Believe it or not, I extended my stay in LA. I'm still not in love with it, but i did meet some great people who made my stay here very worthwhile. We had many laughs taking the mick out of all things Californian. It seems that the answer to everything here is "you're in LA" to which we respond with a look of despair. I've had great fun hanging out with these girls from London, particularly days spent in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, and was absolutely honoured to spend the day with Countess Bromley (one of the girls had been followed by tourists on Rodeo Drive who been led to believe her to be English royalty and enthusiastically snapped photos of her.) We had a night out at the Comedy Store in Hollywood which started out well with one mate nearly curled up on the floor laughing but gradually the comics got more and more drunk and more and more rubbish until we pretty much took over the show by taking the pee out of them and killing the acts - we enjoyed ourselves anyway. We had intended to see Roseanne at the Comedy Store but our cabbie got us there late courtesy of being clueless about what and where the Comedy Store (and probably Hollywood generally) is. The explanation is simple: you're in LA. So, it was with sadness that we missed laughing at Roseanne and her plastic surgery.
One highlight was a day spent at Disney with Countess Bromley where i think the most extreme attractions were the salt and sugar assaults on our bodies courtesy of Disney catering. We did get a little paranoid that her celebrity status may have spread already as we were conscious of people snapping photos of us until we remembered that we wore sparkly mouse ears on our heads and were generally looking gorgeous. Unfortunately we only remembered to take photos of ourselves at the end of the day when we were knackered and were horrified to realise that we looked about 40, yet still got ID'd (which we had forgotten to carry, being english n'all) and thus missed out on our much-desired evening pints. I had never craved a freezing cold beer more than i had that day. At times we thought we were in the Sahara desert and were shocked when we met someone from Brisbane who was delighted at what a pleasant and comfortable day it was. We were dehydrated shrivelled wrecks.
Today I am Portland and enduring arctic conditions in comparison. I am noticing that i generally leave a path of destruction behind me whereever i go: an earthquake in Japan, blizzards in New Zealand, every Disney ride shutting down for maintenance after we departed. If there is an earthquake in LA next week then i apologise. I only hope i get out of Portland in time before a volcano erupts.

Vancouver is days away and i can almost taste it. Tres exciting.