The Adventures of El Gringo & El Vandita

Day 85 (Thursday Dec 16th)
"I'm at an almost Mexican grill with an almost Mexican girl!"

I woke up feeling the worst I've ever felt on my trip, I blame the cinnamon whisky that was too easy to drink. Somehow I managed not to puke but I think I would have if I'd gone out to have breakfast with the other guys. I chose to stay behind and get a bit more sleep, Coop kept me company. When they returned, Vanessa and I went back to her place, she very wisely said we should both sleep for a bit. I got up at around 7.30pm and we were looking for somewhere to eat. I thought it would be very fitting for us to go to a Chipotle because Vanessa is a bit Mexican and it's one of my favourite food places. We ended up going to one in Vancouver, Washington because the website said it was the nearest one. It wasn't too far and it meant I got to visit another state. When we got back to Portland we watched Operation Endgame and I had some vanilla ice cream that it had taken me at least five minutes to decide upon when we were at the store. Before going to bed I realised that my laptop had actually died and wouldn't even boot up. Not good news but rather good timing.

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Day 86 (Friday Dec 17th)
"That's not harmonising!"

I had a cold and uncomfortable night's sleep but managed to get up by midday, today was supposed to be our day of doing stuff in or around Portland. We went to a house on a hill called Pittock Mansion, with a lovely view of Portland and Mt Hood. By English standards it was more just a big house but it was interesting walking around inside and seeing how it might have looked 100 years ago. My favourite part was the kitchen area where they had lots of pretend food laid out. I wanted to do a little bit of nature so we walked five minutes down a trail before we realised it was getting too dark and we needed to go see Jeff anyway. Jeff was having some problems with his electricity and was waiting for the electric man to call but we had time to pop out and have some Italian food at The Spaghetti Factory, I had veggie lasagne with some amazingly chewy bread which Jeff failed to cut. As usual in America we had a cool waitress, I think I have a thing for waitresses, they bring me food and they have to be nice to me. When we'd finished eating Jeff realised he had a couple of missed calls so we went back to the house just in time for the electric man. He said the whole electric box thing needed replacing and it would take him at least eight hours. While he was sorting out what parts he needed we went to Fred Meyer to play with scary singing children's toys. By this point I was absolutely knackered so when we got back to Jeff's we said our goodbyes and headed back to Vanessa's. We were tempted to watch 'Beavis & Butthead Do America' because we'd been talking about it earlier... but I sensibly decided that getting some sleep would probably be a better idea. Vanessa insisted that I sleep in her bed and she'd take the sofa so I could get some better rest than the previous night, I refused for at least two minutes... then set my alarm for 5.15am and lay my head down on her pillow.

Wheeler: Exhibit D (plus one night in Beaverton)

Day 83 (Tuesday Dec 14th)
"Thomas is a miserable bastard of a train."

I was awoken at 10am by the cats crawling on me so I'd assumed Martin had let them into my room as a "funny joke." It turned out that Martin and Natalie had no idea about it so the cats must have figured out how to open doors, it's like Jurassic Park! It was early so not much was going on and Martin had the Wii Fit out, he asked if I wanted to have a go on it and we discovered that I was 2lbs underweight. I played on the Fit games for at least an hour. Natalie was catching up with some work for most of the day so Martin and I played some Mario Kart and watched some Family Guy. For dinner I had the last of the potato soup because nobody could be bothered to cook. We then watched Married With Children and because I couldn't decide on a movie we ended up watching a Thomas The Tank Engine compilation, it was the old UK episodes narrated by George Carlin, very odd indeed. We finished my last night in Wheeler by watching Giuseppe's Rooney Never Says Die DVD. Natalie laughed the most at my 'making of my song' bit... I'm not sure if it was more a laugh of pity...

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Day 84 (Wednesday Dec 15th)
"Did you just fall out of the bathroom?" "...Yes."

Martin wanted to leave at 9am so we all got up around 8am. I discovered that Tony's laptop had finally died on me, it had various errors and took about ten minutes to load Firefox. We ended up leaving at about 10am and The Reeds managed to squeeze in an argument about Fred Meyer gas before we drove to Hillsboro. I slept about an hour of the way so I missed the snowy part of the journey. We dropped the car at the garage so they could fix "the rattle that's very annoying, it's a very annoying rattle" and went to Joanne Fabrics for a bit of boredom.

When the garage called Martin, we both went back to pick up the car and Martin was rather happy about the curing of the very annoying rattle. We collected Natalie, I had my second Starbucks experience and then we drove to Jeff's place in Beaverton. He showed us his cool robots built from photocopier parts and we met his cool little dog Coop. After about an hour Vanessa arrived and we went to Big Al's for some bowling, drinking and fooding. It was a pretty cool place, they had lots of areas for bowling and lots of massive TV screens showing Safety Dance when we arrived. I had a veggie burger and the waitress joked about putting extra bacon on my burger, I gave her an evil look. We had a couple of games of bowling and I think I might have won one of them while Martin and Natalie were both fighting for last place. On the second floor they had lots of arcade games and Martin managed to win 999 tickets on one game. The best I did was 225 on some sort of Tetris game and I gave most of my tickets to Jeff because I'm nice like that. I also gave some to Martin so he could get an iTunes gift card... for himself. We went back to Jeff's for some party games, broken fuse-boxes, heavy drinking, comedy Martins, sleepy Vanessas, and apparently Natalie was trying to touch me all night. Vanessa had claimed the sofa but she fell asleep in the chair... so I did the honourable thing and didn't let the sofa go to waste.

Wheeler: Exhibit C

Day 81 (Sunday Dec 12th)
"Why did he only eat one pigeon egg?!"

I woke up at my usual time and we went to Tillamook cheese factory to do their "self-guided tour" and we got to see the production line. Martin was most intrigued by the guys who put the off-cuts on the bits of cheese that don't weight enough, I was most intrigued by the beard masks. There were some free samples of the most popular cheeses and Martin decided to buy some off-cuts of the garlic chili cheese. We went grocery shopping at Fred Meyer in Tillamook and then headed home. Natalie made a salad with cous-cous and then later on she made some delicious yakisoba. While Natalie was cooking, Martin and I watched Bear Grylls trying to survive in an abandoned factory. We then watched Legend Of The Bog which I really regretted watching for a second time.

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Day 82 (Monday Dec 13th)
"You've been stuffed!"

I planned to get up early but that obviously didn't happen. We headed up the coast and briefly stopped at Cannon Beach before we got to Astoria. We went to the shop from The Goonies, which is now a coffee shop, and I had a hot chocolate. Then we walked down to the docks and saw a few sea lions. Natalie wanted to check out an art gallery so we drove into town but both galleries were closed. Martin and Natalie were all out of ideas so I suggested we go to the Fort George Brewery where they served us beer in jam jars which confused me for a bit. The Reeds had a sausage platter but I refused to eat anything because I wanted to continue the tradition of not eating out while I was staying with them. We headed home at around 5pm and Martin made some burritos, he only cooked six so I filled myself up with some leftover chili. Max had recommended a film to us but other than starring Napoleon from Bill & Ted it was almost unwatchable so we ended up watching the wonderful Thankskilling. Before bed-time Martin played with the cats for about an hour. It was strangely fascinating just watching them chase a shoelace.

Wheeler: Exhibit B

Day 80 (Saturday Dec 11th)
"You look like the kind of people that would enjoy karaoke"

We didn't do much for the first part of the day, just a bit of Mario on the Wii. Natalie was going to make pizza tonight but she asked me to make the pizza dough. I'll admit that I had a little bit of help from the bread maker but it was mostly me. While the dough was mixing and doing whatever else it does in the break maker (okay, all I did was put the ingredients into the bread maker, I had to measure them though!) we went to the local bar, The Sea Shack (Natalie calls it Sea Sack because she can't speak) for a couple of beers and for Martin's biography. Just before we were about to leave the bar the barmaid said we looked like the kind of people that would be up for tonight's karaoke. We joked about returning later on but I don't think any of us thought we actually would.

