Better late than never: The start of the USA

Flew out of Auckland at 3pm on the 28th February, having been sitting there since 9am after dropping off the car. 12 hour plane journey, arriving at 6am on the same day. Needless to say I was quite tired when I arrived at my hotel in Santa Monica. Not the greatest time to have a conversation with a radical Canadian about the meanings of war, but I impressed him with my ancient history knowledge, despite most of it being false.

Took a stroll round Venice Beach, which was 5 minutes away from the hotel. Again, not a great place to go when a bit disorientated, as the place is full of absolute fruitcakes, trying to sell you stuff, dancing to themselves, playing home-made musical instruments and being generally weird. The weather was sunny but not particularly warm, however opinions differed, some people thought it was hot, some people thought it was cold and some people thought they were monkeys...

Decided to walk the short distance down the promenade to the slightly more upmarket Santa Monica, where there was a cool shopping district and a picturesque pier and people were a little friendlier.

After a good night's sleep I ventured into Downtown LA, an hour's bus ride away from the beach. I made an excellent first impression by trying to pay the conductor with New Zealand coins. I then got on the subway to go to Hollywood, a place that is exceptionally underwhelming, quite run-down and a bit of a ghetto. Certainly not as glamorous as in the films...walked along the Walk of Fame, not recognising most of the names on the stars, realised there wasn't much else to do and went back to the hotel to catch up on even more sleep.

Had to check out of the hotel the next morning and had booked a bus to San Francisco for 11pm, so had to carry my bags round LA's few sights all day. The bus station was in the roughest part of town, so I arrived 5 hours early to avoid getting stabbed. After a 7 hour bus ride I arrived in San Francisco.

San Fran was a lot nicer that LA, cleaner, fewer people, fewer cars and most importantly everything was within walking distance. But being the 2nd hilliest city in the world (after La Paz...FACT) all the walking did involve some outrageously steep climbs. Walked round the dock area, to Pier 39, where all the tourists flock to the gift shops and restaurants. The next day I took the ferry to Alcatraz and did the excellent audio tour of the cell block and walked round the island. The following day I hired a bike and cycled across the Golden Gate Bridge, cycled straight back across and then round Golden Gate Park, however the hills were not particularly cyclist friendly, especially not those as unfit as me.