hungover and achieving very little. check out is at 10:30, its now 3:30 and i just got my deposit back. it was quite a night. i just about got into a fight with a bunch of americans for telling them they were ignorant. we all knew it had to happen sometime, lets just hope its an isolated incident. hell, stranger things have happened. i then discovered that the paper bag and its not illegal trick doesnt work, and a friendly officer (looking very sexy in black) was kind enough to pour my beer down the drain. just as well, i was hammered. don't really remember much last night but the resident icelandic boys tell me i was 'difficult'. me? never. getting picked up shortly to head out to petaluma, fun capital of california so im told. can't wait. i think i will definately have to come back to this state after camp. i didnt give it the attention (sobriety) it deserves. had my first round of american mcdonalds today. surprisingly tastes like australian mcdonalds. go figure.

hola chicas, how's things? i will try to talk down my news a bit so you don't get too jealous while you're sitting in your little cubicles/rooms/toilets with your big pile of books and no drunken obnoxious james' spicing up your lives. ok?

last night i went out with a few guys staying at the hostel. just for a few beers, some pool and stuffing around. was nice to have a beer. havn't had one since sydney. was surprisingly hungover this morning considering how little i drank. that was irritating. today did very little. walked around, got a phone, and then i sat and read in union square. when i looked at the time it had been 3 hours. didn't feel like that long, i think i may have even got a little sunburnt. me. an australian. getting burnt in california. the shame.

i've been trying to find bill bryson's other book on the US but to no avail. sucks. i have been enjoying this book immensely and i have almost finished, when i got about half way through i decided to buy a little packet of post-it notes and i have been marking the spots where i have laughed out loud. there are quite a lot of post-it's in there. i suppose i want to go back later and use them for little points of inspiration when i write. the idea of being a writer has for the first time seemed plausible to me since reading this book, a lot of the things he does are reasonably quotidienne but his style of writing makes up for that, and i can see myself starting to think in a similar way. i wont give away any of my secrets just yet, but i have come up with some pretty funny stuff from the most mundane of daily events. then again maybe my view of reality has become skewed thanks to how little i enjoyed LA. still, my positive outlook makes me think i might go back when i have a driver's licence again. everyone deserves a second chance: even a tacky, boarded up, sprawl of a city like LA.

i've been a bit down today really. the amount of crazy/homeless people around has really been getting to me. you just have to completely ignore them, which really pangs; but what else can you do? there are hundreds of them here. and most of them are clearly drunk, drugged or have been so drunk/drugged up in the past that it has had a lasting effect on their motor skills. san francisco is an affluent place really. i shudder to think what poorer places like new orleans, detroit, new york are like. im actually a little scared about going to nyc. its going to be hard from what i have heard. everyone except you says its fucked up.

in a way i feel obliged to do more touristy things while im here, and in a way i feel like i can't be fucked. i did the bridge and that just about killed me. i keep being told i MUST do alcatraz, but i dont think i will, i think i might top things off tomorrow by going to berkeley and doing one of the tours there. with 18 nobel prize winners from one campus there must be something of note there.

i havn't been staying in touch with as many people as i should have. at this hostel you can only use the internet for ten minutes or so and i seem to use about 9:55 on writing here, so you should feel very special indeed. i have a long list of emails, some dating back to february, that i need to reply to, but i need to be in a certain frame of mind to give them the attention they deserve. which doesn't happen too often.

for those of you who have an interest in well... stuff: i was thinking of looking into re-enrolling at UWA and doing a bachelor of education, which is a year's supplementary study on top of the degree i have done, and then rather than going back home, just applying for an exchange in sweden/canada/usa. but probably not canada, why would i want to go there?

After just two days in LA and already I'm on TV; talk about perpetuating the stereotype of this city. After I was done with the newscrew I headed into Hollywood, up to the sign for some pictures and then back down to the boulevard. I was going to stick around for some American Idol filming but then I slapped myself across the face and decided better of it. I wandered past the Chinese Theatre and took some photos of a storm trooper and Eddie Murphy's hand prints in the pavement from 1987. I also found a star on the Walk of Fame for one Jimmie Dodd. Not a nickname I wanted to maintain but it was a photo waiting to be taken. I then did a bit of a trek to the bus and made my way to Santa Monica and checked out the beach/pier. It's a nice places but today was particularly windy and that dampened things a bit. I walked from Santa Monica pier south to Venice beach, thats my exercise for the month! How am I going to supersize myself if i walk off all my In and Out Double Doubles?? Venice was pretty cool, people working out, playing basketball, playing tennis, rollerblading, walking their dogs (90% of which were chiwawas) and such. I had heard that it was full of freaks and was pretty disappointed when it was all pretty normal. The freakiest thing I saw was a guy with no arms and no legs hooning down the sidewalk headfirst on a skateboard. I was trying to figure out how he the speed up. Then I began my marathon effort to get back home. Lots of walking and a couple of (nearly fell asleep on) buses later and here I am. I think it's naptime. Actually, burritos first. Later.

I'm doing it all over again. So far so good. Right now I am standing in Sydney airport, its 10:30 on Monday morning and I have certainly felt better. I have had a good week over here on the east coast. Oli and Monique very both hospitable and entertaining. Monique discovered taxis charge a puke fee, oli screamed something about pies and ran off down the street after an unsuccessful scuffle over the only set of house keys, and we quickly discovered that energy drink-induced heart palpitations are a bit disconcerting. Getting into Sydney Gemma was an enthusiastic host taking me out on a touristy day of opera houses and bridges, beaches and ferries. Although her commitment was put to the test when i suggested we dine on Kangaroo/Emu/Crocodile pizza. I really wanted to savour one last piece of australia before i left. Really. Just had my name read out over a loudspeaker so I should probably get on the plane. Later Cuzzes.