Back at the house Natalie prepared the toppings and got Martin and I to roll out the dough, then commenced the cooking of one big veggie tofu pizza with two little meat ones. While the pizzas were cooking we watched my Goonies 25th anniversary videos including the black & white Natalie montage...... awkward but arousing.

One of the little pizzas turned out a big doughy, I assumed Martin had made that one, my one was perfect. The pizza was lovely and I washed it down with some boxed wine because we'd run out of beer. Natalie and I attempted an intellectual chat about vegetarianism but the wine didn't help with that. We then decided we should go out to the karaoke because we were just about tipsy enough for some singing.

It was about 11.30pm when we went out so we weren't sure if the karaoke would still be going on but as we got nearer to the bar we could hear some awful noises coming from within. When I got to the top of the stairs I saw a very large woman hanging off a stripper pole, it was going to be a fun night. Natalie wanted me to sing Walk Like An Egyptian and We Built This City On Rock And Roll with her and I did Hit Me With Your Best Shot on my own. There were a couple having a domestic for most of the night and I even got a little bit of it on video when the guy was singing and pushed his drunk wife off the stage. As we were about to leave the karaoke DJ came up and spoke to us, upon hearing I was leaving the next day he asked us to sit down because he was going to sing a song for me. So the night was ended by an old, bearded, white haired, fisherman-looking Oregonian man singing a Roger Whittacker song about sailing home to England.

Wheeler: Exhibit A

Day 78 (Thursday Dec 9th)
"Which position would you rather be in a human centipede?"

I got up at midday after not a great night's sleep, I assumed it was because it was the first night in a new bed. Natalie sorted me out with toast and jam and put some BBC Radio on to make me feel at home. Martin went out to test his snow chains and then realised he'd bought the wrong size. Luckily there's probably no more snow until next year, eh Martin? Martin played some of his annoying war game and Natalie made me noodles with vegetables for lunch. The men (me and Martin) went to the buy groceries in Mohler and Manzanita because you need more than shop to get everything, every shop is a local shop around here. The Wii dance game had arrived so we played that until we were too tired to stand and then Natalie made some Ecuadorian potato soup with homemade bread. On the TV schedule for that night was new Peep Show, Human Centipede and Satan's Little Helper with some beer to help those movies go down a little easier. The kitties seemed to be getting used to me but maybe it was just me getting used to them. That night it was too hot in my room because Martin had the new heater on in there. I turned it off and opened to window for an hour before it was cool enough to sleep.

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Day 79 (Friday Dec 10th)
"1 - 0 to Mrs. Reed."

Again I got up at midday and I tried oatmeal for the first time, it was okay with some jam. We went for a hike along a beach at Nehalem Bay and played football with some sort of spherical thing. We got the obligatory stupidly posed photos with various bits of dead trees along the beach and then turned left at a jetty. There were surfers and seals out in this part of the bay. The beach along the other side was impossible to navigate so Martin took us inland into uncharted territory... and fortunately we made it back to the car before nightfall. When we got home Natalie made me a burnt cheese sandwich and then we watched lots of episodes of Family Guy. Martin made "the best vegetarian chili in the world" which could have very well been the best vegetarian chili in the world.... if it wasn't so darn spicy. That's 1 - 0 to Mrs Reed on the dinner cooking front for the potato soup. We watched a dodgy movie called Centurion and at some point that night I know Natalie said "Mark's stroking my pussy" because I made a sexy mental note of those words for later.... (I was stroking one of the cats of course)

From Warrenton to Wheeler...

Day 76 (Tuesday Dec 7th)

"Why do they only let the crazy Christians on TV?"

I woke up at 11am in an empty house, I had some toast and a bagel with jam for breakfast. Randy came home at about 2pm and we went to the Astoria Column, we probably spent longer climbing up the stairs than we did at the top because it was rather cold and rainy. On the way back we stopped in to see Kerri at the animal care place she works at, she was a busy so it was a brief hello and then back home for video games. Kerri got home around 4pm and Randy made a lovely stir fry with cookies for dessert. Kerri's friend Sarah came round to watch (and play) Jeopardy which is apparently a nightly thing... I beat everyone at Jeopardy. In the final commercial break Kerri's dog changed the channel so we ended up missing the last round... I would have still won. Kerri had something wrong with her eye so Sarah drove her to the emergency room while Randy and I played some more video games. Randy went to bed at about 10pm and Kerri didn't get home until after midnight. I watched Conan O'Brien, The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report and then at 3am the only thing on TV was a crazy man shouting about God.... he annoyed me so I went to sleep.

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Day 77 (Wednesday Dec 8th)
"I will not negotiate with ants!"

I didn't wake up until midday and I remembered I'd been dreaming about football (soccer)... I do kind of miss watching Match Of The Day every Saturday night. Randy got home at 2pm and we went and walked around Fort Stevens. It's an abandoned fort from about 100 years ago so it's basically lots of bunkers with nothing in them. When we got back I played Ghostbusters until Kerri got home and then we ate. We had a delicious dinner of mash potato, green beans, some bagel things and some deep fried asparagus with breadcrumbs. The asparagus was weird because it reminded me of fried chicken and pretty much tasted the same, anything deep fried must taste the same. Sarah didn't come over but we still played Jeopardy and I won again, I think the Chinese Cinema category helped me a bit. I was leaving Warrenton tonight and I'd lost one of my SD cards so we spent about half an hour looking for it before Randy found it under the door mat. Kerri wasn't feeling too great so Randy drove me to Wheeler. We got there at about 9pm and was immediately offered some Newcastle Brown Ale. We spent the night watching Married With Children, The Hive (awful killer ants movie), Train (awful train horror movie) and I only spilt my beer twice because of the cats jumping on me.

Bye Ali, hi Vanessa, bye Vanessa, hi Kerri and Randy...

Day 75 (Monday Dec 6th)
"I don't expect you to buy me food until I'm staying with you."

I'd set my alarm for 10.30am because Ali was coming to pick me up on her lunch break to take me to the Greyhound station. I managed to get my stuff packed and had some cereal and toast before she got home. Ali dropped me off at the bus station and then one of the new Greyhound buses arrived. It was all fancy looking inside but the clientele were the same standard as usual. It was crowded and smelt of piss but it had free wi-fi, a fair compromise.

Vanessa met me in Portland and we had three hours to kill before my bus to Warrenton so we went for some Chinese food, I had some lettuce wrap things where I had to wrap the stuff in lettuce myself, lazy chefs. Vanessa insisted on paying even though I said I'd only expect her to pay for my food when I'm actually staying with her in a few weeks (jk?). We then went to a big book store called Powell's. They have about five floors and lots of different rooms, if I was into books I could probably spend a week in there. As it was, the best thing I saw in there were some faecally shaped keyrings called "Dookeys". We gave ourselves about half an hour to get to the car and then get to the station... Vanessa couldn't find the car... and when we finally found it and started walking towards the station Vanessa decided we needed to drive to the station because it was too far to walk... it turned out to be one block away. (Vanessa is great, I love her lots, please don't hurt me Vanessa).


My bus to Warrenton also had free wi-fi but for some reason the bus driver lady decided to turn all the lights off in the bus to it was pitch black. Luckily I've wasted so much of my life on the internet that I don't need to see a keyboard to type. Kerri and Randy picked me up from the bus stop (Fred Meyer) in Warrenton at about 9pm and we drove back to their place. I had my own room and my own bathroom which was rather cool. They both went to bed at 10pm so I had some soup, watched a bit of TV in my room and then went to sleep.

