be. The message was received.

L.A. what to say?? its huuuge. not really worth coming sans voiture. which is a shame as we dont have one. We have two really sweet english girls in our dorm, its like a taste of home. And a crazy lady who sleeps naked and gets annoyed when we pack up our day stuff at 11am- as if it was crazy early and we were disturbing her. How about going to bed earlier then, missy?!
Our first day we spent exploring this place called 'The Farmers Market' which is like a huge outdoor shopping complex with Abercrombie and Fitch (plus models!) and Victoria's Secret and this weird doll shop called All American Girl where you buy a doll that looks like you and then you buy matching outfits for you and your doll and theres even a DOLL HAIR SALON with GROWN WOMEN styling doll hair. creep AS. As we were walking back we saw a sign for a Tim Burton exhibition at the LACMA so we went even though it was HELLA expensive and there wasnt even student discount. But there were his scetches and animations and Edward scissorhand's costume complete with scissorhand and catwoman's costume from Batman, definitely glad we went.
On our way back we discovered this place called Whole Food Market and joked about seeing Jennifer Anniston there as she blatantly does her weekly shop in this place- i was in heaven. i cant even describe it to you just fresh fruit and veg and things like Kale chips and you can have sushi made up and there are about 10 salad bars and samples to try...anyway weve basically been back every day. its AWESOME but expensive. last night we had rotisserie chicken and $12 worth of salad, but it was worth it. (thats right mother, SALAD.)
Yesterday we hit.the.beach. its 2 buses away but we wanted to see all the skaters and muscle men. to be honest, it wasnt that great, as soon as we got to the beach it was cloudy, but we did see a cool skate competition including some wheelchair skaters who were amazing. We also found this nice bar to drink in, and an english waiter who actually poured FULL pints. They seem to like leaving at least 1.5cm s of head on the beer and im a student, i want my money's worth!
Today we walked up to Hollywood Blvd, from our santa monica hostel. it was a mission. but we took cheesy walk of fame photos and talked about what we would do if we met Bradley Cooper (a recurring theme of this trip!) I got to stand in George Clooney's footprints, if only he had been there.....(Hannah thinks George is an eternal batchelor and you never could pin him down, i say he hasnt met the right lady yet. and yes i know hes like a million years older than me, but like fine wine, he ages so well!)Also some chinese ladies asked us to take photos of them and then be in the photos because we are 'natural stars', HA! obviously dont know us. weve only just stopped smelling of garlic.
Anyway, we took a detour via wholefoods to get some sushi and then back on Melrose Avenue where our hostel is, we thought we would stick our noses in Fred Segal, department store loved by the stars, and play 'imaginary shopping', where you imagine you have enough money to buy things...anyway, as we were leaving, guess who walked in? LIV TYLER. COOOL CELEB SPOT!!! first of the trip to (apart from mario lopez who was in 'saved by the bell' and that doesnt really count)

Anyway, beloved admirers, tomorrow were heading to VEGAS! oh. yes.
sending much love xxxx

Stinky Girls

So. Fisherman's wharf was gastronomically fantastic. As you can probably tell, we love food. We ate calamari and fresh crab and a breadbowl full of clam chowderrrr and lolled around like the sealions that frequent the docks there. It is so hot here its incredible, 30 degrees for the past few days, have some nicely pinking shoulders, will surely return a bronzed goddess (cough cough). Yesterday we took a trip through chinatown, much tat plus some rude postcards that we should have bought if we hadnt already got some. grrrr. we ended up in North Beach, no beach but a cool little place where the Beat Poets were first published. we hit up the City Lights Bookshop and got some cute little thangs. After this we decided it was lunchtime (were already getting a bit sick of stodgey pancakes for breakfast) and we had previously stumbled across The Stinking Rose. Google it. It was incredible, both me and Hannah had already read about it in different places, but it is dedicated to garlic. If any of you have encountered me as a young child you would probably know my affinity to Boursin, the french garlic and chive cream cheese. Well, quite frankly i was in heaven. We ate roast garlic in oil, squashed onto freshly baked foccacia, shrimp and tomato stew (with garlic) and a salad (with garlic) we passed on the garlic icecream for dessert..no, im not lying. The only problem is, now we actually stink! 24 whole hours later and we reek to high heaven! this is good because the girls who have moved into our dorm were crashing around at 7am and subsequently broken the shower, so revenge is sweet(ly stinking)!
Today is our last day in SF. We love it. The grande finale is watching the Giants Baseball game tonight..i know, i know...baseball is chronically boring to watch..many people have said. but so what? we have matching vest tops and an appetite for sport, beer and hotdogs! (dont worry, san fran is hilly as. were burning about a billion calories a day, for any reader worrying about the potential for an ever expanding waistline!)
Tomorrow we embark upon our Greyhound bus adventure, and at 8 hours, our transfer to LA will probably be the shortest journey we make- dreading it...but its fine, weve got magazines and snacks.........




I joke.

