Road trip

My last night in San Fran was a bit quiet....couple of beers and bed cos I was picking my car up at 8.30am and wanted to have a clear head. I did, however, almost have a heart attack as I was walking near the bars along the Wharf! Basically, there is a little black fella who sits on the pavement (right next to the road) and he sits there holding a bush (well some branches covered in leaves) in front of him and when you walk past he jumps out on you! Seriously. The street is lined with people laughing at you as he does it....I got done big time and even gave him a dollar for his efforts (yep, he had a tip jar sitting next to him.......he receives money for scaring the life out of you!)....The thing is, I was even warned about him by people who have been to San Fran before and I still got done.

Clocks went back here last night so I am now 8 hours behind UK time and I had to get up at 7am this morning to pick up my motor so I could get on the road and drive down the coast.... After Denny's diner tried to force feed five pints of coffee and four slices of french toast covered in icing sugar and melted sweet butter and syrup down me I jumped in a cab and went to Union Square to 'Alamo'to get my car.

When I arrived it was pouring rain (San Fran and south of San Fran had a stoem last night and it has not stopped raining until now) and I gave my confirmation over to the sales lady.... I'd ordered a convertible months ago as I thought it was always sunny in California (silly me) and the woman behind the counter never had one with "Gas" in it so othered me an SUV ( I think that's a big 4x4?) but I declined as I was gonna get my convertible wind, rain or shine...I may never come back here and I want the chance to drive down the coast with the roof down! ....Whilst on the subject, everyone seems intent on encouraging me to drive through the middle of California on the faster Highway 101 but I keep telling them the reason I'm here is to see the coast (it takes a few hours more to drive the Coastal Highway....Highway 1 as it's called....also known as 'The Cabrillo Highway', The 'PCH...Pacific Coast Highway' and finally 'California 1'.. just to confuse us all....I mean, how many names does the A13 have??)... Even the Sat Nav lady tried for an hour and a half to take me to Highway 101 but I ignored her and in the end she gave up and realised I wanted to go the scenic route (sorry, Rowt, as they say in America??)

So I picked the car up and it is a quality little motor.....silver with a black hood and all you have to do is press a button and the roof comes down by itself (beats the hell out of my 1997 Golf which still has a handle under the seat to adjust it!)... I'm so not used to driving any modern cars that I needed to ask the man to show me how to move the seat forward!

After battling the Sat Nav for an hour or so I finally got to Highway 1 and even though it was pouring with rain I saw some amazing views of the Pacific Ocean (apparently tomorrow the weather will be bright and sunny so I can put the roof down)...it really was a great drive down from San Fran to Monterey and I had the radio up listening to every British Rock band you've ever heard of (they really do have a thing about us over here).. I turned up at yet another 'Holiday Inn' and this one is a proper motel...rooms on the outside of the building and everything....waht I mean is there is a varander outside your front door facing the car park....just like in 'Psycho'...in fact my bathroom rmeinds me of the film....nice room though.

There was not much I could do in Monterey as the weather was so bad so I decided to go out for dinner at 5pm and have a few beers...ended up at a lovely little Italian on the Quayside and I think the accent went down well again as I seemed to have five waitresses running around after me (but maybe they just felt sorry for me as I was on my own? poor me).... I have been down a pub just now watching my new favourite sport 'Football' (American Football to us) but on a genuine note I actually am really getting into it and can see its merits and have started to understand it......my new team is the Oakland Raiders!

So I'm in this bar (The Brittania Arms....and run by an English bloke who supports Villa) and the 'Football' game is on, and I again notice that all the blokes in there are wearing baseball caps....this is starting to bug me a bit now but not half as much as they silly 'half beards' that they have! Seriously, the average American male between the ages of 20 and 35 have the following:

Baseball Cap of their favourite sports team
Sports shirt or Hoody (usually a bright colour)
Really baggy jeans
Shockingly bad Nike Air Trainers (with a huge air bubble)

and last but not least, the stupidest looking facial hair you've ever seen in your life!..... To top all of this they are usually with a proper good looking bird!!! I just don't get it, unless these girs are out with their slightly slow brothers. The facial hair they wear is basically bumfluff ...(picture Abraham Lincoln with a few extra punds and a baseball cap and wearing a hoody and you will see what I see here every night). Put it this way, out of the ten blokes in that bar tonight, at least 8 of them (including the barman) were dressed like I just described and 7 of 'em had half decent looking birds on their arm, some of these girls were stunners!... Another thing that gets me with this lot is that they think they can drink when they can't. They call it "partying hard dude"....in my eyes this is all down to the fact that they are not allowed to buy alcohol until they are at least 21. I would love to take some of these boys on a two day bender in London....they would not know what hit 'em.... I would also dress 'em in some smart clothes! Maybe it's just Californian men, I don't know

Anyway, I've just remembered it's my Mum and Dad's anniversary on Tuesday and no dount they will be celebrating in Morrisons cafe! Dad, take her out for a steak dinner!!

I'm driving to Santa Barbara tomorrow and have another early start (8.30am again) and it's gonna take a good 5 hours to get there so I'm sitgning off now!

One last thing, When I get to Vegas on Friday I am being joined by a Mr Ben Giddings, my mate from work who is being dragged out here by me (actually it was hardly twisting his arm)...so I'm looking forward to talking to someone on my wavelength! Now for those of you who don't know Benjamin, let me fill you in.... he's a top buy and is two years my junior and he lives in Chelmsford...Ben is slightly nervous about joining me out here cos he thinks I'm gonna ruin him (he actually said I'm more hardcore than him and he doesn't think he can hack it but he's bought his ticket now so tough!)...... Ben has hair unlike myself and is what I'd describe as a pretty boy! Yeah, he may be a preety boy...but he's our pretty boy! He will have a skin head before he knows it! Anyway, looking forward to deeing him over here so that we can go nuts in Vegas.

Will fill you all in when I get to Santa Barbara