Dance Ali Dance: Corvallis - The Next Chapter

 Day 73 (Saturday Dec 4th)

"This ain't no book shop!"

Ali said I should sleep-in so I got up around midday. She was baking some croissant looking things and they were actually really nice with some jam. We didn't leave the house until 3pm and we didn't really have anything planned. Ali decided to show me the OSU campus where she works. There were a lot of crazy football fans hanging around on the streets and outside the stadium, we actually drove past the stadium and you could see the fans in the stands. At OSU they had a Saturday market going on with lots of weird little ornaments and jewelery. Ali bought be a Beavers t-shirt from the "bookstore" and then we left the campus because we didn't want to get caught up in the football traffic. We went to Bed Bath & Beyond which turned out to be more "Beyond" than "Bed" or "Bath". We bought a gingerbread house kit and then headed home. Our incredible gingerbread house took about an hour to make and as I'm writing this two days later it's somehow still standing. I tried eating a bit of it last night but it was all a bit hard. Ali cooked a couple of small pizzas for dinner and we also had had chips and salsa. Tonight's movie was Labyrinth (Dance Ali Dance!) and we ended the night by watching my Goonies 25th Anniversary videos.

Day 74 (Sunday Dec 5th)
"New Year's Eve Beach?"

For the second day in a row I woke up at midday. I had some jam and toast and then booked my buses to Warrenton for the next day. Ali had planned for us to go to Brownsville and see some of the Stand By Me locations but while she was getting ready I did some research and decided I'd rather go to the coast. Ali was quite happy with that so we headed west. It took less than an hour to get the coast and we stopped at the dollar store in Newport because we'd both forgot our sunglasses on a surprisingly sunny day. We drove ten minutes north to Otter Rock and Devil's Punchbowl for some nice scenery. There were some noisy sea lions riding the waves alongside some surfers. Ali wanted to walk on the beach so we went to one called Nye Beach (New Year's Eve beach to me) and walked around a bit. We watched some dog's humping and I wrote a message in the sand before we headed home. Ali was talking about eating out but I fancied some the chili and rice that I'd seen in the kitchen cupboard. After dinner we watched the Rooney Never Says Die DVD followed by Bill & Ted and some mint ice cream before bed.

Dance Ali Dance: Corvallis - The First Chapter

Day 72 (Friday Dec 3rd)
"If you ever wanna kick it sometime."

My bus was at 11am so I woke up at about 9. Max hadn't gone to school because he was ill... I don't think going to bed at 2am had helped. I think he just wanted to stay home so he could say good bye to me at the bus stop. Tina made me jam on toast and I got all my stuff packed up. We drove to the bowling alley/bus station and Tina got a "nice" photo of me and Max. A lot of the people getting on the bus were headed to the college football game in Corvallis between The Ducks and The Beavers, one guy had won tickets and he was the first person in America that I'd seen chewing tobacco... lovely.

All the guys at the back of the bus were talking nonsense about football, politics and guns. One man across from me was trying to chat up the woman sitting behind him. After some general chat he stepped it up a gear by complimenting the curls in her hair, then he moved in for the kill by asking if she did her own nails. He actually got her number and asked for it by saying "You know, if you ever wanna kick it sometime." It was actually quite a pleasant bus journey because the snowy views were pretty all the way and I also got to see the first proper looking mountain (Mt. Fuji looking) that I'd ever seen in person. I eventually got fed up of listening to the guys talking crap on the bus so I listened to some Adam & Joe XFM radio shows. At one point I stopped my mp3 player because everyone was talking a bit louder and just as I stopped it one guy on the bus said "Keanu Reeves and an English guy."

We arrived in Corvallis over an hour late, we'd left Bend about half an hour late and actually stopped a couple of times for breaks, buses are quite relaxed in Oregon. I'd missed the bus that would get me to Ali's apartment so for the first time in my life I went into a Starbucks. I killed an hour with a hot chocolate and the internet as I waited for Ali to finish work. Ali turned up around 5pm and greeted me with a big hug, we drove back to her place and she showed me to my room. Her apartment is really nice and modern, it has some weird heating and I tried to help her figure out where the heat comes from, we decided it was probably under-floor heating. We went out for Mexican food and I loved how the waitress was using basic Mexican on us, it felt like we were in a Mexican themed restaurant rather than in an actual Mexican restaurant... which we were. I had a spinach quesadilla and it was delivered to me in the shape of a face. After a lovely meal and about half an hour of loitering in the restaurant we went grocery shopping and then headed back home. Ali showed me her DVD collection and we decided upon License To Drive starring Haim, Feldman and Heather Graham because Ali couldn't believe I hadn't seen it. After the movie Ali went to bed and I booked my flight to NYC before I lay my head down for the night. It wasn't a great night's sleep because the heating confused me, half the night I was freezing under all the blankets and for the other half I was almost naked with no covers.

Bending It: Article 1b - Days 2 and 3

Day 70 (Wednesday Dec 1st)

"The Grand Canyon ate my hiking shoes."

I slept in until 11am and Tina made me scrambled eggs on toast. Today was the day I would buy some new shoes, my old ones had only lasted two months but I think it was the Grand Canyon that killed them so there's no hard feelings. We went to most of the shoe shops in Bend but to no avail and at 1pm we went to pick up Max from bowling. He was doing great until we arrived and then it was mostly just gutter balls. Max and some of his friends got a ride with us into downtown but I couldn't join them because the shoe-hunt had to continue. At around 4pm we found some acceptable ones at Shopko but carried on looking in a few more stores before heading back to Shopko and buying the ones I'd already looked at. We picked up some groceries from Trader Joe's and then headed back home. Max and his friend Caleb wanted to go out for food and I decided to join them so Tina drove us to Kona which is a Hawaiian food place. I was a bit confused by the menu so I ended up with just a small bowl of veggie stir fry. When we got back home I had some soy corn dogs and Max went out to visit an ill Venezuelan exchange student. I did some chatting online and a friend from near Pittsburgh told me she'd possibly be in NYC when I return there for a few days before I fly home, this made me rather happy. Max came home and we had some popcorn whilst watching Conan O'Brien. We then caught the end of Letterman where there was a woman singing an awful song over the top of a Joe Satriani riff. Max stayed up to watch Regis on Craig Ferguson but I decided that retiring to my room to watch Legend Of The Bog starring Vinnie Jones was a better option. I only managed half of the movie before I fell asleep.

Day 71 (Thursday Dec 2nd)
"Everywhere goes somewhere."

I woke up at around midday and my washing was all warm and dry outside my room, then Tina heated up some homemade soup for my breakfast, I think spoiled is the word I'm looking for. I spent about an hour on the internet and the phone trying to sort out my bus ticket through Amtrak for the next day. The automated system (Julie) wasn't very helpful and the first guy I spoke to didn't seem too sure about things so I decided to call back a second time to confirm everything with a different person. I sent some messages out to people trying to organise the final Portland part of my trip because it was nearly time for me to book my flight back to New York. When Max got back from school he and Tina made a weird mixture of what seemed like every savoury snack in the cupboard. I didn't try any of that, instead I waited for my veggie buffalo wings and sweet potato fries. Max and I watched some South Park, then some of Conan (jeggings!) until the Kardashians came on. We got some photos of us in our matching Hawaiian shirts and then Max said he wanted to watch the second half of Legend Of The Bog with me, the fool! It was of course more entertaining watching it with Max and we laughed quite hard at the incredibly philosophical line, "Everywhere goes somewhere". Max then put on an awful Mark Hamill movie which I only watched half of before I could no longer keep my eyes open.

Bending It: Article 1a - Day 69 dudes!

Day 69 (Tuesday Nov 30th)
"I was just going to recline your seat for you."

