Dallas

Howdy y'all (sorry couldn't help it). I've spent the last week hanging out in Dallas with my good friend Elliot. We've had a good time. We've sampled the local bars and a lot of the local cuisine, I've never had Mexican food like it. There seem to be a lot of Mexican restaurants around Texas which is good as Mexican food is tasty. I never had a Chimichanga though which is a shame. Elliot and his friends did introduce me to Margaritas though and they are tasty. We spent most of our time in Dallas seeing friends and sleeping on their sofas. It's been really good to catch up with Elliot and to get out of dorm rooms. There's only so much sharing space with 8 other people you can take!

We took a ride down to Waco where Elliot used to live where I learned to play shuffleboard where you have a long salt covered table and you slide metal discs down the other end to score. It's sort of like curling but not at all. It turned out that I was really good and I showed those Texan boys how to play haha. I ate a Chicken Fried Steak which is kind of hard to describe, I guess it's basically deep fried battered steak covered in a white gravy. It was nice, but it has absolutely nothing to do with chicken. We checked out the Texas Ranger Museum which was cool, they are basically this elite Texas law enforcement agency who are specific to Texas. Back in the day they were set up to stop rustling and fence cutting. They were responsible for bringing in serial law breakers Bonnie and Clyde. We also looked in on the Dr. Pepper museum, but we decided not to look all the way round as neither of us thought there was enough Dr. Pepper memorabilia in the world to justify the entry fee.

A group of us went out bowling on Monday night which was good fun, I actually beat a couple of the guys which is great because these boys can take bowling as a college course. The night ended up pretty messy and hence we had a pretty subdued Tuesday, but I did manage to meet up with some old friends of my parents who took us out to dinner. Then this morning I flew into Philladelphia, the city of brotherly love, to meet up with another old friend of mine Matt where I'm going to hang out for the week before I go bother another old friend.

Vegas Baby, Vegas

I know I'm a bit behind, so let me catch y'all up. Vegas was fun. I have quite literally never been anywhere like it and don't think I ever will. It's so hard to explain how massive it is, how tacky it is and how funny it is. I stayed downtown in the nasty area of the city, running the gauntlet of poor people to get to the bus down the strip. As a city, it's pretty seedy and dirty, you know how they have those newspaper boxes where you get the free papers from? Well in Vegas they are all full of magazines full of advertisements for prostitutes, I wasn't prepared for that!

Anyways, what did I do? I met up with Gary and Rachel from New Zealand (as planned) and we spent the first night walking down the strip. It took us 3 hours to get to the last casino, The Luxor, which is a giant pyramid and is damned impressive. Other than that I didn't do too much. We spent the 2nd day doing the same, wandering around the casinos and seeing some of the shows, like the fountains at the Bellagio. This was cool, I gambled a bit on the roulette tables and fed the Star Wars Pokie machine and won a few bucks, nothing major though. It got to about 2am and we headed back because we decided to hire a car and head to the Grand Canyon on Monday.

I got 2 hours sleep, woke up and picked up this car and we set off. It took us 7 hours to get to the Canyon, crossing over to Arizona. On the way we crossed Hoover Dam, which was cool, big and full of traffic. I also had a little run in with the law who stopped me doing 88 in a 65 and gave me a $180 ticket ("Yes officer, I'll be sure to pay this before I leave the country... honest"), oops. We got to the south rim of the Grand Canyon around 5pm (because of the time difference, Arizona don't think they need Daylight Saving) and we spent about 2 hours driving to various viewpoints. It's an amazing sight, 10 miles across, 5000ft to the Colorado River and covered in snow. Unfortunately the weather was cloudy when we got there so it could have been a lot better, but still, it was worth the 13 hour round-trip.

We got back to Vegas about 11.30pm and I realised that there was no point in going to bed because I had a flight the next morning at 7.30am, so I needed to be at the airport at 5.30am. So we headed back down to the strip, saw some more of the lavish, over the top casinos like The Venetian which has canals indoors and then went to gamble. I lost money on the texas Hold-em table (should have quite whilst ahead), but made $5 overall on roulette. We then headed to Slots of Fun to play on the $1 blackjack to pass time before my flight. I started with $10 and was breaking even when I decided to get going. I put my whole $10 on the last hand and got 21. Unfortunately so did the dealer (so I lost nothing gained nothing). I said I came to lose it so I played on with my $10 stake. Well, someone liked me because I got Blackjack and walked away with $25. Grinning, full of coffee and all pleased with myself I headed home to drive back to the airport and drop the car off. I checked my details to see what my flight number was and then saw that the flight left at 6am. I drove like a madman in the pouring rain to drop the car off and try and make it. I got to the check-in desk at 6.25am and expected them to say "tough tits" because I had an online cheap-o fare. What actually happened is the guy put me on standby and I got on the next flight. I arrived at Dallas yesterday morning after having a total of about 4 hours sleep in the last 3 days where my good friend Elliot picked me up and is now looking after me.

