Fresh fruit!

The Californian weather is very warm all year round, even now it is their 'colder' season they say the weathers not so good but to us it is glorious! It's cloudy and foggy in the morning and evening because of the ocean but then the sky becomes cloudless. We are staying at Redondo Beach, nearer orange county and southern California than LA.

It is normal to see parrots in the trees, and see fruits hanging.

Joy has a tangerine tree, a grapefruit tree, a lemon tree and an orange tree in her back garden, something that seemed rather foreign to us!




Rosina is going very brown, and I'm beginning to change from 'see through' to a very pale tan!


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Meet Corky!

This is Corky the chihuahua!




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California!

And we're settled in California, just about!

Coach journey went well, didn't seem to long stopped off in the desolate hill billy town of Barstow...not the best part of California! Arrived in LA, 5.30pm, met joy who were staying with and headed home, downtown into Orange County, by the beach, to be welcomed by Corky the schizophreniac chihuahua and ....Bonnie and clyde, two very fluffy cats. Rosina is really allergic to cats, and even though they had been promised that they would stay out of our room and she had dosed up on piriton, the first night Rosina had a full on cat attack, wheezing, sneezing, eyes watering!

The cat attack has subsided now but she's left with one hell of a chesty cough! Which she hopes will ease off soon!

Now LA and the surrounding cities are huge and everything is about an hour away fom everything, and it's all spaced out. Joy had said she would drive us everywhere but wanted to go an explore yesterday so we ventured onto the metro line! About an hour later we rocked up at Hollywood Vine station...onto the glamorous Hollywood walk of fame....well glamorous not so much!!! The stars are on the floor, but there is dirt, and rubbish and hobos scattering the 'walk of fame', we wernt surprised as this is what everyone says it is like! So we walked towards the hives of people, swarming the Kodak theatre and more central Hollywood. It was a reasonably nice day, so we decided to go on a jeep tour of 'Hollywood land', as Rosina wasn't feeling up to walking a lot so off we went on the tour. The perfect way to see all the sights! We headed into Beverly Hills to see all the mansions, 52roomed castles, 10ft high gates, we saw the homes of Christina Aguillera, Tom cruise, Michael Jackson, the Playboy mansion, Simon Cowell. These places are intense, the divide between rich and poor here is even more prominent that in New York. We continued our drive through the palm tree lined streets, to Rodeo drive, shopping centre to the intensely rich! Driving along through the traffic, at one point there was a Lamborghini on one side and a Porshe on the other, all the designer shops, restaurants and of course the Beverly hills housewives and there chiuahas! We then headed down Sunset Boulevard,being shown all the famous film sites as well as other sites like where Whitney Houston was found etc! The driver then took us up to the Hollywood Hills for us to get a photo of the Hollywood sign, wellas near as you can get! Which isn't so near! We then headed to mels diner for dinner before visiting the Edge to take class, with Adam parsons, an amazing teacher Rosina knows through kinisi! Joy came to meet us as it was a late class, and la is not so excitingb night and we headed home!

This morning were going for a walk down the beach and then onto a different studio and a different class thus afternoon. Weve got some plans for the weekend, going to see ABT and then a tap Jam with joy, then it's Disneyland time next week!

The Big Win!

Today we visited Shark Reef at Mandalay bay Hotel. This is a full size aquarium inside the resort, full if exotic fish and a massive tank of sharks!

We then headed back to our hotel to laze by the pool, do some swimming and chill in the amazing sunshine.

Tought we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and then we went to the New York, New York game arcades, did some moves on the retro dance mat and the penny slot machines, to not much avail! On the way out we saw a Sex and the City slot machine in the casino and though $1 won't hurt, and we are in Vegas, so we have to say we'd done it! We got our free cocktail which you get if you play in the casino and sat down... Rosina only went and won $60 straght off! We quit whilst we were ahead and thought that that money can pay for our bus tickets tomorrow! (although there already booked, we can put it back in the bank!)

Califiornia, here we come!

The Big Win!

What we've been up to!

Found some wifi, in the Starbucks in the Hotel, yes the Hotel has a full size Starbucks inside!
Thought i'd upload some photos of our escapades in Vegas so far, right now we should have been on the train to LA, but were staying here an extra night and getting the bus tomorrow!

We visited the famous Las Vegas Sign!

This is the Venitian hotel, with a full sized replica of the Rialto Bridge, Capanile and Gondolas like in Venice!

Wedding Chapel!

This our hotel from the Pool!

This is the New York, New York hotel...It as you can see has replicas of the main sights in NY, including Statue of Liberty, Grand Central, Empire State and Chrysler. It also has the Roller coaster, similar to Coney Island! of course we went on that!

This is our Hotel, Monte Carlo!

Our Fishbowl drink on day 1, its called Shark Attack and has gummy sharks all around the bottom!

Las Vegas Boulevard!

We had a Aqua Massage!

Met the Coca Cola Polar Bear!

Watched the Bellagio Fountains!

Visited the Sphinx at Luxor Hotel!

and the Eiffel Tower at Paris Hotel!

This is the famous Caesars Palace hotel, i think it is actually bigger than Beachampton...! The Top picture is the Forum Shops, (Shopping centre to the World) where we went and window shopped and then had dinner, Sam is then in the Hotel Lobby, where the iconic scene from the Hangover is filmed (if you haven't seen that film, and you're over 18...watch it!).

We then had dinner, and cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory!

Vegas!

We arrived in Vegas slightly earlier as the flight landed early, got a taxi to our hotel!

Driving from the hotel we began to realise how big everything was! From the airport you can see the famous Sphinx and the pyrmaids you also can see the other hotels. The driver didn't drive us down the strip so we entered the hotel from the back entrance. We are staying at Monte Carlo.

We spent the afternoon at the pool, headed down to the strip and found a restaurant, everything was calm, the sun was setting, dinner was great and then it hit us. After asking the waitress where the train station was , which she didn't know, we found out las Vegas Nevada doesn't have a station...but we have the train tickets for LA...from las Vegas New Mexico...three states away.

Panic struck!for weeks Rosina has been wondering why the train was going to take 20hours, especially as on the Hangover film they drive from Vegas to la in a morning. For some reason this was the one thing we didn't check and double check.

Thank goodness for the iPad! We found a coach that we could get to la, but we couldn't get hold of joy, the lady were staying with in la as we knew she was in vacation until the day we arrive (weds) so it was either get the coach which takes less time and attempt to find a hotel in la for the night, or travel weds and stay here another night. The rooms are great and the bed is amazing so we choose to stay here, some where we know and at least get a good nights sleep!

We had tickets to see cirque at 9.30pm, last night and had an hour to sort all this out, after getting back to the hotel, and the iPad, we then attempted to walk the strip to treasure island, it is so much longer than you would expect and so much longer than it looks, so had to jump in a taxi.

Cirque MYstere , was at treasure island hotel, the show was phenomenal. The tricks, and circus acts are so good, there are no safety harnesses at all , which kept us all on tenterhooks, but made spiderman look lame!!!

We then walkedback along the strip, went in the Venetian, caesars palace and the bellagio, caught the free casino tram back to our hotel!

Today we went site seeing, pictures to come as the wifi doesn't work to well



Off to dinner now at the cheesecake factory and watch the bellagio fountains!