I got up at 8am and got ready and packed. For breakfast I had an apple. Alex drove me to the station and my bus looked bit like a prison bus, cool. It was all nice inside and the driver and other passengers were very friendly. The driver told us that a few weeks ago his window had blown in when a big truck had gone past, that was a nice thing to know as we set off on our three hour journey. A guy called Peter who worked at a church tried to talk to me and he was amazed to meet an English person, he even said at one point that he wanted of me holding my passport to prove that he'd met me. I'm now bored of people being amazed that I'm English... unless it's a pretty lady. I tried sleeping for most of the trip but at one point I woke up and Peter was sat behind me just about to recline my seat. I'm not sure what he thought would happen, I'd obviously wake up and say "WTF?!" as I'd have jolted back in my seat. There was a cool bit of the journey where we were going through the snowy mountains and sliding everywhere, I might have been more freaked out if I wasn't so tired. The journey didn't seem to take too long so I must have actually slept a bit. I arrived in Bend only about half an hour late and Max's mother (Tina) and Max were both there to meet me. Max had actually left school early because he was so excited to see me, at least that's what he told his mother. We drove back to the Reisfar home and Tina made me a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup. I also got to try some of the nicest tap water in the country (so they say). Max's brother Alex dropped his kid Farrin round to be babysat, she's a crazy child and very entertaining. Max took me out for a quick walking tour of the town, my favourite place was called Cat6 which just has lots of TVs and lots of gaming consoles, I think I'd spend a lot of time there if I lived in Bend. We walked some more and when we got bored Max got Tina to pick us up, I didn't realise but we were only about a five minute walk from home, Max has got it good! Max and I played some Goldeneye and then we had pizza. Tristan (Max's dad) kept trying to force beer on me and I'm not one to refuse beer. More Goldeneye followed with some amazing knife throwing action from Max. Everyone was in bed by 10pm so I watched an awful Shane Van Dyke movie called Paranormal Entity and then went to sleep on my airbed.

Springfield: Episode B

Day 66 (Saturday Nov 27th)
"If you poop it's okay"

We started the day with some pancakes and then watched Despicable Me. Brian had been trying to get us to watch that since I arrived and it ended up being a pretty good movie. At one point Brian got up to pee and Vanessa randomly came out with the "If you poop it's okay." After the movie we went out to find me a jacket, I found a nice cheap one and then we went for food. The fish & chips place was closed so we settled on Steelhead and I had a veggie burger. Liz had a bit of trouble at the station with getting her ticket printed and in the end we had to walk up to the end of the train to find conductor Dave, he sorted it all out and we said our goodyes to Liz. Alex and Vanessa wanted to go to a crafts store so I tagged along, I was a bit bored so I was just playing with stuff and rudely positioning Santa figurines. Jurassic Park was on when we got home and Vanessa decided she was going to stay another night when she suggested that Brian should get the beer out. I somehow convinced everyone that we should watch The Expendables and I found a drinking game for it online.... I finished my first beer within five minutes... and it didn't slow down much.. We all got rather drunk and I fell asleep just after we started watching Zombieland.

Day 67 (Sunday Nov 28th)
"She takes photos when you're sleeping, she knows when you're awake (that you'll be a bit creeped out.)"

I woke up to seeing a photo of me asleep that Alex had posted on Facebook. Vanessa left in the afternoon and then the day turned into another movie day, we watched The Terminator and Predator, Alex fell asleep during Predator, shameful. Next was Home Alone 2 and then Don't Mess With Zohan. Alex made me a grilled cheese sandwich and some vegetable tomato soup. We then watched Star Wars and then the McDonald's wanted to watch Walking Dead, it was okay. Then they both went to bed so I watched Street Fighter (Raul Julia was in some BAD movies!) and Four Lions before I went to sleep.

Day 68 (Monday Nov 29th)
"Oi! Good-bye mate!"

An amazingly lazy day it was! We watched a few episodes of Roseanne and then Big. I looked through a lot of my videos including the ones from Thanksgiving, there's so much wonderfully embarrassing stuff on there. I watched about three hours of Cash Cab and then Alex made me stir fry, I like it how she knows when I'm hungry and just starts cooking without telling me. Brian came home and we watched a few episodes of Mythbusters, then Scrooged. I said good night to Brian for the final time and then me and Alex watched a few episodes of South Park before bed time.

Springfield: Episode A

Day 63 (Wednesday Nov 24th)
"I'll have a burrito and a Margarita."

Alex had told me she'd be going grocery shopping early so when I woke up at 10am I texted her to see what was happening... she was doing her make-up in the bedroom. We checked out some thrift stores because I needed a jacket, I got a sweater, some gloves and a hat. At the grocery store we bought a lot of stuff for Thanksgiving and I picked up some veggie stuff. We got back to the house and Brian came home from work shortly after so we decided to go out to Chipotle. Brian and I had Margaritas with our burritos because we are manly men. Also in Chipotle was the old lady superhero known as "Pumpkin-hat" so I got some video of her. Back at the McDonald's I played some Rock Band, some Beatles Rock Band, Alex prepared Thanksgiving food, I was pumped full of vitamins and aspirin and then we went to sleep at about 1am.

Day 64 (Thursday Nov 25th)
"Happy eggplant parmesan day!"

I woke up with a bit of a cold, it had been coming on since the day I left San Francisco so I'd been taking lots of aspirins and vitamins since I arrived in Eugene. I watched some of the Macy's Parade and laughed at the awfulness of it all, everything is a commercial. The Reeds (Martin & Natalie) and Liz arrived at about 3pm and Austin arrived shortly after them. It was lovely to see everyone again and I managed to last at least ten minutes before I made an inappropriate comment to Natalie. We started drinking and had some nibbles while we waited for Vanessa, she arrived just after 7pm and we went straight into the proper eating. The Reeds had made some delicious stuffed mushrooms and Alex had made me some lovely eggplant parmesan so I had that with some peas, salad and a bread roll. We spent the night drinking, reading excerpts from Jon Bon Jovi's biography, playing Guesstures, Rock Band and silent Rock Band. The girls won Guesstures because they cheated a few times. Around 3am we all settled down for the night, falling asleep to Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

Day 65 (Friday Nov 26th)
"Vanessa the Mexicaninja!"

Waking up in a room full of people felt just like a hostel only this time I actually got up in time for breakfast, we had eggs, potatoes and toast. Somebody put Speed on and after that I put on Jingle All The Way, that's a helluva double bill! Vanessa disappeared at some point, Alex thought she'd gone out for a smoke but she'd actually gone somewhere in her car. When she came back it was time for Martin, Natalie and Austin to leave. We mourned their departure by watching The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Tosh.0, Wing Commander (oh yeah!) and a couple of episode of Dukes Of Hazzard. We went to a cool little independent cinema to watch Scott Pilgrim vs The World, it was okay but there was a bit too much going on for my brain to compute. I spent the last half hour of the movie trying to figure out an audio reference that I'd heard, it meant I couldn't really think about anything else until we got back to Alex's and I could check IMDb.... it was Ming's ring noise from Flash Gordon.

The rideshare to the Grey Havens (Oregon)

Day 62 (Tuesday Nov 23rd)
"Buy me some woman's underarm deodorant please."

I'd set my alarm for 6am but when I woke up I decided I'd not bother with a shower and get half an hour longer in bed. On the way to the train station I only had time to grab a muffin and a banana. It took about half an hour to get to MacArthur and I ended up getting there too early so I waited about twenty minutes before my rideshare arrived. Nick and his wife Elizabeth turned up in their old Saturn, we chatted for a few minutes and once our other rideshare Connor arrived we were on our way!