Escape from Alcatraz

I spent my last day in San Francisco seeing "The Rock". It's very impressive and quite imposing. Viewable from most of coastal San Francisco, the island is only a couple of miles of the coast. Alcatraz spent its early years serving as a military installation and then when it was deemed to expensive to maintain it was transferred to a federal prison. It then spent about 30 years housing the "worst of the worst". It was famous for its brutal conditions and that it was impossible to escape. What I didn't realise is that the guards and their families actually lived on the island in a little community. Most of these buildings have been torn down now but the national park service (apparently) intends on building them back up.

The prison has been home to some of America's most notorious criminals, Machine Gun Kelly (who never shot anyone). Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz who never actually had any birds in the prison (he kept his birds in Levenworth). The most famous of all (well the only one I'd heard of) was Alphonse Capone. Serving time for tax evasion despite having believed to be involved in over 1500 murders in the 30s. The conditions really were pretty harsh. It was cold and barren and they say that the prisoners could hear all the people enjoying themselves out on Fisherman's Wharf from their cells, reminding them of their lost freedom. By far the most unsettling place was on "D block", where they used to put the inmates in solitary, including "The Hole", where you were locked in a soundproof cell with no light, smaller than a London bathroom. One guy told of how he used to pass the time by taking a button off his shirt, flipping in on the floor, then trying to find it in the dark. A pretty good place to visit and well worth the trip if you are ever out in that part of the world.

Well now I'm in Vegas, I got up here last night and met up with some friends I met in New Zealand. We've been down the strip and it's kind of unique, but I'll tell you all about that when I find somewhere I can do photos.

No Rich, I didn't do the flare thing from The Rock, I tried but security wouldn't let me go to where it was done. I got a photo of it I think though.

San Francisco

I got in to San Francisco a couple of nights ago. It seems a really clean and vibrant city. The rolling hills mean that walking about gets you fit and you get some great views of the rest of the city as you amble around. I am staying in a hostel (commune) in Little Italy, right near Chinatown. It's not the nicest part of the city, but it certainly has some character. On my first night here I didn't do all that much took a walk around the area, saw some of Chinatown. The hostel puts on free food 3 nights a week so I got in on that. I met a guy from Philly who had a hire car (Pedro) so the next day we took a drive across the Golden Gate Bridge past Sausalito, around some winding roads out to the Muir woods. Having been deprived of Giant Sequoia trees in Yosemite (cancelled snowshoe hikes), Pedro and I took a stroll amongst the Redwoods down here. They were incredible. I find it really hard to judge the height of these things, but they must have been 100 metres plus and were a few metres around. They had a cross section of one of the trees which was an average size and it was over about 1000 years old. It's incredible that these behemoths grow from seeds the size of sunflower seeds. On the way back into the city We stopped at a viewpoint for the bridge and looked out over the city. It's really hard to get a sense of scale in the pictures, because they never really do justice to how massive this bridge is. It's very impressive.

Yesterday I met up with my girlfriend Rebecca's Mum and went to her wedding. Yep, that sounds as crazy as it was. They just happened to elope to the one city in the world I happened to be in and I stepped in as witness. It was a really lovely ceremony in the San Francisco city hall and they seemed very happy, so congratulations to Joyce and Phil. Today I pretty much walked across the whole of San Francisco. I walked all the way down Market Street through the financial district, through some of the not so nice areas and down to Haight Ashbury. This part of the city is famous because the hippies moved in back in the 60s and never really left. Lots of psychedelic colours and scruffy looking oiks. In fact I got offered drugs by about 10 different people. I then carried on walking down to the Golden Gate park and into the Japanese Garden, which was nice, if a little small. I then wandered around the botanic gardens, where I met another guy from Eritrea (I'd never heard of this place and now every other person I meet is from there!) who was just sitting on a bench feeding monkey nuts to squirrels. They were so funny, they'd come and take them right out of your hand. One even let me stroke him. I'm all booked up for my Alcatraz tour tomorrow morning which I'm pretty excited about. Just think, I get to go to where they filmed "The Rock".

Yosemite Sam

I have a lot to catch up on, so I'll do one post this morning and probably one later on. As you can probably guess from the title, I went up to Yosemite National park at the weekend. I never really realised that it was in California until some nutty American lady told me to go there in Fiji. When I got to Midpines (just outside the national park) where my hostel was, I was kindly informed by the driver that I had a quarter mile hike up to the hostel from the bus stop. In the snow. Yes people, all of you who have been calling me a jammy git for being in the heat and sun, rejoice. I froze my ass off. People kept telling me how they hadn't "seen snow like this at this time of year for nigh on twenty year". I consider myself lucky.

