Time Flies!

I can't believe it's 10 days since I posted....well, actually I can because i've been feeling guilty about not writing one for the last 4...

The days are whizzing past, how are we nearly coming to the end of our LA experience?! Extending our time here to 2 months was 100% the right decision and i'm so glad we did it. I feel that when the 19th swings around (our leaving date) i'll have done everything I wanted to achieve by this point and maxed out Long Beach's resources.
It's been a fun filled, jam packed 6 weeks and when I think back to everything we've done I can't believe how amazing it's been and I couldn't have asked for a better start to the trip.
Vegas, camping, Grand Canyon, Loz's birthday, Hollywood nights out, day trips up and down the coast, July 4th and i'm especially pleased with the scary times i've been through to get to where I am now with the kiting. It seems like a very long time ago I was cycling down to Huntington Beach in search of my Aussie instructor and now I've had all my lessons, bought the kit (i'm about to get a second kite too oops!) and am up and riding.

Last week was an intensive water week and I spent Monday to Friday day times down on Belmont hanging out with the crew. I'm pretty settled in there now and the banter's flowing between us so all is good...it's sad i'm leaving! It was a good week for kiting with nice wind and I managed to travel upwind a bit.
Last Monday evening Kerin was up for going to see Transformers 2 which Loz and Chris were also keen to see. I on the other hand had vague memories of attempting to sit through Transformers 1 during my ski trip last year and thinking it was a pile of crap so wasn't so excited at the prospect. I'm not one to judge on a past experience so thought I'd go along for the ride and give it a 2nd shot.....and 3 hours later wished I hadn't. What a waste of my life that was. *note to self - ALWAYS trust your instincts and never give anything a 2nd attempt*

After kiting on Wednesday Hank and the crew took me and Loz to Racals, a restaurant that specialises in dishes with teriyake sauce. It was cool to try something new even if the burgers were a little weird! There were so many obese people in there though, realllly American.

On Thursday Loz and I rediscovered our love for Yoghurt Land. Such a good concept, self serve flavoured yoghurts followed by a multitude of amazing toppings, sauces, fruits, sweets, whatever you want! It's pretty cheap too for the amount you get. So now our daily routine includes taking the beach cruisers for a spin down 2nd street and serving up the creamy goodness.

Friday we did the same, some post kiting Yoghurt Land followed by a spontanious meal out with Chris down 2nd Street. We went to Magic Lamp which is all Moroccan inspired deco and food complete with a crazy waiter with multiple personalities. He kept serving us wine to taste in the hope we would buy a glass but with the thought of our limited funds in the back of our heads we just led him on and didn't haha. It was a nice, relatively healthy evening to prepare us for the completely unhealthy day to follow.

So then it was Saturday July 4th, Indepedence Day. Celebration of all things American. We live in a picturesque little part of Long Beach where everyone smiles and happiness fills the air so the vibe was buzzing, the sun shining and people began drinking as soon as they rose in the morning.
There's a little patch of beach just next to the marina dubbed 'Horny Corner' as it's where all the 18-25 yr olds hang out and is apparently the place to be on July 4th so we set up base camp with some tiki torches and blankets on the sand for the day.
The next 15 hours are a bit of a blur but involved meeting many new people all over the place, blagging endless free food and drink and laughing a lot!
One highlight was Ryan's BBQ (Loz's gym buddy) where there was a MASSIVE tray of cookies and just generally loads of yummy things to eat. We met a really funny random girl there called Libby who just couldn't get enough of our accent and the way we said stuff. She just wanted me to speak at her the whole time, and because we were both tipsy in the hot Cali sun we both found this ridiculously hirlarious.

In the evening after a few more random house parties we made our way down to another address we'd been invited to earlier at Horny Corner. We'd been told there was a big apartment complex party going on but didn't know what to expect so rocked up with open minds.
When we arrived there wasn't anyone about but there was a table of alcohol which Loz spotted immediately and began storing away! However within minutes a Dj plastered with American flags appeared and started spinning some tunes. There wern't loads of people, maybe 15 or so but we had fun and sat round the big firepit by the jacuzzi smoking shisha pipe which reminded me of my holiday in Egypt.
We also met Roman and Diana, a couple who lived in one of the apartments and asked us to come up to their place for more beers once everyone had left. Seeing as there were 4 of us we felt safe to go and joined them for some 1am-4am random chatting and socialising. That's what i'm loving about the combination of travelling and Americans, the kindness and openess of the people combined with the spontaniaty of my situation.

Nothing much happened on Sunday apart from more Yoghurt Land and spag bol in the evening :)

So that brings us to this week which i'm disturbed to say hasn't involved any kiting as yet. The deathly winds and evil coral reefs of Maui approach and I need as much practice as I can get.
Monday morning I had my weekly chiropractor appointment with Bob which is keeping me out of any kind of pain and running well for now. I spent the day on the beach waiting for wind but it never came so ended up playing beach vollyball with Roman, Diana, Loz and a few other randoms.

Tuesday Loz and I ventured down to Huntington on the bus, it'd been over 2 weeks since i'd last gone so was nice to have a change of scenery. We roasted away in the sun and I even made it into the sea for a decent swim.
That evening we rented the 5th Harry Potter film out to remind ourselves of the storyline as Chris, Kerin, Loz and I are going to see the new one the day it comes out (July 15th) in IMAX 3D!

Yesterday Roman and Diana had kindly offered to drive us to places that we hadn't yet seen around LA (due to the shockingly awful public transport) so we crossed lots of boxes all at once.
We started at the Staples Center, home of the LA Lakers basketball team. We'd gone there to see the Michael Jackson memorial wall, write a message, be part of history etc but it'd been taken down, grim! There were still press there and it was crazy to think only 24hrs before his body and all those famous faces were standing right where we were.
From there we moved onto the Disney Concert Hall which is designed by architect Frank Gehry and is an impressive building. It's funny because I completely guessed it was designed by Mr Gehry just because it looks so similar to my ring which he also designed.

In the afternoon Roman cruised up to Santa Monica and we took a stroll down the pier while sipping (actually more like downing) my frappuchino. Santa Monica is kept spic and span with every palm being trimmed to perfection. It feels very, very 'california' and i'm glad we got to see it.
After that we drove down through Manhattan Beach and on to Redondo. We drove up the cliff and took in the awe-inspiring view of the pacific from above. Apparently some days you can see the whales in the seas below but we didn't spot anything except a curtain of seaweed.
Our last stop was back up the coast to Venice where we ate burritos and drank margaritas in a local bar. They had baseball on the screens and a nice fire pit flaming away too which all added to the good vibes that day.

We've got some exciting things lined up before we depart, this Sunday is our leaving brunch at Spagatini, a plush jazz bar that does an all you can eat and drink 5 star buffet. We've got around 15 people coming so should be fun.
Also, on Monday i'm heading to Six Flags Magic Mountain theme park with Chris...Loz isn't a fan of the coasters so is going to take a 'rain check' on this outing. This park looks like the scariest experience i'm ever going to subject myself to and i'm a cross between excited/nervous/really bloody scared.

Will update next week to let you know i'm still in the land of the living!