We had some constant chatting going for about the first hour, mainly between Connor and Nick. They actually knew a lot of the same people because they'd both lived in Seattle. I learnt that Nick lived in a gay man's commune kind of thing in southern Oregon and that Nick was a drum teacher for kids. Nick and Elizabeth took turns driving and sleeping and we stopped at a diner for some lunch, I had a veggie burger. Alex texted me asking if she could buy me anything from the store, I requested some women's underarm deodorant... it's one of my things. About half way into the journey there was a 'road closed' sign and we took a detour but as soon as we got back to the I-5 we hit major traffic. We actually didn't move for about an hour and at one point both our drivers got out of the car to go pee, which reminded me of the scene from Flash Gordon where the pilots disappear. Two hours of slow driving followed and it was getting dark so any nice views of the snowy mountains were not visible. We finally got to Wolf Creek at about 7pm and dropped off Connor.

I slept for most of the two hours to Eugene except for when I heard You Could Be Mine by Guns N Roses and realised that was the first song I'd heard from Nick's MP3 player that I also had on mine. They dropped me of at iHop and Alex turned up about five minutes later. I met her husband Brian and then Alex made me my first ever grilled cheese sandwich, they were amazed that I'd never had one before. It was already quite late so I ended up watching an episode of CSI: Miami and then going to sleep on the sofa.

San Francisco in a day

Day 61 (Monday Nov 22nd)
"In your message please tell me one thing that you're grateful for"

The first thing I did when I woke up was to check online and see if there was any change in my travel options. My dad had spotted that train tickets were available again but for about $20 more. I quickly booked one and then checked my emails to find a couple of replies to my rideshare post. One asked me to reply with a bit more info about myself and the other one left a phone number which I called. It went to voicemail and she sounded like a very hippy woman so I left a message. I called Amtrak to check if could cancel my ticket with no charge and the woman said that would be okay up to a couple of hours before my train leaves so I left my options open. I stored my bag at the hostel and went down the road to a cafe for a veggie chili bowl. Then my plan of doing the whole of San Francisco in a day went into action!

Union Square was my first stop, there wasn't much going on there so that was simple enough. I walked through Chinatown, it was mostly Chinese people, I'm used to Chinatowns being full of tourists but this one was different. It was pretty cool and seemed to go on forever! I walked a bit west to get to Lombard Street and see the famous steep winding road. There were lots of tourists here just standing in the middle of the street, it was rather amusing. Next stop was Pier 39, I'd been told they have sea-lions and that it was a good location to see Alcatraz, both of these things were correct but also correct was that I'd been told they don't have as many sea-lions as they used to... damn humans. I had a pee and a poop on the pier (in the restroom) and then Nick called me about the rideshare, he seemed like a nice guy and the only condition was that I had to get over to Oakland which was about half an hour on the BART train. I called Amtrak and cancelled my ticket, it was all rather easy, Amtrak is good. I had a long pleasant walk along the waterfront to the Golden Gate Bridge and then walked about half way across it. I headed back the same way that I'd came and managed to snap a hawk that was perched in a very good photo op, I also got a comedy pervy video of a couple snogging. I'd decided to get a cable car back towards the hostel but the one near the waterfront had a massive line so I walked a bit further to the next one. It was still about a half hour wait but the ride was pretty fun, I rode hanging on the side of the car because I like living life on the edge..

I got back to the hostel at about 6pm and booked another night there. The room I was in the previous night was now full and I ended up getting a different room all to myself. I went to Golden Era Vegetarian which was a fairly cheap Vietnamese restaurant around the corner and I had Pho. It was a bit confusing because I had a bowl of stuff and a side dish with just bean sprouts and a lemon segment. I dumped some of the bean sprouts into the bowl and chowed down. It was a tasty and very filling meal. Nick called again at 9pm and we confirmed everything, he'd done the research on which train I'd be getting in the morning and how much it would be, very helpful indeed. I'd need to get to the pick up point for 8am so I went to bed quite early.

My last day in L.A. and first night in San Francisco

Day 59 (Saturday Nov 20th) "Anybody in from Iceland? Yes."
I woke up to the sounds of an American guy being interrogated by the Mexican cleaners. He was saying that he didn't know when he was checking-out and they were asking if he was lost. Me and the Welsh guys chatted to him for a bit but were none the wiser as to his situation. The Welsh boys were leaving and one of them gave me a Jon Bon Jovi biography because he couldn't fit it in his bag. I did some planning for the Oregon part of my trip and sorted out a rideshare to San Francisco for the next day. It would be with a guy called Michael, he said there would possibly be another guy joining us. I went out for a veggie burrito at Chipotle because I hadn't been to one of those for about a week. I almost left my bag in Chipotle because I wasn't used to taking it out with me. I'd decided to turn up at the Big Blue Bus depot because the security man hadn't go back to me but they wouldn't let me in without the proper paperwork. They told me to go to customer service which I did but to no avail except that I got to chat with a nice lady about the bus, she used to drive them. Back to the hostel and I booked the San Francisco hostel for the next night. I went to buy some headphones because mine had broken and then went down towards the beach for sunset. I'd planned to walk down to Venice Beach but it was getting too late so I only made it as far as the Speed bus explosion location. I bought a blueberry muffin from a CVS across the road and did a weird little photo re-enactment. That actually really cheered me up for ten minutes as I walked back towards the hostel listening to the Speed score. I managed to get slightly lost for the first time in Santa Monica but only because they print the maps the wrong way round to make it look like the beach is to the south. At the hostel there was a middle aged English guy badly chatting up a young Japanese girl much to the amusement of everyone in the library although Daniele (Japanese Brazilian) was getting a bit fed up with it and wanted to close the door, I wouldn't let her. The giggling French girls from Flagstaff turned up at the hostel (not the French girls from New Orleans). We found out that a stand-up comedy night was happening in the hostel so a few of us decided to go to that. It was four comedians telling mostly bad jokes to about fourteen rather tired and mostly foreign, totally sober travellers. It was never going to work although the stand-up woman was quite cute. I thought about going back after the show to chat to her but she left before I had the chance. In my notes it talks about a cute Chinese girl coming into the library straight from the shower, wet hair, dressed for bed and then me ending up alone in the library with her and a Japanese girl. I'm going to skip that bit and say that I went to bed.

"The Firehouse Restaurant, the bus and the muffin all fit the doubloon!"

Day 60 (Sunday Nov 21st) "I thought it couldn't be you but then I heard that Liverpool accent"
I got up at 9am but I still managed to be the last one up. I checked-out, said good bye to Danielle and then grabbed a slice of pizza for breakfast. Micheal my rideshare guy turned up in a snazzy BMW. We drove to the station to pick up our other rideshare dude but when Michael called him it turned out he was still in San Diego so that wasted half an hour. Micheal had a massive stammer but it would be rude to mention that so I'll just say that on the seven hour journey in between the massive spells of no talking we talked a lot of crap, he kept telling me about women he'd been with and I talked about Speed, we went to In & Out Burger but they had a massive line so we waited to eat at Panda Express which had a couple of nice veggie options. When we got to San Francisco at around 6pm and he needed to pick up some medical marijuana and for the purposes of this blog I most definitely did not buy a marijuana cookie off him. He dropped me at the hostel and I checked-in. The room was quite cold because there was a window open... I closed it. A couple of French guys came back to the room so I chatted with them for a bit, they'd been sutdying in the US for almost three months and were heading home in the next week. I planned a whole day of walking around San Francisco, trying to fit in as many of the major tourist things as possible. I asked one of the hostel staff if it was possible and she gave me the green light. After all my planning and deciding I could get a train to Eugene at 9pm the next night I discovered that the trains were sold out for the next two nights. I posted on Craiglist about getting a rideshare and found that Greyhound was back-up option but it was about $80 for a 15 hour journey. I popped out to Walgreens to grab some snacks and bumped into Victoria from Liverpool who I'd hung out with in New Orleans. After some snacking I went back to the hostel and was in bed by midnight.

