'Honest to Blog?'

I write this from a hostel in San Luis Obispo, a small town about half way along the section of California coast between LA and San Francisco. It smells slightly of dog, but is otherwise pretty nice (the hostel, not the town, although the town is nice too), and we got here in about 3 hours from Santa Barbara where we were last night. I don't know if it's typical of the town, but we have met literally the nicest people ever here - everyone in the shops and restaurants have been so out-of-their-way friendly and complimentary about our accents, my name, our clothes... all in the few hours we've been here! Amazing. The US in general is pretty good for that though - we've met some fantastic and really helpful people. At Graceland (all the way back in Memphis, 2 weeks ago), there was a couple in front of us in the queue for tickets who had some discount passes for the slightly more inclusive tour which they didn't have time for, so they just handed them to us and we got to go see Elvis' private jet and cars and all sorts of cool stuff for free! And this morning, in a car park at the beach, we parked and were on our way to pay $2 for the space when we met a guy backing out of his space who had payed his money but wasn't staying so he got out of the car to tell us to take his space for the rest of the time on the ticket (2 hours). It seems simple, but it's not something you experience that much at home, is it? It's nice.  

It has been ages since I've written anything for this blog! I've been having such a nice time relaxing in LA that I have barely had time. We have had a fantastico week, as Adam has already mentioned - sightseeing, rollercoastering, watching baseball games and seeing all the Vickers again - it's been fab. We have had a proper American experience! 

But now we're on the road and it's just about as awesome. I have been driving! On the freeway! It was hella scary to start with but I think we've got used to it now. It's fast, but not like the motorways at home (not that I've driven on them), but considerably faster than Guernsey and on the wrong side of the road, obviously. We've had a couple of weeks of 'observation' though, so we were used to it already.  Adam had a bit of a scary moment yesterday, though, when I had to accelerate to overtake a massive truck that was jiggling about and I was shouting 'SCARED! SCARED! SCARED!' for a few minutes, but it all worked out in the end. 

It's funny how people can't understand us half the time here. It's almost harder than being in Japan or something, because we're all speaking the same language... I always feel bad when they can't understand, for example, the word 'water', because I don't want to start describing it: 'the stuff that comes from the tap, you know?' because that would be weird, wouldn't it? So I just keep repeating it until Adam jumps in with an American accent and they go 'ohhh, warder, why didn't you say?' Tricky. I feel like a fraud saying things like 'do you sell band aids here?' or 'can I have some yohhhgurt sauce please?' in my english accent, but when in rome, as they say. 

Speaking of which, I'm gonna go eat a burger and some marshmallows...not at the same time. BYE!

- Scarlett