Coming from Fiji, USA hit me like a bomb! And flying into crazy L.A. does NOT make it better!
L.A. is massive, full of pirates, films, wannaby moviestars and dreams. The weird thing is, that all the big movie companies have moved from the city, but if you're lookiing for the stars - you still go there!
But it surtainly gave me a culture shock and from there the rest of America has seemed quite normal!

I left L.A. by bus. John and I got of in Salinas. Salinas was once one of America's richest cities, but now it's like a ghosttown. But it was a gateway to Big Sur.
Big Sur was beautiful nature and gave us a lovely walk in the sun.

We hit San Francisco the 12th of March and Thomas picked me up. I better explain me family connection. Marianne and Bill are my great aunt and oncle. They have three boys, Peter, Christian and Thomas - my great cousins.

Anyways, I stayed with Thomas. It was so good to see this part of the family again, I haven't seen them since I was about five, so we had some catching up to do! :o)

During the next week I went to Alcatraz, Muir Woods, Point Reyse San Francisco and much more. It was nice to have a base and a "home".

John had met up with a friend from England - Owen - and the three of us went to Yosemite National Park for a couple of days; camping. Until then we'd had exelent weather but suddently it rained! So we played a lot of cards the first day in Yosemite. But the sun didn't betray us, and came back the next day and gave us the most incredible views - WOW! Yes, Yosemite is very touristy, but it's off-season so we were lucky...

I said goodbye to the guys and went back to Novato where the family was waiting with a skiing-trip to Mt. Shasta. It waas only one weekend, and one day of hot skiing but it was lovely!

Tomorrow I'm of to Las Vegas and Grand Canyon before heading north to Seattle.

All together - USA is busy, fun, beautiful nature, nice people, big, metropolitan, weird, special and different - worth seeing!

I'm having a hard time realizing that I'll be going home in a month. But it's slowly hitting me with fear, happiness, sadness and hope - hope that I can go home and out again... and I couldn't go out if there wasn't a home... so "back" doesn't sound to bad...