Los Angeles continued: Dreamworks and some live music

Day 57 (Thursday Nov 18th) "Vagina!"
I woke up with one of my "I'm still drunk" hangovers. It wasn't painful but I was feeling very zoned out. I was supposed to get the bus to somewhere near Burbank but in the end Damon came to pick me up. We started with a beer run because Damon had to re-stock the bar in the hidden room so pretty much the first thing I got to see at Dreamworks was the hidden room. It's quite an incredible thing and there are so many stories that go along with it, Damon is my hero. Guillermo Del Toro was apparently on campus doing a book signing but I didn't get to see him. We grabbed some food at the canteen and then sat outside for a bit. Back inside and Damon showed me some cool animation stuff from How To Train Your Dragon while he was explaining exactly what it is he does. I also got to see some early stuff from The Croods. Matt was in an office nearby and Damon left me with him while he went for a meeting. Matt showed me a bit more of the campus, lots of cool artwork, a big wall of famous signatures and then a sequence from the upcoming Kung Fu Panda 2. At the end of the working day we headed for the hidden room and this time it was full of people. I tried a pint of one of the beers that's brewed by people that work at Dreamworks an hung out with some of the interesting animation folks. A lot of the people seemed to be writing novels so they were all talking about that. I met a woman called April who told me a lot of movies that I should watch and I found out that her husband actually worked on the bus explosion scene from Speed. Someone was telling a story about the "saying penis louder than the previous person" game and that's where the quote for this blog entry came from. Damon drove me back to the hostel and on the way we went to Norm's for a veggie burger. When I got back to the hostel the Chris, Leigh and Stuart were loitering and Stuart was going to Hawaii the next day. We had a bit of banter, added each other on Facebook and then went to bed.


Day 58 (Friday Nov 19th) "Spare some change for an old fool?"
I didn't sleep too well and when I woke up it was cloudy outside. I had a missed call from the bus manager guy so I called him back. He passed me on to a bus maintenance man who gave me some information about the bus and said that they'd kept one for historical purposes but I'd need to clear it with the head of security before I could go in and see it, I left a message for the security guy. I put my laundry on then headed to an Indian vegan lunch buffet about twenty minutes walk away. I ate two plates of lovely food but I think it was too much because I felt too full for the rest of the afternoon. On the way back to the hostel a homeless guy said "spare some change for an old fool?", I replied with "sorry, dude" and he said "have a good weekend buddy". I thought that was a nice exchange. I was really tired but was checking online for interesting things to do that night when I remembered that one of my old internet friends Justin had a gig in L.A. tonight. He has a band called Lemon Drop Kick who originally were three American guys with a Japanese female vocalist who sings in Japanese, I messaged them about four years ago on Myspace because I thought it was an interesting set-up and Justin had replied, we'd kept in touch ever since. I made sure I knew which buses to get and headed to a venue called The Strange in an area called Silverlake. It took about an hour on the Rapid 704 bus and then I had to walk five minutes through a slightly dodgy looking area. The venue turned out to be some sort of art gallery with a performance space which meant I didn't have to wait outside. Justin arrived about five minutes after I got there so I said hello, his band were on first so he had to set up his stuff. LDK did a good set although they said it wasn't one of their best performances. I got to meet the rest of the band when they'd finished and I also recognised Jeff as one of the old members of the band, he'd come along to support them. The second act was a trendy young black man doing some beat-boxing, dancing and rapping, he was quite cool. The third band were called The Slants and they had some Asian Jonas brothers on guitars who jumped on some boxes at the front that then lit up. The front-man had some great dance moves and had a mic stand that lit up. I can't remember the name of the next act but it was a rather camp Japanese man doing some electro-pop with some dancing women and a dancing man in a monkey suit. They were quite entertaining although the singer had a video of himself doing backing vocals behind him, he even conversed with himself between songs, it was quite creepy. Paul the LDK bassist told me to talk some random Japanese women so I had a go at that, they preferred my English accent to my lame attempts at speaking Japanese. One of the girls was literally the prettiest Japanese girl I've ever seen in person. The next band were Dead End Amelia, a lot of people had left and it did kind of feel like the night should have been over. I was mainly sticking around to hang out with Justin after the show but DEA turned out to be a very cool band. The front-woman was rather hot and I stood with Justin up near the front to take in the full show. They had some cool songs and did a really good cover of Change by Deftones, so good in fact that a balding dread-locked black man started going crazy at the front. Justin and Jeff spoke to him after the show and he showed us his driving license, his name was officially Freak. I said hello to more people at the end of the show including the sexy front-woman who had to mock my accent... but I didn't mind. Justin, Jeff and I drove to Mel's Diner which is where I'd almost gone with the BTTF gang, I knew where it was but Justin didn't, that was weird. I had a veggie sandwich and fries. Justin drove me back to the hostel and I had one of the latest nights I'd had in quite a while, in bed by 3.30am.

Justin (LDK), me, Jeff (former LDK)

Another movie location day and my first day in Santa Monica

Day 55 (Tuesday Nov 16th) "Nice night for a walk"
I didn't leave the hostel until about 2pm and I kept forgetting things so I didn't get to Mann's Chinese Theater until about 3pm. I just wanted to go there during the day because that's when it was seen in Speed. I then got the subway over to East Hollywood and checked out the Vista Theater which was used in True Romance. Then I started my walk to Griffith Observatory. It's on a hill that overlooks L.A. so it was a bit of a tiring hour to get up there. On the way I stopped by a tunnel that was featured in Back To The Future and War Games. Some opening scenes from The Terminator were filmed at the observatory but for a change that wasn't the only reason I was visiting a filming location. It was really nice up there, the building is quite interesting and there were some really good views... through the smog. I took a different trail going down and then went for a Thai yellow curry at Truly Vegan. They had a comedy night at the hostel but when I walked past I heard some terrible jokes so I decided to just chill in my room and get an early night.


Day 56 (Wednesday Nov 17th) "China Wednesday!"
I checked out of the Hollywood hostel and got the bus to Santa Monica. On the way I stopped at the Viper Room where River Phoenix died. It was something I had to check out but then wished I hadn't, it just felt kind of morbid and not very fun. After checking-in at the Santa Monica hostel I struggled for an hour to get on the internet. I couldn't actually get online in my room which was a bit annoying but they had little library room with a good wi-fi signal which ended up being where I'd spend a lot of my time. Sharing my bunk was a middle aged Australian man called Russell. The only way I could print stuff was by using their computers which was about 10 cents a minute with a $3 minimum. It was rather annoying and I ended up having to call up customer service because the code for the rest of my minutes disappeared before I could write it down (I can't be bothered to explain that any more that I have, it was annoying, I'll leave it at that). I tried to find a veggie or vegan food place nearby using Google Maps but there didn't seem to be anything cheap in the area. I walked around the block a few times and eventually found a Greek fast food place with a falafel wrap thing. I walked to the corner or Ocean Park and Main St which is where Annie got on the bus in Speed. Then I walked up to Rose and Main which is where Bob's bus blew up. I tried to re-enact the phone call between Dennis Hopper and Keanu and then went in to the Firehouse Restaurant. It's more of a bar now so they didn't have any muffins, instead I had chips and salsa. I walked back to the hostel via the beachfront and Santa Monica pier and then went online for a bit. When I got back to my room there were two Welsh guys dressing up as Austrian women. They introduced themselves as Chris and Leigh and explained that they'd recently started a tradition of dressing up every Wednesday and calling it China Wednesday to confuse Americans. There was also an English guy Stuart who had dressed up as a gynecologist. I blew up some balloons for the Welsh guy's breasts and decided to join them on the hostel pub crawl. There were about twenty people out on the pub crawl, we had three voulenteer guides that were going to take us to four bars. At the first bar we played drinking games with a a Korean guy and a Japanese guy, it actually went pretty well despite the language barrier. In the second bar they had a Beatles cover band and after a few songs they let people go up and sing with them. We put our name down for a couple of songs but only Stuart and Leigh had time to do one. The third bar (which ended up being our last) was a long sports bar with karaoke at one end. I put my name down for Power Of Love and gave the woman in charge $10 so she could bump my name to the top of the list. I was quite drunk and didn't dare imagine the state I'd be in trying to sing that song an hour later. I chatted with lots of people including a Terry McDermott lookalike, nobody knew Terry McDermott so we resorted to chanting "Keegan! Keegan!" at him. The Welsh guys spent a lot of the night explaining China Wednesday to everybody, they came up with a whole fake history for it. I befriended a Japanese girl who didn't know any Japanese because she was brought up in Brazil, that didn't stop me trying to speak nihongo to her. Lots of drinking took place and I was told by the Welsh guys that they found me asleep in the hostel library. I have a few videos from that night and my narration did sound quite nonsensical but Daniele (JapBra) and a couple of other girls made sure I got back to the hostel.