Much love xxxxx

Observations from SF

San Francisco has a massive meth problem. it is incredibly sad and difficult to see. Bristol isn't exactly drugs free or anything but seeing people wander around aimlessly with their eyes glazed over muttering is new to me. seriously its like a zombie invasion.
Hannah and I have moved to a more central hostel not far from Union Square, where we spent our third day just wandering around. Checking out Macy's and all of the sexy boys, err i mean clothes in abercrombie..mm. This place is completely different from the Mission (which is where Santana grew up, thanks dad for that fact) its metropolitan and commercial but pretty cool nonetheless. Our Hostel is on Taylor Street, Taylor street is in fact a massive hill...so that was fun lugging our packs up here...the hostel is cool though, apart from the prison like bunk beds which require gymnastic skills to enable you to get to bed every night. i have none of these skills, im sure its a sight to be seen!
yesterday we hit up golden gate park and bridge, loving being a tourist! The park is kind of confusing, it has several very large roads running through it- JFK drive, martin luther king jr drive etc etc, so not necessarily tranquil..we got overtaken by a segway tour, and discovered a sunday lindy hop class on one of the 'sidewalks'. we watched for a bit but retreated in fear that someone might ask us to join in. Cute though.
We decided to hit up the Japanese tea garden and accidentally wreaked havoc by knocking down a bamboo railing trying to avoid getting knocked down by a toddler pushing her own buggy. Sunday is not a good day for sightseeing. We discovered this yet again at the golden gate bridge where on more than one occasion a bike angrily and narrowly avoided ploughing through us...well im sorry, but putting a pedestrian and cyclist path along the side of the bridge is the most retarded idea since chocolate tea pots. (i do wish they existed though..) we took some photos and noted alcatraz (tours need to be booked 2 weeks in advance so no luck on visiting that, though tbh the cells are probably not that much different from our hostel room..) and then headed back to the hostel, via a convienience store where we bought some Bud Light- only because they have labels that you can write messages on- which we duely did (rude ones), then drank up, and went to bed- in apprehension for our amazing day today- HELLO fishermans wharf- HELLO fishtastic food. Hello Tacky SF gifts and Postcards! WOOO

Sending love overseas xxxxxxxxxxxx

Tequila Tequila!

So. If you have spoken to me about my trip at any point i will probably have mentioned the 8 dolla margaritas we were planning on consuming. well ladies and gentlemen, it is done!!!
We started our day feeling a little shell shocked and nervy. this wasnt helped by our complete inability to get water to come out of the shower head instead of the tap, so we had baths before an exuberant breakfast of coffee and bagels with PB&J! We ventured out to explore the Mission, the area we are staying in and mainly wandered along Valencia street which is full of funny little shops selling weird ass taxidermies of unicorns and rabbits with antlers...also cool bookshops with books on Freud and magazines about meat...having got the impression from our customs scenario and the receptionist at the hostel that Americans were less than friendly, our day was brightened by a gay man saying 'Hi ladies, how are you?!!'We passed time repeating phrase like 'excuse me maa'am, can you step off the sidewalk' in terrible american accents, but the true piece de resistance was when we cracked out the 'queens english' in an icecream parlour and got the giggles- 'i must get some money out of my purse to pay this fine young fellow'...it was funny if you were there, ok?
we headed back to our hostel after lavender honey and cinnamon and snickerdoodle cups from the Bi-Rite Creamerie and got ready to CELEBRATE us being alive and functioning and also me passing my exams...!! 3 years to go ahh yeeeaaah! (failure wasnt really an option considering i would have had to fly home for the re-sits, i think hannah was understandably as nervous as me when i was getting them!)
So, these margaritas weren't just any, they were PINT sized, and that is no exaggeration...we drank them in the window of the Latin American club on 22nd and Valencia, people watching and admiring the power ranger pinatas hanging from the ceiling. I am not exaggerating when i say it was probably 50% tequila, and it took us at least an hour to drink, but we battled on! Then came back to the morrocan style bar at our hostel and drank Stella for comfort and went to bed, but not before booking ourselves a hostel to stay in at the Grand Canyon in 2 weeks time-eeeeee! exciting stuff.


Sending love to my devoted readers and fans XXXX

San Fran-a-rama

Well i think its safe to say that Hannah and I both experienced some kind of emotional apocalypse yesterday....By the time we finally got into bed over here at about 9pm we had been up for 25hours....we had been subjected to all security measures under the sun short of a cavity search (thank baby jesus for that!) including in depth questioning on our financial situations, dog search, full baggage dissection including underwear inspection (jokes..) by the time we had passed those tests of strengths we had to re-check our baggage and have our passports re-checked. To add to insult I was then subjected to a skin test for drugs and GSR and put through the body scanner...minus shoes and belt and dignity. Not gonna lie, almost cried. We then ate peanut butter M&Ms and mint chocolate chip chewing gum and hannah drank a strawberry lemonade that was 90% sugar....
Another 5hour flight later with a personality-less property lawyer sandwiched between us and a few Royal Wedding questions later and we arrived in San Fran. Got some kind of underground train to The Mission (an area) and checked into our hostel.

Feeling much better this morning, after 1.5 bagels with PB&J (peanut butter and jelly) and 2 coffees. AMERICA ARE YOU READY FOR US?????!


(will reply to emails later, my lovely family members) xxx