I did plan to do a snowshoe hike the next day, but the lazy German that ran it decided there weren't enough people to go so it was cancelled. Instead I caught the bus into the Yosemite valley and did some walking. It's a truly remarkable place. Although it was utterly freezing and I was hiking in the snow, I was stunned by the scenery in the valley. I took a hike in about a foot of snow out to Mirror Lake, which was mostly frozen over, but still impressive. From there I saw Half Dome (although at the time I didn't know that's what it was), a feature of the valley created as age old glaciers melted and took away the rock. After lunch I took a walk around the lower part of Yosemite Falls and as it started to snow a bit thicker I decided to head back and warm up by the fire. Something pretty odd happened later that night. I'm pretty wary of trying to explain it because I'm worried it'll sound like the ravings of a madman, but here goes. I bought a pack of playing cards in the park and we were cutting them to see who would go first in a game of Jenga (this is the high life people). Out of six of us, four people cut on the Queen of Spades. The other two cut the Queen of Diamonds. We shuffled the cards between each go, yet it kept happening. This in itself seems odd, but then every time (or every second time) we cut the deck we got the Queen of Spades. We took it as an omen that we should leave for Vegas right there and then. We didn't, it was cold and our driver was over the limit, but still, I thought that was worth mentioning.

The next day Ze German cancelled my hike again so I headed back into the park. This time I started on the trail up to the upper part of the Yosemite falls which is the highest waterfall in the US (at 2,425 feet or 739 metres) and the sixth largest in the world, made up of three separate falls: Upper Yosemite Fall (1,430 ft), the middle cascades (675 ft), and Lower Yosemite Fall (320 ft). I never planned to go the whole way up (it's a good 12 hour hike), but I thought I'd go for a reasonable amount of time and then turn back. What actually happened is I got as far as the Columbia Rock viewpoint and then found myself waist deep in snow. So I turned back. The next morning I left and headed back to the coast to the city of San Fransisco. Which I'll tell you all about later.

In Merced

I left LA this morning to head up north to visit Yosemite National Park. I am currently in a place called Merced. It's not like LA at all. In some ways it makes me think of a classic American town with wide tree lined streets and everyone talking to each other. I stopped in a comic book store and the owner and his wife talked to me for ages. In other ways it reminds me of a ghost town. It's so big and there doesn't seem to ne anyone here! I finally found an internet cafe, but it was closed, at 2pm in the afternoon. In the end I ended up in the library which is next to the courthouse. I saw prisoners in orange jumpsuits being escorted by all chained up. Very odd. I'll be in Yosemite for tonight and tomorrow, but I'm off to try and change my train ticket to Monday so that I can get an extra night up there as it sounds amazing. I don't know if there will be internet there (probably), but rest assured I'll get y'all loads of photos.

Hollywood

Well I've been in LA for 3 nights now and I can safely say that it's pretty damn weird. My first night here I didn't do much, wandered down Hollywood in the rain for a bit and fell asleep pretty early. The day after however was much more interesting.

I took a walk down Hollywood and saw the famous Chinese theatre, the Kodak theatre and Hollywood Walk of Fame (favourites so far include Dean Stockwell and Angela Lansbury). I didn't see any famous people, but there was some guy offering tickets to a TV show. I took them of course, not even knowing what the show was. It turned out to be The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson who was actually pretty funny. They recorded 2 monologues and 2 interviews, one of the monologues was for Friday's show so we had to pretend it was Friday, seeing as I wasn't all that sure what day it was anyway, I ended up very confused. We saw him interview Jackie Collins and John Larroquette. I had no idea who Larroquette was, but he had some pretty damning stuff to say about the way the US government responded to Hurricane Katrina, so I liked him.

On the way back down Hollywood our (Mark, from Western Australia) and I's way was blocked by a premiere for the new Tim Allen movie. They were all inside watching the film, yet we still couldn't cross the road. Rather than walk all the way round we decided to grab a beer in the nearest bar, which just happened to be Hooters. We ended up having dinner there and waited out the crowds. It's a pretty odd place, it's basically a Harvester but where all the waitresses go through a rigorous interview to make sure they are good waitresses. I swear to God, there was one girl who couldn't use a bottle opener to open a bottle of beer.