Day 54: The Price Is Right and Japanese drunks.

Day 54 (15th) Monday "Berry good Danish man! kusou yarou!"
I got up relatively early but I still didn't have time for breakfast, this was the day of The Price Is Right. I walked the to CBS studios and grabbed some chips to eat on the way. It took about an hour to get there but when I arrived I followed the map to the car park rather than the front entrance. If this had been a show in England I probably wouldn't have got in but being ten minutes late didn't seem to matter here. The audience members were all hanging around for about an hour before some people handed out numbers and got us to fill in some details about ourselves. I chatted to a nice lady called Norda and her rather lovely niece Alisha. Norda's parents were also there celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. Alisha was a stand up comic but she was going to say she wrote children's books, she said this was because she didn't want to be put on the spot but I think she was going for the "aww factor". I'd already decided that I was going to say I was a grave digger because I thought an English grave digger might have a chance of getting on the show. They interviewed us in small groups so they could choose who they wanted to be on the show. I told them my pretend profession and then the guy asked asked me about how I got into grave digging. I said "I just fell into it", I didn't actually intend to make a pun, I'm just a genius like that. Alisha was actually one of the first contestants to be picked but she didn't get any further than contestant's row (where they stand at the front guessing the prices). Nobody actually won on any of the normal rounds, apparently that's not uncommon but it made for some impressive anti-climaxes. It was insane how much clapping we were being told to do and it was funny how even Americans were struggling to keep the enthusiasm going. The strangely thin Drew Carey chatted to the audience between rounds and he was quite funny. They had a guest announcer from Heroes but he only started in season three so I didn't recognise him. One of the funniest items was an in-car microwave, Drew was laughing about it and he made some pretty funny jokes about how unsafe that could be.

After the show I decided to walk back a different way, via Fairfax and Sunset. There were some quite interesting shops including a few really big music stores. Once again I ended up at Truly Vegan and had a Truly Spicy, pretty much just a Chow Mein but with more peppers and hot sauce. I thought about going to a comedy improv show that Alisha had recommended but it didn't look too great. I asked my L.A. friend Justin about live music but the places he recommended all had a steep cover charge. Shintaro came back from his daily adventures, he told me that yesterday he'd been at Gamble House (Doc Brown's house), he same place I'd been. We did some Japanese joking around, the more I divulge about my knowledge of Japanese culture, the more embarrassing it gets. He told me that he'd made friends with a Japanese girl called Tomomi who was staying at the hostel, he popped out and brought her back to our room. We chatted over a beer and then decided to go out for drinks with our other room mate Jesper. When we got to a bar we realised that both Japanese were only 20 and they were IDing at the bar so we decided to buy some beer at the store and drink it back at the hostel. What ensued was an international night of drinking, jokes, bad language in lots of languages, awful translations, foosball, opening beer bottles with various objects, Shintaro the lightweight and then sleep.

Los Angeles days 2 and 3

Day 52 (Saturday Nov 13th) "World's finest chocolate!"
I tried to catch up on my sleep a little bit so I didn't get up until 11am and I didn't actually head out until 2pm. I was going to check out downtown to get my full Speed and Terminator fix. Before I headed out I booked a free ticket for a recording of The Price Is Right, a couple of people said it would be fun and I had no plans for Monday.

When I arrived at the subway station there was a big group of kids crowding around the ticket machines so it took a while to even get on a train. They were also on the same train as me and they were screaming every time it jolted, very annoying. I got off at Pershing Square station and immediately recognised the neon lights, I tried to do a bit of walking in Keanu's footsteps. I went to a Subway at street level that looked onto Pershing Square and had a very nice foot long veggie sub. I then walked a few minutes to the financial district and checked out the building from the beginning of Speed and the hill where Harry and Jack jump into shot in their police car. Also in that area I checked out the bank used in Heat and Fight Club. Next was the jewelry (American spelling) district which featured a couple of locations from The Terminator. One was the store front used for Tech Noir where Sarah takes refuge and the other was the alley where Kyle appears. I was slightly unsure of where both locations were but I narrowed it down to only two possibilities and got photos of both. I spoke to a security guard next to one of them and he had no idea what I was talking about.On my way to the Bradbury Building (Bladerunner) a woman was selling "Chocolate! World's finest chocolate!". I didn't buy any, I assumed it would be very expensive. The Bradbury Building was actually closed for filming, I tried to sneak in the rear entrance but there were security guards right around the corner so I chickened out. I then walked to the Orpheum Theater which was featured in Last Action Hero.

I got the subway back to the hostel and got off the train a few stops early. I just wanted to check out the area on foot and there was a pretty cool sky when I turned onto Sunset Blvd. When I got back to the hostel I met another room mate called Jesper, he was from Denmark and doing some acting classes over here. I caught up with some blogging and then went across the road for some vegan chop suey, it wasn't as good as the chow mein but I was making sure I wasn't eating the same thing on consecutive days. Shintaro returned from his day of skateboarding adventure and we chatted in the kitchen until about midnight, then went to bed.

Day 53 (Sunday Nov 14th) "Sarah Connor! Sarah Connor!"
I was meeting Damon at around midday so I got up at 9am to do some planning. He said we might be able to drive to some of my movie locations so I made sure I knew where they all were. The vegan restaurant didn't open until 11am which I thought was strange because they serve breakfast, so I went to the nearby gas station to get a blueberry muffin, a blueberry Danish and some grape Gatorade.

Damon was bang on time and it was so good to see him again. We drove straight to the apartment complex from The Karate Kid, I hadn't even put that on my list but Damon had been doing his own research, my kinda guy! We then drove to Marty McFly's house and then on to Vasquez Rock. It was quite busy on the rock but we managed to get some videos of where Kirk and evil robot Bill and Ted had climbed up. Next was the E.T. house which was a bit harder to find than th other places. Damon's iPhone told us to drive through a hill and it turned out the house was in a gated community, our first two attempts were blocked by gates but third time lucky and there was no gate on one side, seems a bit silly. As we leaving the area a couple of cops were driving around, Damon joked about them arresting us for tresspassing, then saw that they were actually checking his plates and then they turned around behind us. Damon was rather scared for a couple of minutes but it was a false alarm. We then drove to Gamble House which was the house used for Doc Brown's house in Back To The Future. They have tours and a book shop there now but we just got a few photos and headed to Carrow's restaurant where Sarah Connor worked. We also did a rather terrible re-enactment across the road from there of when Arnie pulls a guy away from the phone box so he can check the phone book. Onto Bushnell Avenue where there were three house that were used in the Back To The Future trilogy. We bumped into a couple that were actually at the event the other night. Then Damon agreed to drive a bit out of the way just so I could get to a Masters Of The Universe location. We re-enacted the final scene of the movie where Kevin and Julie meet in the street and realise that it wasn't all a dream. Look forward to that video!

It was time to head home... to Damon's home in Monrovia. I got to meet his wife Courteney, his two month old Presley and his eldest son Carson. We had some very filling Mexican food and I played trains with Carson. It was weird because he's into Thomas The Tank Engine and it was pretty much the same kind of train set that I used to play with twenty years ago. Carson also kept breathing fire on my legs with his toy dragon. After some running around in the back yard I got to read him a bed time story (Carson, not Damon) and then it was time for me to go. On the way back we drove to Jennifer's house which unbeknown to Damon was just around the corner from his house. I'd be seeing Damon again on Thursday so it wasn't too much of an emotional good bye.

I got back to the hostel at 10pm. Shintaro was already asleep and Kim was packing her bags because she was leaving early the next morning. I did some photo uploading and then went to bed around midnight.

My first day in L.A.: "There's a rhythmic ceremonial ritual coming up."

Day 51 (Friday Nov 12th) "Does anybody know where Sean Bishop is?!"
I arrived in L.A. at about 7am, we were either an hour early, we'd changed two time zones, or the daylight savings thing was screwing with my mind. I'm actually still not sure which of those is correct. I'd been drifting in and out of consciousness all through the journey so I'm not sure I got any proper sleep. I had a couple of granola bars to keep me going and then got on the red line of the subway. It wasn't long until I was laughing to myself when I realised this was the line that Speed took place on. Then we actually went through Pershing Square station and I was riding along chuckling to myself (I was tired and rather happy). It was only about 8am when I got to the Hollywood hostel and I couldn't check in until 11am. The receptionist let me leave my bag there and I had a quick look around the hostel before deciding I should use the time wisely and go thrift shopping for my 50s outfit for that night. The crazies were out in force but I was just glad to be away from the cold of Flagstaff. I've decided I love heat, mainly so I can wear shorts when I'm out at night, maybe I'd get fed up of it after a while but I think it would take at least a year. A couple of vintage shops I'd looked up weren't open until 11am so I hit Goodwill and spent a good couple of hours in there. Eventually I decided upon some garments and spent about $45 on what I thought were some pretty decent looking 50s style clothes. I also went to stock up on toiletries and noticed that there were security guards in every shop. Walking back to the hostel I realised there were no Speed buses, they had a new fleet, I was actually quite annoyed at this. I checked into the hostel just after 11am and my room was pretty cool. There were only two bunk beds in each room and we had a bathroom and kitchen between eight of us. There was a Japanese dude still asleep in my room when I arrived so I woke him up and we had a chat. His name was Shintaro and he was from Nagoya. I caught up with some stuff online and at 3pm I did some laundry. It was the first laundry I'd done in almost two weeks but somehow I had three sets of underwear left... I set my laundry going and popped out to get some food. There was actually a Thai vegan place just across the road from the hostel so I thought I'd check that out. They had a really cheap menu, lots of stuff for $7 and all vegan. I had some chow mein which was probably the best meal I ended up having there (I ate there at least three more times). It was around 5pm when I started getting ready for the Back To The Future event, while I was getting dressed an Australian girl named Kim showed up. I didn't realise our dorm was mixed until then, cool. Andy had actually raised $200+ on the "Get Merk To The Fish Under The Sea Dance" Facebook page so even though I'd had no sleep I was going to make sure I made the most of it...

I'll quickly set up the event. In the movie Back To The Future Marty has to make sure that his parents get together at the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance otherwise he'll never be born. That dance was being re-created in the same venue where it was filmed and they were inviting some cast and crew to sign autographs, take photos and generally just mingle with us fans. I chose to walk to the Hollywood United Methodist Church where the event was being held and I didn't feel too out of place in crazy garb walking down Hollywood Boulevard. I knew I was in the right place when I saw two Deloreans in the car lot and another one arriving. Two were done up like the second movie and one was not modded at all. After hanging around outside for a while, chatting to some random people, and getting some photos we were finally let inside. One of the guys I was chatting to outside was Marvin from San Diego and we did a walk around the hall together. He had a poster that he was getting signed for his two year old son, I thought that was quite sweet. Some of the guests were charging for autographs which I thought was a bit much, especially on top of the $275/$300 entry fee. I got no autographs but managed to meet most of the guests just by shaking their hand, explaining my trip and also explaining the donation side of things, it was a good angle and they were all willing to chat a little bit. I met Bob Gale (co-creator of BTTF), Harry Waters Jr (Marvin Berry), Donald Fullilove (Goldie Wilson), Courtney Gains (ginger kid, also in The 'burbs), Bob Yerkes (did Doc's zip-wire stunt and is a legendary Hollywood stuntman), Jeffrey Weissman (George McFly in Parts 2 and 3), Wesley Mann (kid who says "he took that guy's wallet"), Shawn Kerkhoff (Sound editor on American Dad). Jeff Weissman was really friendly and I chatted to him about an event in Milton Keynes that we'd both been at, Shawn Kerkhoff confirmed Seth MacFarlane's 9/11 story (look it up). I didn't get to meet Claudia Wells, she had the most people crowding around her and to be honest I just couldn't be bothered. Half way through the night a random guy grabbed me and asked if I wanted to do an interview for his documentary, I was up for that. It was easy enough, just the usual kinds of questions and I layed the accent on thick so I reckon I'll get on there. During the night there were dressed up fans posing for photos and recreating scenes from the movie. Towards the end of the night Harry Waters got on stage with a bandage on his hand and put the spotlight on a guy near the front of the dance-floor. This guy then proposed to his girlfriend, she said yes and then Harry Waters dedicated Earth Angel to them. It was a really good performance of the song. He then recited lines from the movie and introduced the guy who has done the voice of Marty for the new BTTF video game. He played guitar and sang Johnny B Goode in the style of Marty, again a very good performance. I like to fault things and I really couldn't fault it. For some reason we were all told to go outside and they did the raffle in the parking lot. I'd snagged some free raffle tickets from one of the organisers but I didn't win. During the raffle my camera died and I quoted The Goonies with "Only problem is batteries don't last so long, guys", nobody knew the quote and I was very disappointed. The winning of the hoverboard was quite interesting. One guy came forward and said that he knew it was his number but he'd lost the ticket, then another guy said he had the ticket and that he'd found it on the floor, he gave the ticket back to its rightful owner and the cockles were warmed in everyone's hearts when he collected his prize.... except mine... I was two numbers out and I wanted that bloody hoverboard!..... and that was the night over...

I hung around in the car park for quite a while because there were now five Deloreans to take photos of and everybody else seemed to be loitering too. There was a slightly odd bloke dressed as Doc Brown standing on his own and beat-boxing, he worried me a little. I met some guys from Bristol who were trying to rally a bunch of people to go to a bar but first I had the mission of finding somebody that Damon knows. Eventually I found him and had a little chat, he said he is to Ghostbusters what Damon is to The Goonies. Then some Deloreans started driving out of the lot so I had to film that. It was about midnight before me, the Bristolians, another English dude called Julian, a French girl and one of the event organisers left to go for a drink. We tried one hotel but they didn't have a good bar so we went to The Roosevelt instead. We all got a drink and then some more people turned up, a couple of people I can't remember the name of plus Caroline from Santa Monica and Bob Schmelzer (Eric Stoltz's skateboard double when he was playing Marty in BTTF). I chatted to Bob and Caroline for a bit. Bob was really cool, he told some great stories of his time on set and said if I was ever in San Jose to check out his skateboard shop and then we could head up to San Francisco for the night. After one drink everybody except Bob wanted to go for food, I think he stayed at the hotel because he liked the wine they had and he wanted to pick up chicks. They all went to Mel's Diner and I decided it was time to call it a night. On the walk back to the hostel at about 1am I was getting various heckles. One drunk guy thought I looked like Jeremy Piven from Entourage but most of the shouts were of "Pee-wee Herman!"