Yesterday we decided to follow up on a call for "Hollywood movie crowd scene, people needed all week". Which basically meant pay $200 and we'll call you. No-one felt like getting ripped off so we walked around Hollywood some more, got some pictures of the sign and headed off to see Sunset Strip. It was a pretty long walk, but the strip was pretty cool, we saw the Viper Room, site of River Pheonix's drug overdose. We also saw the Hustler store, only in America people. Once we reached the end, Latif and I started to walk back to Hollywood. This is where LA really showed its glamourous side. First up we saw a small queue outside a bookstore so we joined it. It turned out to be a book signing by Mr. Bonzai, a rock photographer. He was there with members of The Police, The Travelling Wilburys and the singer from Devo (famous for Whip it). Seeing as we weren't going to get the book and the guys from the Chili Peppers hadn't turned up, we took a picture and left. Then we saw another crowd inside a Virgin Megastore. So we looked in. Turned out to be an interview with Gustavo Santaolalla who wrote the score for Brokeback Mountain, took a picture, left. On the way back we saw more commotion outside a restaurant so we crossed the road to see what was going on, we saw professional tart Paris Hilton. I got a photo of her entourage going in, but missed her by a second. I then had to explain to my friend Latif who is from a country called Eritrea who she was and why she was famous. He barely believed me and the conversation ended with him shaking his head and saying "America, what a country".

Might take a trip to Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, or Venice Beach today, or go check out a museum. I am booking a train to Merced so that I can go hiking in Yosemite tomorrow, so if I vanish for a few days, that's where I am.

USA! USA! USA!

It's raining and it's cold in LA. I'm not used to this. I spent my last few days in Fiji, pretty much doing nothing. I wandered around a Hindu temple which was quite interesting, but other than that I read and wrote postcards home. I landed at LAX about 3 hours ago and have checked into a hostel in Hollywood, just off Hollywood Boulevard. I was warned that it's a pretty crappy area. It's certainly not glamourous! I don't have a picture of the sign yet, but I'll get one. I expect I'll stay around here a few days, Nate has given me the number of a friend of his who I'm going to call in a bit. At the moment the plan is spend a few days in LA and see the sights. Then go up to San Fransisco for a few days, come back down here and meet Gary, then get a lift to San Diego, where we are going to borrow his uncle's car and drive to Vegas (baby, Vegas). Then I'll be off from there to Texas to see Elliot. Well you know what they say about the best laid plans...

Diving... with death!

Fiji is hot. I know it's cold back home, but I am cooking alive over here. Anyways, what have I been doing? Well "This week I have been mostly doing diving. I did 2 dives yesterday and 2 today, let me tell you all about them.

Yesterday I went out to the Mamanuca Islands off of the West Coast of the main island of Fiji. The first place we stopped was called Seven Sisters, it is a collections of reefs out amongst the islands. We got down and saw some great tropical fish, I still get amazed at how bright the colours are. What was special for me about this dive was that I saw an octopus for the first time. It was hiding amongst some coral and as we got closer to look at him, he backed away and changed colour making it tough to see him. We saw angelfish, triggerfish and my current favourite, the parrot fish. The second dive didn't go too well for me. I got down to depth at Rainbow Reef and started swimming around. We got down to about 15 metres and all was going well until I started to hear a noise behind my head. I pointed at it to someone I was diving with and they couldn't see a problem. After a few more seconds I realised why. The noise was the air escaping from the tank on my back and Anders couldn't see it because it was mixing with my bubbles. I swam over to the dive master and started to make the "There's something with... my tank" signals. Before I could finish he'd worked it out and was pulling my up to the surface with his spare regulator in my mouth. By the time I got to the boat I was completely out of air. It was pretty hair-raising, but above all it was disappointing as I had my bouyancy perfect so whilst I was diving I felt completely weightless. It turned out that the O-ring on the tank wasn't in properly and must have blown out when I got deeper because of the pressure. Not something that should really happen, but the dive master reacted right and I'm all safe and sound.

Because of the problems I had yesterday the company let me do 2 dives today for $75 which is a total bargain. Despite the risk to my life, I decided to go again. Our first site was the sight of a crashed B-26 bomber. There's not all that much of it left (it must have been pretty scattered), but the wing was clearly identifiable and as we swam around the reef we saw the wheel and steering column which have become part of the reef. I got lucky again today as over the 2 dives we saw a whitetip reef shark sleeping under some coral, I woke him up and he looked pissed off. We also saw cuttlefish and we played with some clownfish who swam around our fingers as we waved them in the coral. The boss at the dive centre has also told me that if I want, they will let me dive again at a discounted rate (not as cheap as before mind) if I want to come again. I have decided to leave it a couple of days, as I had a bit of trouble equalising my ears this morning. Rest assured, I'll let you know if I go again.

Apart from that Fiji is hot and there isn't all that much to do where I am apart from sit by the pool, play cards and read. The people are really good fun and are pretty laid back. They didn't seem to mind when we used the pool cleaner pole to try and knock down coconuts. I'll probably head into town tomorrow as there isn't a bank near here and because I didn't book my room again, I'm stuck on the floor of the travel shop for tomorrow night. D'OH! At least it's only $8.